Category: dance

A lot of dance books tend to be about fitness or glamorize one company or one dancer. I like to read about trends so I look at writers like Selma Jeanne Cohen, who wrote “Dance as a Theatre Art” about the history of dance, and the New Yorker dance critic Arlene Croce.

“There’s a dancer [Precious Adams] who was at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow – they told her to bleach her skin. She’s now doing very well at the English National Ballet, but often you look around, and there are no black dancers. Classical ballet is beautiful, but it’s very old.”

In a video message to the Boston Ballet, Seahawks-clad dancers perform manèges to the Dropkick Murphys’ Celtic punk song (and take the chance to remind the Colorado Ballet that the Denver dancers never delivered on their bet after Seattle’s 2014 Super Bowl win).

“Last-minute injuries aren’t uncommon in ballet. What is rare is for a choreographer to appear in his or her own work along with fellow members of the same troupe.”

“Certain science stories seem to come out like cicadas, swarming the Internet for a month or two before retreating underground for several years until the next cycle of coverage begins.”

“In a major coup, the Paris Opera Ballet has secured one of the dance worlds biggest names, William Forsythe, as the company’s associate choreographer.”

“Peer pressure is integral to Nepali dance. There’s even a word for this: nachaune, ‘to make dance.’ … It’s an elaborate group flirtation. Coyly insist you can’t, and then once you’re begged, bust out all the moves. No matter how much you might rather drop dead on the spot than dance in front of a huge crowd of people, it’s useless to resist, especially if you’re a foreigner.”

“The internationally prominent choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui will be the new artistic director of the Royal Ballet of Flanders, the company announced Wednesday in Antwerp, Belgium. Tamas Moricz , a former dancer with William Forsythe’s Ballet Frankfurt, will be the associate artistic director.”

Sadler’s Wells in London “has started to build a programme of commissioned work for children and family audiences that runs throughout the year and not just at Christmas.”