Category: dance

It’s a tricky process, says the company’s children’s ballet master: “You want the best kids for the part, but they have to be the right size. So much is based on the look of it, and they have to fit together.

“The intensity of wrestling is so airless and complete—body on body, the skeleton being pulled and twisted more than it seems possible to withstand, every muscle driving for that inch, or a fraction of an inch, that allows one set of shoulders to be pinned or another to resist. Wrestlers are so crushingly close they make boxers look distanced and clinical.”

“The stage is the one place Philip Martin-Nelson feels right at home. But it wasn’t always that way. Diagnosed with the most severe form of autism, Philip was unable to speak, make eye contact, or even allow someone to touch him for the first three years of his life.” (includes video)

“When they set foot in the U.S. almost three months ago, they had no idea what was next — where they might end up, where they’d be sleeping a week later. (A lucky break connected them to someone at the San Diego Ballet, which intends to hire them when their work authorization papers come through; for now they are not paid, said the ballet’s executive director, Robin Morgan.) They understood they might never again see the mother they adored.”

“Bacon only takes on a handful of commissions per season—this year, she has five in the works. They’ll keep her busy until competition time rolls around early in 2015.”

“[Genie] O’Brien began Portland Ballet in 1980 and guided its development from a niche school focused on classical and contemporary ballet to one of the top dance schools and presenters of modern dance in northern New England.”

Faced with huge funding cuts from the federal government, the Brussels theater – home to Maurice Béjart’s company for 27 years, the place where Mark Morris created his most popular works, the base for Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and her company – must abandon dance, says its chief executive, so that it can continue its core function as an opera company. (in French)

“The chair of supermarket chain Asda’s charitable foundation … resigned from his twin roles as vice president of corporate affairs and head of the £8.6 million foundation in September following the discovery that he had sanctioned [£180,000 in] payments … to the MurleyDance company, without the approval of the foundation’s board.”

“Again and again among dancers and teachers, I saw examples of generosity that were not simply random, but intrinsic to this world. The real-life counterparts of the ballet teacher who nurtures Billy Elliot and his talent turn out not to be the exceptions but the rule. The die-for-your-art histrionics of The Black Swan and The Red Shoes mercifully exist mostly in the realm of fiction.”

“I would call our Nutcracker The Great American Way Nutcracker! You get your Nutcracker in a half an hour, you can sit with your family, enjoy coffee, bagels, muffins, a balloon twister and dancing with the Nutcracker characters. And… photos with Santa! No mall lines!”