“Partly, this is due to the specialization of the two forms over the course of the nineteenth century, and the resulting theatrical requirements of each.”
Category: dance
Australian Ballet’s Longest-Serving Principal Dancer Retires
Lucinda Dunn ended her 23-year career with the company with a performance of the title role in Manon last night at the Sydney Opera House.
Why Choreographer Wayne McGregor Collaborates With Neuroscientists
“When we think about images, we tend to only think about visual images. There are different types of images: acoustic, kinesthetic. … What we concentrate on when we are making choreography is how we can do things differently. That is what the neuroscientists have been helping us with.”
Torvill and Dean: How We Made ‘Boléro’
The legendary ice dancers recount how they created the program that won then the gold medal at the 1984 Winter Olympics – and that remains, 30 years later, one of the most storied performances in the history of the discipline. (Surprise: the Ravel piece was considered a radical choice back then.)
Kyle Abraham, Modern Dance’s It Boy
“In the last two years, it seems, the 36-year-old dancer and choreographer has suddenly landed in the spotlight. Abraham’s strong social messages and hybrid style have made him the darling of the dance world establishment … Now, everyone is asking: What will Kyle Abraham do next?”
Gangs Of Non-Pros Dance Matthew Bourne’s ‘Lord of the Flies’
“‘Why did we ever think this was a good idea?’ mutters choreographer Scott Ambler as a barrage of boys in trainers comes thundering across the room.” Why? Because every time Bourne and Ambler put out a call for local young men – regular blokes – to perform in this project, they get hundreds of responses.
The Battle For Ballet At The Bolshoi Rages On (And On)
“Why does the Bolshoi matter outside Moscow? Many seasoned balletgoers ultimately prefer the styles of certain Western companies or that of the Mariinsky Ballet of St. Petersburg. Yet your knowledge of ballet is incomplete until you’ve witnessed how the Bolshoi can seem the most red-blooded, exuberant and viscerally stirring of ballet companies.”
Dancers Have iPads, Not Discipline, Says Choreographer
The 88-year-old Gillian Lynne “claimed teachers were tougher when she was starting out, adding that venues such as the London Palladium were ‘run with a rod of iron.'”
The Choreographer Who Took A Bunch Of Professors To A Dance
“My intention was to put dance, rather than them, in the dock. Instead of writing technically about dance, I wanted them to bring their own highly refined terminology to bear on the form. In this way, both dance and academics would change locations and effect a mutual migration.”
Survey: Most Dancers Have Been Criticized For How Their Bodies Look
A group of 74 female dancers, training primarily in ballet and from six vocational dance training colleges across the UK, were asked if they could recall someone ever making a “critical comment” that their body “should be a certain shape, weight, or that there was a need to diet to lose weight or increase food intake to gain weight”.