Category: dance

“Although the charge carries a maximum of 12 years, state prosecutors had sought nine years for Dmitrichenko, who is best known for his portrayal of villains in Swan Lake and Ivan the Terrible.”

“The Meshchansky District Court in Moscow is expected to start delivering a verdict to the [defendants] at 0800 GMT. … If found guilty of plotting the January attack with his two co-defendants, Pavel Dmitrichenko, 29, could be sent to a penal colony for nine years, the term sought by the prosecutors last week.”

“I force myself on scientists and try and ask some odd questions about quantum physics and particle physics and what would happen if you morphed up those extra six dimensions from superstring theory and put them on the body, what would the body look like? Or – I mean, what does it mean to go in the fifth direction, the sixth direction, the seventh direction.”

“The words “Baryshnikov” and “sucked” don’t naturally fit together comfortably, but in sitting with Baryshnikov for a spell, you get the strong sense that he’s less interested in perfectionism in his artistic endeavors than in mind-expanding adventurism. And these days, he prefers to succeed or fail with collaborators.”

Rosemary Lee, who just won Britain’s Bonnie Bird award: “I am longing to return to the studio. … As an independent artist with a family it is not easy finding the time, resources, and opportunities to research and experiment with dancers.”

“The problem in modern ballet is the problem of the color line. Scan the rosters of the nation’s top companies and African American dancers are rare, while African American ballerinas are nearly nonexistent.”

“The court is expected to hand down a judgment in the case on Tuesday. The prosecution sought 10 years for Mr. Zarutsky and six years for Andrei Lipatov, accused of driving him to and from the scene.”

The popular and outspoken dancer “told a packed Moscow courtroom that [Bolshoi Ballet director and acid attack victim Sergei] Filin had created an unhealthy atmosphere at the historic establishment by picking favourites and demoting others out of personal spite. He accused Filin of being known as ‘a poser and a hysteric’ … [who] always insulted people and yelled at everyone.”

Donna Sapolin explains, in business-magazine style, why “ballet is a microcosm of successful approaches to work.”

“Ballet is a self-destructive art, privileging the will over the body. Great dancers retire in physical ruin; the next generation assumes their roles. That same impulse has been observed politically over the course of Russia’s history. The nation has repeatedly dismantled itself in the service of renewal. Institutions are collapsed, or allowed to collapse, to facilitate their transformation by the ruling powers. The Bolshoi will emerge from this time of troubles to better reflect the nostalgic imperialism of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.”