Category: dance

Monday saw a ceremonial groundbreaking on a new building for administration, rehearsal, and classes called the Quinney Dance Center. The project also includes renovation work on the adjacent Capitol Theater, the company’s home performance space.

“[The choreographer’s] most notable collaborators over the years have been scientists. He engages with science not in a token way but in serious long-term research, his dancers becoming lab rats for neuroscientists, cardiologists and experimental psychologists.” The results of these ongoing investigations are the focus of a new exhibit at London’s Wellcome Collection.

The former Royal Ballet principal “has made a television programme to encourage larger girls to put their dancing shoes back on. ‘I’m doing a Channel 4 series called Big Ballet,’ says Sleep … ‘It’s about big girls who were told at 10 to give up, as why would you stop a child dancing?”

“The [$500,000] grant, large by the foundation’s standards, is meant to launch an endowment for the creation, production and performance of full-length story ballets. The Rudolf Nureyev Fund at the Joffrey Ballet will be the first endowment in the company’s 57-year history.”

“After years of false stops and starts and problems that recently landed it in bankruptcy court, Dance New Amsterdam has put its 2013-14 season on hold and is scheduled to move out of its home at 280 Broadway by Oct. 15, organization officials announced Monday.”

“I was intimidated and found it difficult to keep up, but I kept coming back despite feelings of defeat and frustration.”

Maybe. In the UK, there’s a new show “about big girls who were told at 10 to give up, [but] why would you stop a child dancing?”

“The best-known U.S. companies, including ABT, have taken occasional steps to encourage broader participation, but Project Plié’s backers are scrutinizing the issue of training access, which can be fraught with cultural, economic and geographic barriers.”

“The artistic director of Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet is returning to Moscow from Germany following eight months and 22 operations on his eyes and face after an acid attack that nearly blinded him … Sergei Filin will fly in on Saturday and take part in the troupe’s reunion after holidays on Tuesday, [a] spokeswoman said.”

“The Orlando Ballet will not be able to return to its mold-infested headquarters anytime soon, which could have major financial implications for the organization, a ballet official said Monday.”