Category: dance

“I not only have a suspicion about who did this, but I’m absolutely certain I know who did this. But I will only speak about this when investigators are ready to announce this.”

“The Bolshoi Ballet is canceling its new performance of The Rite of Spring after the violent attack of artistic director Sergei Filin. The production, choreographed by Wayne McGregor, was meant to celebrate” – alongside a reconstruction of the original choreography – “the 100th anniversary of Vaslav Nijinsky’s 1913 work, but has now been postponed until Filin returns to the company.”

“Leading Bolshoi ballerina Svetlana Lunkina declared on Tuesday that she is abandoning Russia for the sanctuary of Canada, a move reminiscent of the Cold War, when dancers routinely made headlines by defecting from the harsh political climate of the Soviet Union for greater personal and artistic freedoms in the West.”

“Three decades ago I was Trisha Brown’s Managing Director. In fact I was the only administrative staff, working at a desk with a rotary phone in the airshaft between her living and rehearsal spaces.”

Nikolai Tsiskaridze, 39, “last year lashed out at the Bolshoi’s leadership for not giving him enough lead roles and has also been openly jockeying for the position of the theatre’s general director. … [Current] Bolshoi general director Anatoly Iksanov told Investia that while he hoped ‘Tsiskaridze would not stoop so low he was the one who created this unhealthy atmosphere at the theatre’.”

In the wake of the acid attack on Sergei Filin, and considering the known hostility in some quarters there to a foreigner walking into a gig as principal, “one has to wonder if Mr. Hallberg … might be better off sticking around instead of returning to Moscow as scheduled in June.” Says Hallberg, “I’ve always had an amazingly positive experience at the Bolshoi and in Moscow. I’ve never felt unsafe.”

“There’s no one way artistic directors go about finding new work to bolster their seasons and raise their company profiles. It’s as individualized a process as directing a company.”

“Among their tasks is to peer into the dark side of the ballet company: old rivalries and professional grudges that Bolshoi officials believe may have motivated the attack.”

“Millepied may be French, born in Bordeaux, but at 16 he left to study at the School of American Ballet and spent most of his dancing career with New York City Ballet – a company whose style and repertory are predicated on the stripped-down, very American modernism of George Balanchine.”

“The transition after former director Lew Christensen’s death in 1984 was troubled. The trustees took a chance on the inexperienced Tomasson, despite much grumbling in the community. Yet, according to both Tomasson and Ballet Executive Director Glenn McCoy, it has been ever since a happy relationship between the artistic staff, executive wing and occupants of the boardroom.”