Category: dance

“After a year of turmoil, Ballet San Jose has announced a 2012-13 season that includes a world premiere, six company premieres and a production of The Nutcracker with new choreography. In addition, the company – which danced to recorded music during its past season – will return to live music with new music director and conductor George Daugherty.”

“Think of it as a kind of Ukrainian Hogwarts. This retreat, the Roma Pryma Bohachevsky Ukrainian Dance Academy … is secluded in an enchanting patch of forest purchased half a century ago by Ukrainian immigrants. … So it is curious that among those most responsible for imparting this important bit of Ukrainian culture is Orlando Pagan, a son of Puerto Ricans who grew up in the Bronx.”

“Mexico, known for its frenetic, heel-stomping folklorico dance, has had its share of prima ballerinas, including Elisa Carrillo, a principal dancer for the Berlin Ballet. But it’s virtually unheard of for Mexico to produce world-class male dancers. The image persists that ballet is for elites in a country of mostly working class and poor — and definitely not for boys.”

“Just 22, Isaac Hernandez already had performed from Havana to Moscow to Jackson, Mississippi, not to mention four years as a professional with the San Francisco Ballet. The experience left Mexico’s most internationally acclaimed male ballet dancer with one question: ‘Why is it that I can dance anywhere in the world, except in Mexico?'”

“First, an inversion. I held one silk with each hand and kicked my legs up and over my head. I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror as I hung upside down by my arms, red-faced with my legs spread out like a gymnast’s. It was liberating.”

Just three years ago, the British dance world was arguing over “why an art form that used to boast a profusion of female talent had ended up with most of its high-profile choreographers being male … Things have begun to change. Partly, a crop of new work has appeared with xx chromosomes firmly embedded in it; partly, programmers have sharpened their focus.”

“Aurelien Scannella will take the reins at the company from January, having worked for several years as a freelance ballet master and rehearsal director in companies across Europe. He replaces [Ivan] Cavallari, an Italian dancer and choreographer who started with the WA Ballet in 2007.”

“Compagnie Kafig [is] a blast of hip-hop energy emanating from the streets of Rio de Janeiro, in which 11 well-muscled street dancers perform a fluid mash-up of break-dancing, capoeira and acrobatics, laced with samba influences.”

Dance movies “have long been silent vehicles for politics, delivering revolutionary morals to unsuspecting dance fans for years.”