Category: dance

“Sitting in on a rehearsal by a professional dance company is a privilege; even seasoned dancegoers rarely see this side of the process, although it makes up the bulk of a dancer’s life. The rehearsal is where details of a dance are worked out, spacing is shored up, and lifts are negotiated; it’s where the movement language is studied and committed to memory.”

Mark Hough “means that literally. Since he took up the post in mid-April, he has been reaching out to places like Jacksonville and Melbourne [Florida] to see if there’s interest in hosting Orlando Ballet shows there.” He means it figuratively, too, of course, and he’s a longtime friend and colleague (from their ABT days) of company artistic director Robert Hill.

“The dancing life may look dismal in its current state, but I think there are solutions. One involves rethinking our choices of organizational structure to favor repertory dance companies instead of single choreographer companies.”

“Choreographer Benjamin Millepied’s LA Dance Project will make a sneak-peak debut in July with a performance in the galleries of the Museum of Contemporary Art. Millepied is creating a 30-minute, site-specific duet, Framework, to a narrated soundtrack by Los Angeles artist Mark Bradford.”

The 36-year-old star gives his final performance with American Ballet Theater, with which he has been a principal for 16 yuears, Thursday night in New York. He will return to Spain to concentrate on his own company, the Barcelona Ballet.

“Shobana Jeyasingh has choreographed for some strange and wonderful places. In 1989, her stage was the Champs-Elysées … In 2010, she had her dancers splashing through the serried ranks of fountains in the vast courtyard of London’s Somerset House. But her latest work, which sees her choreographing amid the glorious architecture of Venice, has proved her biggest challenge yet.”

Branislav Henselmann is currently “the executive producer for the Michael Clark Company in London. He has also worked as the artistic curator for New York City Ballet’s Choreographic Institute. He starts at Ballet BC in mid-July.”

“The Leeds-based company planned to reduce its dancers from 40 to 30 after a 15% real terms Arts Council cut. Its roll call has now risen to 42 after sponsors made up the funding shortfall.”

Western dance forms have taken over India’s youth culture, says a choreographer/director who wishes that weren’t so.