Category: dance

“The logistics involved in staging and touring a show with just one of these companies is difficult enough, but when English National Ballet, National Dance Company Wales and Scottish Ballet hit the road together, it takes some serious planning.”

Three years after the choreographer’s sudden death, the members of Tanztheater Wuppertal – with the ongoing support of the small German city they call home, and a boost from Wim Wenders’s acclaimed 3D documentary film about Pina – are working ferociously to keep her body of work intact.

French choreographer Luc Petton and his dance company, called Le Guetteur, were given some swan eggs a couple of years ago by a zoo. As the cygnets hatched and grew, they bonded with the dancers, who often tried imitating their movements. This led, of course, to an inter-species dance piece.

“In previous works that had an overarching idea, he says, it was inevitable that he’d jettison ‘little offshoots and chance moments that had no relation to what we were trying to achieve’. This time, the scraps and offcuts became the central elements.”

“Many parents, costume-clad youngsters and dance mavens may consider the notion of ‘no recitals’ a sign of the apocalypse, but I would like for us to imagine a world with fewer recitals and more ballet barres.”

“When ballet star Jennifer Whalen flies to South Korea next month, she’ll have a lot more on her mind than what tights and slippers to pack. Whalen, 26, is somewhat of a media sensation in the Asian nation — and not because of her work on stage as a senior corps member of the American Ballet Theater. The Koreans are fascinated with her because she’s one of their own: She was born there, left at an ophanage, and adopted four months later by a loving Irish-American couple. But now, she may finally be able to meet the woman who gave birth to her and then gave her up.”

“Rachel Browne founded Winnipeg’s Contemporary Dancers in 1964 and was its artistic director, resident choreographer and teacher for more than 20 years. Brent Lott, the company’s current artistic director, called Browne the matriarch of modern dance in Canada.”

“That is something I think we’ve been grappling with for 50 years. But the things that we get told, when we go overseas, is that there’s an openness, that the movement is quite large. It’s a bit reflecting of our country, which is vast, wide-open expanses of nothing. I think there’s an optimism. The company tend to be fairly, um — they’ll give anything a go. There’s this term in Australia: ‘She’ll be right, mate.’ And that’s a sort of attitude in the way the dancers dance.”

“A new national production facility for the Australian Ballet will be built in Melbourne’s southwest following the announcement yesterday of a $2 million donation from the federal government.”

“From June 15 through 19, this troupe of modest size and queenly ambitions will be making the first overseas trip in its 54-year history. For performances [in greater London], the 13-member company is bringing four works created in America and new to British audiences.”