Category: dance

“One woman recounted her awful experience of having her skirt fall off mid-performance. Another in the class – a former male principal with a thick French accent – told us about a time when a faulty lift left him holding his female partner between his legs ‘like a piece of dental floss.'”

“As the cost of hosting a two-week New York City Ballet season approaches the 2008 price of a three-week season, Saratoga Performing Arts Center’s outgoing chairman this morning hinted that the organization may need to turn to other ballet companies to fill next year’s season.”

“What would be the biggest wish of a choreographer about to start a company? There’s something even more valuable than a blank check: the support of Mikhail Baryshnikov. And this month two choreographers are lucky enough to have it.”

“Ballet loves a good erotic duet or two; there was no place for that in this. … No promise of sexual awakening. Just choices, good and bad choices. And these choices all have to do with money and power. … Facing the challenge of making a theatrical work based on The House Of Mirth meant finding a way, beyond props and scenery, to get across the idea of wealth and its close relative, debt.”

The strife-torn company, which in February saw seven board members resign at once (leaving the board without a quorum), has assembled a new slate of directors and hired an interim director of artistic operations to begin a four-year plan aimed at stabilizing the company – financially and otherwise.

Artistic director Ashley Wheater: “Sometimes, I’ve had to sit a talented visitor down, and explain that I’ve worked hard to make a positive environment at the Joffrey, that my dancers and my company aren’t here to be beat up.”

For the 2012 version – titled “In the Dark” – of the popular public radio program’s road show, RadioLab co-hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich engaged the dance collective to create a visual/movement counterpoint to the science stories at the core of the program.

“A lot of people come up to me and say I don’t like ballet, but I really loved your film, and that means so much to me. That means that I’ve exposed people to dance and showed the intimate lives of these dancers, even if they’re not obsessed with ballet.”

Benjamin Millepied: “I think every time it has been about what we are in the mood to make. We start discussing it, go from simple feelings or descriptions to some complicated place, then take it back”

Nico Muhly: “The big question about making a ballet is: What is the emotional heart of the thing?”

“Royal Ballet director Monica Mason has claimed that any dance company leader who says they have never worked with an anorexic performer is lying.”