Category: dance

“Sydney Dance Company, led by artistic director Rafael Bonachela, has turned in an operating surplus of more than $500,000 and a 47 per cent increase in paid attendances. Almost 50,000 people saw SDC perform in Sydney and on tour in Australia and overseas.”

“It started in the fall of 2010 when 14 friends decided to dance their lunch breaks away in their office garage. They called their gathering ‘Lunch Beat.’ As rumors about this literally underground movement spread, more and more people joined in. Today, Lunch Beat events are being arranged by a core group of organizers at venues around Sweden, attracting up to 600 people each time.”

The director of the Royal Ballet has said that any dance company director who claims never to have worked with an anorexic performer is “lying”.

“It almost sounds like the old joke: Is there a doctor in the house? But when a 22-year-old dancer collapsed at a recent performance [at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in Manhattan], the answer was gravely serious.”

Jessa Balote, 14, who lives in a slum next to a giant waste dump and whose parents earn tiny bits of money scavenging and selling trash, “is one of 54 students enrolled in ‘Project Ballet Futures,’ a program run by Ballet Manila to provide free ballet training to children from some of the city’s most deprived neighborhoods.”

“Gerard Charles, artistic director of BalletMet Columbus, will leave in July to become Ballet Master of Chicago’s renowned Joffrey Ballet.”

“Trajal Harrell is a thinking choreographer. Ten years ago, he asked a question: What would have happened if, in the early sixties, drag queens from Harlem had brought their voguing downtown, to Washington Square, to perform with the pathbreaking postmoderns of the Judson Dance Theatre?”

The “punk ballerina” choreographer’s latest project, anchored by her 26-dancer ballet/modern/voguing/capoeira work Rave, is “a four-night multimedia presentation curated with contributions from friends including performance artist Kalup Linzy, artist Will Cotton and photographer William Wegman.” (Yes, some Weimaraners will be there.)

“It is part of a new National Institute of Dance Medicine and Science which is backed by several dance organisations and two universities. The clinic will offer highly specialised treatment and rehabilitation services. The institute also plans to conduct research into the treatment and prevention of dance injuries.”

“Academia is providing a valuable lifeline for these artists, allowing them to continue putting their work on in the world in a way that works despite the obvious obstacles. It’s almost painful to wonder how many mid-career artists might have stopped creating work all together without university support. As almost all mentioned the two-job conundrum, it’s not an easy situation. Surely, the security is a huge benefit as artists move toward mid-career, yet the choice comes with continual negotiation, artistic sacrifices, and compromise.” (Part 2 of a 2-part series.)