Category: dance

“Not many dancers in any era have possessed such a complete package of balletic refinement, glorious natural grace and potent dramatic talent that Polunin has become fêted for by Covent Garden balletomanes, for whom this is a huge and unwelcome shock.”

Principal dancer Sergei Polunin has surprised bosses at the Royal Ballet by resigning from his post, less than two years after he was promoted.

“The young Royal Ballet star Sergei Polunin, Covent Garden’s most remarkable male discovery for years, has quit the company today in a stunning shock.”

“The Oakland Ballet Company has postponed the launch of its spring season, citing a budget deficit.”

A principal with American Ballet Theater since 1997, and one of the company’s stars, Stiefel will give his last performance this July during the company’s New York summer season. Last year Stiefel began work as artistic director of the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

“Michael Hulls, the man who paints the dancing of Sylvie Guillem, Akram Khan, Russell Maliphant and a small elite handful of others,” talks about the history of stage lighting, his preference for chiaroscuro, and a peculiar run-in with the Royal Ballet’s lighting technicians.

The 44-year-old dancer, now rehearsing for shows choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon, came to City Ballet in the early 1980s. Now, “she is one of a dwindling few active company dancers to have worked with Jerome Robbins and the only link to the great personalities handpicked by Balanchine.”

“Holding your balance 3 seconds longer awards you a level 2 ‘Master of Balance’ achievement trophy. Getting this virtual trophy unlocks a side quest that challenges you to do three double pirouettes in a row, which, if successful, gets you a clothing upgrade for your avatar.”

“You go into this profession understanding you’re going to be looking at a second or third career. You actually train to be a dancer for a longer period than for becoming a doctor or lawyer, and you’re going into an occupation for a shorter period of time.”

His latest work, Story/Time, is based on Cage’s 1958 piece Indeterminacies, “a series of one-minute spoken-word stories that was different each time it was performed and was eventually recorded as an album. Mr. Jones’s version puts him at a desk onstage, reading his own series of mostly autobiographical stories, as his troupe’s nine members surround him.”