Category: dance

The Kolben Dance Company’s Jerusalem studio has big plate-glass windows. The shades on those windows had been drawn for three years, due to threats of violence from ultra-Orthodox Jews offended by the sight of dancing females. Last month, the shades came up, in a move emblematic of a secular Israeli rebellion against religious coercion by an Orthodox minority.

The renowned dance company’s music-and-movement classes for patients are having a major effect, mitigating the symptoms of the neurological disease.

“She died unexpectedly at 68 in June 2009, five days after being diagnosed with lung cancer.” Unsurprisingly, she had made no plans for her company’s future – an awkward situation now that the troupe is getting unprecedented exposure via Wim Wenders’s 3D documentary.

Three of the company’s dancers – a young corps member, a soloist, and principal Zenaida Yanowsky – and a company member from the 1950s and ’60s who is now a major donor talk about their experiences.

Streb talks about how she’s using the space at Manhattan’s Park Avenue Armory for “Ascension, in which dancers demonstrate an eternal climb on a 21-foot rotating ladder, and Human Fountain, a heroic translation of the Fountains of Bellagio in Las Vegas.”

“Breaking an unspoken rule never to discuss eating disorders among Italy’s elite dance corps, Mariafrancesca Garritano told the Observer that one in five ballerinas that she knew was anorexic and, as a result, many were now unable to have children.”

Luke Jennings’s video series at the Guardian‘s website looks at one of America’s legendary ballerinas in one of her great roles.

National Ballet of Canada dancer Saye: “The most challenging role I’ve received was the ballet man in Twyla Tharp’s In The Upper Room. I’ve never been so exhausted onstage before.”

“Just as this season is indispensable for retailers trying to move into the black, the family-friendly ballet set to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s famous score has always been a crucial moneymaker for dance companies, in many cases representing half a company’s annual ticket revenues. “

“There’s a burlesque version in Seattle, a sports-themed twist in Salt Lake City (a Brigham Young University-University of Utah football game replaces the toy-soldier war) and a puppet adaptation in Glen Echo, Md. A dog version in the Chicago suburbs last year was an instant sell-out.”