Category: dance

“Choreographer Leigh Warren says he may be forced to move overseas to work after a cut in funding from the Australia Council. His company Leigh Warren and Dancers will lose $250,000 of annual funding.”

Holley Farmer, longtime dancer in Merce Cunningham’s company and star of the Broadway run of Tharp’s Sinatra musical: “I’m the girl in the blue dress dancing on Frank Sinatra’s hat. There we are, my trusty partner and I, locked in a cameo dance embrace. My knee is wrapped faithfully around his waist. We are staring at each other’s noses.”

“In this First Person account David talks to the BBC about taking on such a high profile role in Russia and shares a rarely seen home video of him training as a teenager.”

Minnesota Timberwolves forward Michael Beasley has had public relations problems lately, what with a marijuana bust and shoving a fan. As part of an effort to improve both his physical condition and his image, he has begun attendng ballet classes regularly.

Big-name artistic director Christopher Wheeldon took off after a public spat. Now dance company Morphoses is reconfiguring just about everything in order to adapt and survive.

Watch out for flying toe shoes! Little did the Oregon Ballet Theatre know that its two-day costume sale wouldn’t even last two full hours.

“Dance companies in the UK are being urged to back a scheme aimed at supporting dancers at the end of their stage careers, as part of a Europe-wide effort to boost employment opportunities for performers facing retirement.”

“A Yorkshire ballet company facing the loss of a quarter of its dancers due to funding cuts is appealing for people to sponsor a dancer in a bid to save jobs.”

Artistic director Lin Hwai-min: “Calligraphy is not simply about movement of the wrists. … It is an exercise in breathing, with movement of the total body. Our company takes its inspiration from the aesthetic of calligraphy. The dancers take weekly classes in calligraphy. … We don’t pretend our bodies could replace the brush. We take it as a metaphor.”

His piece I don’t believe in outer space “includes slow-motion ping-pong playing – and movement derived from patterns created by dancers who were asked to memorize their apartments blindfolded.” Says Forsythe about the set, “Those little meteorites you’ll see on the stage floor? Those are pieces of tape that we save every time we tear up the floor.”