Category: dance

“Choreographer Matthew Bourne is planning a ‘super-production’ of his Lord Of The Flies ballet at Sadler’s Wells in 2013, with a cast featuring male amateur performers from around the UK.” Bourne premiered an initial version of Flies in Glasgow earlier this year.

“American Ballet Theater and the School of Dance at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem are embarking on a five-year partnership that will teach ABT’s National Training Curriculum throughout three divisions at the school.”

“[The] acclaimed production reaped $2.3-million in box office revenue, with more than 27,000 people attending the 13 performances.”

Guinguettes, “the old open-air dancehalls that thrived on the rivers around Paris in the early part of the 20th century… are finding new fans in a fast-paced modern world.”

Star Nikolai Tsiskaridze “irks the Bolshoi’s administration with his public criticism, complaining about the poor state of dancers’ changing rooms, the uncomfortable dance floor and equipment that needs replacing. … ‘Maybe I irritate [them]; I don’t care. The theater’s managers come and go, and I will stay.”

Australia’s flagship indigenous performing company “says it feels neglected and taken for granted by federal and state governments” and that “British dance critics view Bangarra shows through prejudiced eyes, castigating the company when it fails to perform what [director Stephen Page] described as ‘ooga-booga dancing’.”

“[We] realised that with the cameras there was no need to turn up the volume in any way, because through the screens the public was very close to every detail, and would feel in some ways even closer than at the Opera House. So I think we just went into our own show. The experience felt really intimate, actually.”

Fiona Morris, the executive producer of the new 3D film of the piece, talks about some of the challenges she and her colleagues faced – from shooting with multiple cameras versus single cameras to what happened when most of the world’s 3D film stock washed away in the recent Japanese tsunami.

Their current dance piece/art installation, Naked, “is the type of performance commonly accompanied by offstage hauteur, or at least a laconic mystique. … But Eiko and Koma are cutups, frequently poking fun at the hard-line idealism of their youth … as well as at each other.”

Anticipating the company’s Paris debut next month, some MCB members have made a playful video in which they all try practicing their français, with a native speaker on hand – complete with beret, Gauloise and sneer – to judge their efforts.