Category: dance

Dance fans, rejoice: If you were among those guffawing through the implausibilities of “Black Swan,” if you have despaired of Hollywood ever losing its adolescent view of dancers, “The Adjustment Bureau” is a film to lift your spirits. Dance is handled extraordinarily well in this.

Natalia Osipova: “When you look at the ballet, you shouldn’t be very close; you should have more. I think though it’s really wonderful to have such a big audience, and it will be a big pleasure for all of us that you’re doing just one performance and so many people around the world get the chance to see you, especially the people will get to see us in such a beloved production of our own theater.”

“When Strictly Come Dancing started, I saw how dance suddenly became mainstream. It suddenly became cool to dance again and it didn’t matter whether it was hip hop, or jazz, or ballroom or Latin or tango. We worked very hard, lots of us all over the country, to get it back into schools so, of course, when you have taken all of these steps forward, it would be very sad to see any kind of funding go and then realise that we are stepping backwards again because we are finally there.”

“Perhaps the most famous tattoo worn by a ballerina is that on the back of actress Mila Kunis, in Darren Aronofsky’s film Black Swan. But in most classical dance companies, where uniformity of movement and appearance is everything, tattoos are still taboo.”

“We have habituated our gaze toward a narrow set of proportions based on the kind of dance we watch and the expectations we bring to our viewing. Our eyes have grown lazy. We simply don’t see enough professional dance with a variety of bodies on stage.”

“As dancers prepare to perform three gravity-defying, groundbreaking Trisha Brown works at the Barbican, choreographer Shelley Senter talks us through the piece and photographer Felix Clay captures rehearsals.”

“A principal dancer with the Cuban National Ballet, Elier Bourzac, is one of five company members who declined to return home with the troupe after its triumphant first appearance in Montreal last month. All five are seeking to stay in Canada in the hope of joining Canadian dance companies.”

Janis Claxton on her piece Humanimalia: “I was taking students to zoos, and noticing that this was a big difference in their movements after watching the animals, particularly the primates. … The way that they use space, they scatter, then form clumps: it’s like a choreography unto itself.”

“This is no ordinary Bourne production, destined for a West End run and monster tour. The Theatre Royal approached his company last year to put on a full-scale show, funded by the Scottish Arts Council, with young men who had never danced before.”

“Since the early ’70s, Eiko and Koma have created bold, almost still, theatrical works of elemental power. Dressed simply or naked, the married couple evoke a primitive world where primal emotions are conveyed wordlessly. … They don’t choreograph together either, each one creating his or her solos alone.”