“Set during the London Blitz, poor old Cinderella is as busy dodging the German Luftwaffe as she is dealing with the ugly sisters” in Bourne’s new ballet version of the fairy tale. “In this story Cinderella’s prince is a handsome RAF pilot and, although the two become separated at midnight, the heroine does not disappear in a pumpkin – but in an explosion from a German bomb.”
Category: dance
The Invisible Sphere: The Nature of Baroque Dance
“Catherine Turocy … was teaching a workshop on historical performance and asking her students to visualize themselves as Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man: Just as in Renaissance theory the proportions of the human body give rise to perfect geometric shapes, the Baroque dancer moved inside an invisible sphere measured by the extension and movement of the limbs.”
Orlando Ballet Tests “Sex Sells”
A promotional brochure highlights “hotter dancing” on its cover and proclaims, “We’re bringing sexy back.” The poster for the modern “Battle of the Sexes” program, which opens tonight, goes one step further: Sexy is back, it shouts in all capital letters.
Dance Of The Medications
“Side Effects tells the hidden story of our life-long reliance on medication and its potential consequences – a story lyrically told by the supportive interaction of the dancers. It was inspired by a Pharmacoepia collective textile artwork in the British Museum called Cradle to the Grave, which displays the 14,000 pills that the average person in the UK consumes in their lifetime.”
How the Joffrey’s Dancing Has Changed Post-Gerald Arpino
“The exuberant Joffrey style, largely defined by Arpino, was unmistakable … [with its] skyward arabesque arms and brash speed.” Under Ashley Wheater, who succeeded Arpino in 2007, the Joffrey “doesn’t zap its audience with the lightning bolts of the Arpino era.”
Upsetting South Africans for 35 Years – Choreographer Robyn Orlin
“[She] has long been one of her country’s most provocative artists, a white woman from the comfortable Johannesburg suburbs fearlessly confronting the truths and myths of a complex political and social history. … Her early audiences … had little exposure to contemporary dance, let alone the kind of absurdist, provocative pieces that Ms. Orlin was creating. Reactions were mostly hostile.”
‘The Latest Hit Movie for Misogynists’: Alastair Macaulay on Black Swan
“It’s both irresistible and odious. I was gripped by its melodrama, but its nightmarish view of both ballet and women is not one I’m keen to see again. … Though she enjoys triumph, we never see the willpower that gets her there, just the psychosis and the martyrdom.”
Miami City Ballet to Make Paris Debut
“The troupe announced Monday that it will cap off its 25th season in July by performing for the first time in Paris. The company will have a three-week season at one of the French capital’s major venues, the Theatre du Chatelet, for its annual Summers of Dance Festival.”
Why Have a Ballet Company Just for Dark-Skinned Dancers?
Cassa Pancho, founder of London’s Ballet Black: “The important thing in any specialised skill like ballet or sport is that you have someone reflective of you in the profession. … What may seem like a way of segregating people is actually there to show a concentrated amount of role models for kids coming up through the ranks. … The goal for Ballet Black ultimately is that it becomes obsolete.”
Seeing Fonteyn, and Knowing What Makes Dance Great
“There was one moment when she rested her head gently on her prince’s shoulder, a pose at once trusting and terrified. She seemed made of flesh and other-worldly, an enchanted princess, a swan and a breathing woman all in the same instant. It was the first time I fully understood the power of dance to convey truth without words, to be at once real and unreal.”