Category: dance

Founder Cassa Pancho: “All through ballet school I was really aware of the lack of black people around me. So for my dissertation I thought I would interview black women working in ballet and see what they had to say – but I couldn’t find a single black woman working in ballet, and that really stunned me. When I graduated, I decided, very naively, to do something about it myself.”

“Los Angeles Ballet hasn’t merely survived for five seasons; it’s increased the operating budget some 80%, from $900,000 in 2006-07 to $1,624,000 in 2010-11. And there are other signs of growth: increased ticket sales (up 12% last season), a new school and company center in West Los Angeles, a reconstituted board of directors, expanded support staff and audience development activities.”

“That’s right: Ballet is so hot right now. Or, I should say, the dark underbelly of the ballet world is so hot right now.”

“When a dancer has surplus weight, there can be no more ruthless way to demonstrate it than to dance in a tutu with shoulders bare. If Ms. Ringer performed flamenco or Bharatanatyam or most forms of contemporary dance, she would look extremely slim. In most of her recent ballet roles, she has actually looked slender. … This particular Sugar Plum Fairy – one of her rare tutu parts these days – was not one of them.”

“Ballerinas in the classical form have become this poetic essence that is not supposed to weigh anything, they’re really supposed to float. That’s when it gets out of hand – it means any weight at all is ruining our whole idea of the idealistic female that we expect to represent our dreams.”

“In an informal poll of theater managers this weekend, distributor Fox Searchlight found that audiences were almost overwhelmingly younger than 50, with most 35 and under.” Similarly, critics 50 and younger are warmly embracing Black Swan, while most (though not all) older critics dislike the movie.

“Its per-theater average of $77,459 is the second highest for any film this year, behind only last weekend’s “The King’s Speech.” But that British drama opened at only four locations, making the debut of “Black Swan” arguably more impressive.”

“We could just cut five weeks of touring, but we’re funded to be a touring company, so we can’t have that. And we can’t reduce the dancer numbers, because all the productions we have are made for 60-plus dancers. We’d look like one of those rather crappy touring Russian companies, with horrible sets, an orchestra of 20 and students with stick-on moustaches.”

“Thirty years ago it wasn’t unusual for a promising ballet dancer to join a company without earning a high school diploma. Now a new generation is arguing that no matter the sacrifice, education matters.”

“There’s plenty of room for legitimate debate on ‘Black Swan,’ and a lot of it will surround the question of whether it’s yet another exploitative male-crafted thriller about a female nutcase or something more ambitious and more universal than that. I’m not sure there’s a right or wrong answer.”