Category: dance

Company artistic director Emily Molnar: “Ballet’s been evolving … for many years and we have a lot of people that won’t step in our doors if there is a tutu.”

On Strictly Come Dancing: “I think it’s wonderful. Our audiences have grown and their enjoyment of dance in general has grown. I hope we have been part of that. In fact, I am sure we have been.”

“The 23-year-old beat competitors from 30 different countries with his contemporary piece, The Shortest Day. James Wilton and his company will receive a cash prize of £2,000 and the chance to perform the piece at the Sadler’s Wells theatre in London in January.”

“Long neglected in a city of opera and music, the newly-renamed Vienna State Ballet recycled old favourites like Swan Lake and The Nutcracker for years, without seeking to renew its repertoire. … In his first season, the Frenchman has planned no less than eight premieres.”

“The importance of this ballet to America has become a phenomenon that surely says as much about this country as it does about this work of art. So this year I’m running a Nutcracker marathon: taking in as many different American productions as I can reasonably manage in November and December, from coast to coast (more than 20, if all goes well).”

“Over the coming weeks, millions of starlings will take to the air performing a series of breathtaking aerial ballets each evening before dusk. Such murmurations, as they are called, are a testament to the amazing, complex behaviours that animals are capable of. Yet scientists are only just beginning to understand how they do it.”

“The downside to the vocal enthusiasm of the Cuban ballet goers is their vocal enthusiasm. Ballet is as popular as sports there, and behavior in a theater can be as noisy, unruly, and contagious as in a stadium.”

New York City Ballet veterans who learned Mr. B’s dances from the man himself are videotaping coaching sessions and interviews for the Interpreters Archive, an ongoing project of the George Balanchine Trust.

“Jones draws on a range of techniques, including African dance, American modern and postmodern dance, and ballet, but an important formative influence was contact improvisation, a form of partner-work that enables people of different heights, weights and strengths to interact.”

“Scottish Ballet’s artistic director Ashley Page yesterday angrily made clear that when he leaves the company in 2012 it will be against his wishes.”