Category: dance

“[It] was a cheeky publicity stunt by Ballet B.C., a troupe eager to change its image. The campaign encouraged people to ‘take our tutus’, a signal the company is a cutting-edge, contemporary ballet troupe that doesn’t need the classical attire anymore. In fact, you’re more likely to find the dancers in corsets, boy shorts, and athletic wear.”

Darren Aronofsky: “The ballet world was a very hard world to get into. Usually when you make a movie doors open up. You say, ‘I want to make a movie’ and everyone’s like ‘okay’. The ballet world just couldn’t care. They’re just very, very insular and self-involved.”

For a new show next year, Bartabas, trainer and director of Zingaro Equestrian Theatre, “has been training his horses in the art of butoh, an avant-garde dance form which originated in Japan and involves precise, minutely controlled movements.” (Zingaro’s horses already pirouette.)

“A Flemish culture minister’s plan to put the Royal Flanders Ballet and Flemish Opera under the same management has prompted the dance troupe’s artistic director, Kathryn Bennetts, to submit her resignation, citing the loss of independence.”

“All five have been making dance against heavy headwinds for as long as half a century. Each has received honors and accolades, and is still flying high. Yet none is as well known outside dance circles as, say, Judith Jamison or Debbie Allen.”

“In the case of SYTYCD, television has won millions of viewers for a certain kind of dance experience. Whether or not it could win as large an audience for concert dance remains to be seen. I don’t know about you, but I’m longing for another dance boom, and television is without doubt an important part of its provocation.”

“More than 600,000 people saw [the London dance venue’s] work last year over the course of 136 productions. The organisation’s annual report also reveals that the turnover for the year was £19.8 million, 65% of which was generated from ticket sales.”

“Sadler’s Wells launched their 2011 season this morning with a warning that the front-loading of arts cuts to the next two years will cut a swathe through the British arts landscape.” The venue is taking defensive action by offering “a list of attractions for next year including mass nudity, horses on stage and a Pet Shop Boys ballet.”

“As Andy Howitt and Thomas Small will tell you, getting young teenage boys to sign up to the idea can take time, effort and a spark of ingenuity. At the start of 2010, Howitt and Small put their heads together and came up with a project called Ignite. It was a boys-only initiative that rolled out all across Scotland and, come the end of November, the results will be seen on-stage.”

“In those big Paris cabaret shows you perform two shows a night, six nights a week, in 9cm heels with backpacks that weigh up to 13kg, with massive head pieces and feathers that must be wired so that they sit and move correctly. And you have to make it all look floaty and effortless.”