Category: dance

“Ballet West announced plans Monday to build a new center for dance while renovating the existing Capitol Theatre.” The facility, budgeted at $32million, “will include six studios connected to the Capitol Theatre, along with meeting and banquet space.”

“[She] may be tiny, but she’s not the airy type. In conversation her subdued voice forces listeners to lean in closer, but in the studio it sounds a bit like Ethel Merman mixed with thunder.”

“An on-going tour set up by the REST International Company claimed to bring the ‘Russian Classical ballet of Maya Plisetskaya’ to audiences throughout Israel from Oct. 24 – Nov. 2. But Plisetskaya herself, who now lives in Spain, said she had no involvement in the production and is taking legal action against the organisers.”

“This is an exciting time for ballet. But, while some choreographers are looking ahead, some critics are looking to the past. This is the natural order of things. Artists are always ahead of their watchers, always pushing the envelope. To the watchers, I say, If you’re looking for gold in a silver mine, you won’t see the silver.”

“Colorado Ballet’s recent decision to out- source much of its ticket-sales operation to India is likely to raise some questions about customer service, tax support and public perception.”

From Argentina to Australia; from Holland to Deutschland and dozens of undead places in between, Michael Jackson fans took to the streets in a zombie invasion because, as the late MJ sang it: “this is thriller, thriller night.”

Eight dancers “from the New York City Ballet will perform at the International Ballet Festival in Havana next month, the company said on Thursday.” Among those traveling are Jared and Tyler Angle, Megan Fairchild, Tiler Peck and Andrew Veyette.

“In a debate hosted by Jian Ghomeshi of CBC’s Q cultural affairs show, Jennifer Homans said she despairs for the art form, but National Ballet artistic director Karen Kain argues it’s alive and kicking.”

“The company set up shop in Silicon Valley in 1985 as the West Coast component of a daring joint venture with the Cleveland Ballet. The latter folded in 2000 over what artistic director Dennis Nahat calls ‘a $350,000 disagreement,’ but the South Bay component has prospered.”

“In the months following Bausch’s death, [Dominique Mercy] took over the joint artistic direction of the company with Robert Sturm, the assistant director, and together they are committed to the continuation of the company she had built. … Initially, their decision to keep the company going was entirely pragmatic: they were away touring when Bausch died.”