Category: dance

“Tame Iti, a Maori activist with blue tattoos all over his face, sticks out his tongue and begins a ritual dance. Four other dancers stamp and clap in aggressive unison – while another man creeps around, monkey-like, on all fours.”

“Google your favorite ballet stars, and you’ll find assorted bravura passages that show off his leaps, his spins, her balances on the tip of her tiny, heavily shellacked toe, their amazing flexibility. … Subtleties don’t play well on YouTube, so the abundant dance clips have been promoting a kind of connoisseurship of virtuosity.”

“Now expanded from 12 minutes to 30, [Noémie Lafrance’s] Melt features seven dancers who will dissolve – this is an occasion in which the hotter it is, the better – at the salt pile under the Manhattan Bridge.”

“[Choroegrapher Ellis] Wood’s seven-year funding grant ran out after five. Then the funders of her mid-career grant called and informed her that it no longer existed. … Recently, she decided to make her work more ‘accessible’ and focus on a (cheaper-to-produce) solo project. Two weeks ago, she got news that her rehearsal space, Dance Forum in Union Square, is shutting down.”

“The detail and complexity of Bausch’s work were such that, whenever a production was revived, it required months of preparation from her. Yet Robert Sturm, who had for 10 years worked alongside Bausch as assistant director, felt they had to find a way of keeping the company going. ‘Pina fought hard to bring this kind of work to Wuppertal – I know she didn’t want it to disappear’.”

“Two giants of dance died last year: Pina Bausch and Merce Cunningham. Right now audiences aren’t being deprived of seeing why their names are written permanently in lights in dance history … but after 2011 they may be. Cunningham’s company will close, while Bausch’s will be in its last of an uncertain three-year grace period.”

“[Former director] Beth [Corning] has a very specific genre, dance theater, and is very devoted to that genre. [New leader Greer Reed-Jones’s] concept is much broader dance that does include dance theater but also movement and physicality, and so encompasses a lot more works than we might have been able to do under Beth’s guidance.”

“The market for professional hip-hop dance crews has evolved in recent years, with films such as Step Up 3D, reality television, and amateur videos online fueling demand for showcases of popping, locking, and other signature styles of the once-underground pastime. But earning a living through hip-hop dance is still difficult at best.”

“By getting the dancers to pull off their difficult poses surrounded by normal people in everyday situations, Jordan hopes to highlight the skill of talented individuals who walk among us everyday.”

For a new ad campaign, “Get Your Dance On, STL!,” Dance St. Louis plans to create TV commercials showing ordinary St. Louisans who are – how to put this? – dancing.