Category: dance

“‘It’s important and vibrant,’ says comedian Tom Roden, ‘resonant and beautiful, rich and strange.’ These are not words usually used by comics to describe their work, but then Roden is not your usual comic. Few standups can draw on 15 years’ experience in contemporary dance.”

The renowned choreographer, whose widely-praised term at the head of Spain’s Compañía Nacional de Danza ends this month, will be the first foreigner to head a major Russian ballet company since the days of Marius Petipa under the Tsars.

“How often has one sat at a first night at the opera or ballet, groaning at missed cues, horrors with costumes, disasters with lighting: one thinks they should surely have got it right by this time? … And what if indeed it is human ineptitude that conspires?” Not to mention the cascading strikes …

Zachary Whittenburg: “I’ll use myself as an example. The act of putting my creative process into words is immensely helpful to me as I seek to solve the problems I encounter therein.” Besides, “[e]merging choreographers … may create in a community where there are no working dance writers.”

“Two men locked in a tight embrace step in time to the mournful chords of a tango. Gustavo Aciar follows his partner’s lead, but halfway through the melancholy song, he takes charge. … ‘Gay tango takes tango to another level – the macho leader can become the sensual follower’,” said one participant.

It’s three years since artistic directors Garrett Ammon and Dawn Fay arrived, and the company “has garnered a lot of fans and friends in that time as its sophisticated, energetic choreography and genre cross-pollinations have caught the attention of the national dance scene.” Now Ballet Nouveau need to raise more than $150,000 in the next week to avoid suspending operations. What happened?

Merce Cunningham’s Xover, with music by John Cage and scenery by Robert Rauschenberg, “will make its New York debut as part of New York City Center’s 2010 Fall for Dance Festival.” Other performers in the series, for which all seats are $10, include India’s Madhavi Mudgal, Spain’s Company Rafaela Carrasco, Taiwan’s Shu-Yi & (Dancers) Company and hip-hop dancer Mr. Wiggles.

Dance magazine editor Wendy Perron: “I realize a blog is a good way to keep your website alive and to involve your potential audience. But explaining how you make a dance, the problems you encounter and how you solve them, is not going to help either you as the choreographer or your potential audience. To dig into your imagination enough to make a dance, you need to be embroiled in a place where there is no explanation.”

“‘One’s options are no longer limited to Bollywood. We have reality shows on television, and there’s a great demand for choreographers for wedding performances, theatre shows, and even college festivals,’ said choreographer Sandip Soparrkar.”

“In direct response to the popularity of TV’s So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing with the Stars, it is boom time at the nation’s leading dance schools. At Sydney Dance Company, 20 per cent of turnover is now generated by public dance classes … In Melbourne, Chunky Move experienced a 10 per cent increase in business when … SYTYCD began screening in 2008.”