Category: dance

She “was suffering from a throat sore enough to warrant a doctor’s appointment immediately after the rehearsal. Later she would cry, feeling ill and frustrated at her inability to perform the steps as she would like. And a week later she would be the victim of a mugging that would leave her bruised and shaken.”

“Details [of the commission] still need to be fleshed out but he’s already started work on the score and says he’s ‘enthusiastic’ about it.”

Richard Thomas – not the actor, but “the ingenious writer and composer best known for the scabrous comic phenomenon Jerry Springer: The Opera” – is working with five choreographers, including Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Kate Prince and Stephen Mear, on a revue all about shoes. (Yes, Imelda Marcos makes an appearance.) Says Thomas, “It’s an essay in joy.”

“In act one, the corps de ballet come gliding down the stairs, moving just like a flock of swans. Even when there are hundreds of swans moving together on a lake, they still manage to make the movement look similarly effortless and graceful. The pas de deux … reminded me of a real swan courtship dance. Mating swans approach each other, nod to the left and right in perfect synchronicity, then bow their heads and press them together.”

“Traditional dance games like Dance Dance Revolution use a plastic floor mat plugged into the game console, and on-screen symbols that tell the players where to step. In Dance Central, players simply try to mimic the on-screen moves of expert dancers. The Kinect sensor, which can track 48 different points on a human body, watches the players” and “awards points.”

“Susan Jaffe, a former Principal Dancer with American Ballet Theatre, has been named Ballet Mistress with the Company.” Jaffe became an international star while at ABT, from which she retired in 2002 after 22 years.

It’s dead – “Doctored and fixed and repaired,” glowers the choreographer. His company’s executive director adds, “I’m often surprised at how many presenters will say to us, ‘Can’t you just do it to tape?’ Would you go to the opera and watch a film? We perceive it as that closely connected.”

“The dancers had jubilantly punched the air when selected for the trip (it’s only the third time The Australian Ballet has performed in such a setting) but beware the perils of the outdoors. A gentle sea breeze threatened to topple a ballerina en pointe. Undulating waves made finding a point of balance wildly difficult.”

New York City Ballet’s costume shop is “charged with rebuilding costumes made years or decades ago, sometimes with materials that have long since gone out of style or production. Meanwhile, shrinking budgets, rising costs and an imperiled garment district make it increasingly difficult to keep City Ballet’s vast repertory looking fresh.”

The USA International Ballet Competition – an event held every four years, in which young dancers from more than 30 nations compete for medals before an international panel of judges, and which even features an Olympic-style torch in its opening ceremony – has gotten underway in Jackson, Miss.