Category: dance

Chinese-Canadian choreographer Wen Wei Wang “describes his work as ‘dances of spice and sadness’.”

“West Australian ballet dancers will no longer have to leave the state to further their careers. WA Ballet has found a new home, with room enough to set up a school.”

“Look at this indigenous but fragile American art form, and you see fundamental change. There’s been a downsizing, a redefining, a splintering into countless small niches. … No one with broad-based stature and a track record of creating marketable and enduring work is poised to take over from the pillars of the field.”

“The two groups will combine their boards and staff into one entity with a new name and mission, though the final details are still being worked out.” DTW’s executive director “said the groups have been working on the merger since October, and that she expects the two boards to sign the final legal documents by the end of May.”

“Currently almost half of Miami City Ballet (16 of the 20 corps de ballet dancers, two of six soloists and two out of 12 principal dancers, sisters Jeanette and Patricia Delgado) came through its school. The influx has accelerated in the past several years. The reputation of the school and the company have grown, drawing more aspiring dancers from a broader pool of talent in Latin America, Asia and across the United States to train at MCB.”

“Does dance make a difference? It’s a question that I’ve been asking myself every time I step in the studio. In other words, what’s the point? And what is there about this particular art form that keeps intriguing me? And why are we doing this? What do we have to say? It’s a hard life. Of all the arts, it’s probably the least rewarding financially and in terms of the comfort zone.”

“Morris’s sentences are like a roller coaster; he has the timing of a born comedian and a camp, expressive delivery that means he lurches from word to word, placing the emphasis very firmly where he wants it. He is a natural performer –who has, one suspects, an opinion on everything, though as the years have passed, he has grown more discreet about sharing them.”

Alastair Macaulay, on the Rubenesque actor’s performance in London Assurance:
“In his first scene, he sketches a series of perfect arm movements, and then holds one of them with arched torso (port de bras cambré) as he relates how an artist drew him as Apollo. In his solo in a country dance, he leaps across the stage in a pas de chat and then bounds in several entrechats; and in the finale he does piquées arabesques and baroque pirouettes.”

“While athletes represent just 18% of the contestants, not counting this season, they’ve won five of the nine competitions, placed second three times and third once more. That works out to a collective success rate of 47%…. The only group that compares is musicians, who’ve managed to claim eight spots on the podium.”