Category: dance

“This was the fourth annual Thrill the World event and interest was at an all time high to honor the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Thrill the World reported that 22,932 people danced to Thriller in 32 countries around the globe.”

“Japan’s standing as a ‘hub’ for salsa in Asia rises every day. International talent flock to the capital; specialist publications cover the dance form as a swelling number of aspiring dancers scour the city for classes.”

“Ferry terminals are surprisingly dreamy spaces. This is especially true on wet, foggy days, when the differences between land, sea and air seem negligible, the boundaries permeable. … All sorts of boundaries seemed uncertain [Tuesday] afternoon at the Whitehall Ferry Terminal in Lower Manhattan when [the company] Palissimo performed Halt!, a new site-specific work.”

“Has dance simply caved into the wider, sexist culture, or are there specific issues affecting the profession right now? And is this apparent marginalisation something women have chosen – or has it been foisted on them?”

“Dance is suffering from a shortage of high-profile women because of the difficulties faced by female choreographers trying to juggle a career in the sector with motherhood, according to leading industry figures.”

“The din at a Pilobolus performance is like that of no other dance crowd. If you were blindfolded, you’d have every reason to assume that you were attending a small-scale circus, … and the biggest affront wouldn’t be boos but the reverential silence of a ballet recital.”

Joyce Theater stagehands voted yesterday to join the “powerful union” that “struck Broadway in 2007 and negotiated a contract at Carnegie Hall that resulted in a props supervisor earning $530,044 last year.” Now Joyce executive director Linda Shelton says she’s “concerned that some dance companies won’t be able to afford us anymore.”

Undergrads who pursue the University of East London’s urban dance degree — an anomaly in the UK — are taught “not just hip-hop styles like krumping, popping and locking, but also the fundamentals of African dance, capoeira and kathak.” Purists sneer, but the program’s “popularity is booming.”

High school administrators who “fretted over how to deal with freaking, grinding and other provocative dances” are combating “explicit teen dancing with an equal dose of explicitness” in the contracts they now require students and parents to sign “before a teenager can step onto the dance floor.”

“It’s estimated about 20,000 people in more than 200 locations in 37 countries around the world participated in the dance which occurred Saturday night or Sunday morning depending on where you were.”