Category: dance

“This week … the Secretary of State for Health, announced that he had appointed the redoubtable Arlene Phillips as a ‘dance champion’, charged with getting the nation up on its flabby legs and into dance classes.” Yet “she would be the first to acknowledge that the nation is already in the grip of something like dance fever.”

“Ballet Gamonet dance troupe filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation in Miami on Wednesday, the second major South Florida dance company to enter bankruptcy this summer.”

“The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is inviting members of the public to kick up their heels in a cancan line to kick off celebrations of the ballet’s 70th birthday. The public cancan will begin a year of special events that includes the premiere of a new ballet, Moulin Rouge, choreographed by RWB dance instructor Jorden Morris.”

“For years now, it seems that the Government’s sole interest in dance hasn’t been as a theatrical art form but as a means of preventing obesity in the young and improving the health of the elderly…. Now comes Arlene Phillips, West End choreographer and erstwhile Strictly Come Dancing judge, to join the government-backed crusade to get us all moving.”

Dance superstar (and Cuban hero) Carlos Acosta, on the crowds the company drew: “Can you imagine? People are concentrating. And it’s ballet … ballet! It’s not a world cup, it’s ballet.” Another dancer speaks amazedly of strangers cheering her on the street: “‘Welcome Royal Ballet,’ people shout. ‘Welcome to Cuba.'”

“For most people, dancing naked in front of a large audience is the kind of classic nightmare from which one wakes up shaken – but relieved to be safely in bed. Not so, it seems, for the 16 dauntless women, ranging in age from their early 20s to their 50s, who are kicking, leaping and windmilling over an Edinburgh stage.”

To celebrate its 45 years at Lincoln Center, the company “will present a yearlong retrospective of its repertory … [with] 11 ballets by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins and five full-length ballets, including Romeo and Juliet and Swan Lake.” The opening-night gala will feature a new work by Peter Martins to a score by John Adams.

A new version of the evergreen ballet by the Dalian Acrobatics Troupe incorporates “many types of Chinese performing arts such as Peking Opera, acrobatics, pantomime martial arts, conjuring and burlesque.” The show is now opening in Shanghai after a European tour.

Come Fly with Me, “previously announced for a world preem at Atlanta’s Alliance Theater this fall, will launch a national tour next summer. Beyond that, producers … see Gotham as one of several possibilities.” The show “strings together Sinatra songs in a nightclub setting, where a group of people, portrayed by a cast of 15 performers, fall in and out of love.”

“There are inherent differences; athletes jump within the context of a game and not in a rehearsed choreographic exercise. Even so, the results of the study may help athletes and coaches understand the importance of jump training.”