Category: dance

A San Francisco Ballet Principal Makes Connections By Cutting The Hair Of Unhoused People In His City

Benjamin Freemantle started cutting his own, and his friends’, hair out of necessity when they were all lowly, and low-paid, dance students. Then he grew into both dance and haircutting, and eventually, after extending that skill to a guy who slept in his alley, “‘I had the idea—it was a little scary—to go into the Tenderloin, which is our homeless district,”‘he says. He brought a stool, his haircutting set—basic shears from Amazon, combs, a brush and a spray bottle—and a sign that read ‘Need a Haircut?'” – Dance Magazine

Seven Dancers, A Beatboxer, And One Minute Of Tap Dance

One dancer says it’s a lot more work than it might seem: “The footwork is all flatfooting, which looks kind of easy, but when it’s at a higher tempo you can feel crazy. You have to have your weight in the back of your heels, and you have to be relaxed. It’s very simple, but the combination of things can trip you up. Like you can trip.” – The New York Times

Even In 2019, More Than Four-Fifths Of All Ballets Performed In America Were By Men

“A new report released by the Dance Data Project — a nonprofit launched earlier this year to assess gender inequity in ballet — looks at the 2018-2019 seasons of America’s 50 largest ballet companies [by budget]. … 81 percent of works last season were choreographed by men … Looking at just full-length ballets the number grows worse: 88 percent were choreographed by men.” – Dance Magazine

The Rockettes Are Looking For Something They’ve Never Had Before: An Artistic Director

“While the iconic precision dance troupe has of course always had artistic leaders for each of its shows, its parent organization, Madison Square Garden Company, is now looking to hire someone to oversee the artistic vision of all of the Rockettes’ year-round programming. That includes workshops, outreach activities and, intriguingly, new productions.” – Dance Magazine

Marius Petipa Virtually Established Classical Ballet As We Know It Today. But Most Of His Own Ballets Were Pretty Bad

The standards set by the French-born ballet master in his decades at the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg have had a defining influence on the art form ever since. But only three of his story ballets — Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadère, and Don Quixote — are in the repertory today, and of those only Sleeping Beauty has a genuinely good score. The rest, argues Alastair Macaulay, have “preposterous” plots, forgettable music, and values that were retrograde and out-of-step with even his own time and place, let alone ours. – The New York Times

Dance Is Underfunded Because It’s Undervalued. Here’s How To Convince The People With Funds Of Dance’s Value

David Dorfman: “Dancemakers: Talk about money with the same knowledge and passion with which we talk about our mentors, our dances and the art form’s history. Research the roots of our current capitalist value system and know it intimately. … Sit down with people who have resources and believe you have something to offer them. Tell them what you need in order to make your art and how their investment will elevate our country’s cultural fabric.” – Dance Magazine

New Consortium To Commission Dance Works For Art Galleries Across Britain

“CONTINUOUS Network, originally a partnership between Siobhan Davies Dance in London and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead,” and now expanding to include two more dance companies and five more galleries, “will present six new co-commissioned dance works by 2022, and tour eight existing ones, with the aim of reaching 75,000 people live or online over the next three years.” – Arts Professional