Category: dance

“The company came into the 2008-09 season about $500,000 in the red and has cut costs, including losing some administrative positions and jettisoning the Orlando Philharmonic accompaniment for its Nutcracker performances, to bring itself back into the black. Its success in doing so has resulted in the part of the company the audience sees — its troupe of 29 dancers — remaining ‘completely intact’.”

“Very few collaboratively designed dance centers exist in other cities. In this economic climate, working together, sharing space and resources, and creating a destination that aligns with surrounding facilities is a win-win situation.”

The company was born in the wake of the “arts-administration meltdown” and collapse of Lexington Ballet, and has kept on for a decade despite the turmoil around its birth and the usual constant money troubles. The board president says, “Something would fall out of the sky and we’d be able to pay our bills.”

“Young break dancers pile onto A, B, C and D trains between 59th Street and 125th Street in Manhattan every weekend to perform in the subway cars and collect donations. Many emanate from the same Bronx neighborhood, around Morris Avenue and 170th Street.” As older teens teach younger boys, “it is a sort of apprenticeship program for street performing.”

“The George Balanchine ballets Coppélia and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Peter Martins’s Romeo and Juliet will be among the highlights of the New York City Ballet’s spring season… The lineup will also include world premieres of works by Benjamin Millepied, a principal dancer with City Ballet, and Jiri Bubenicek, a principal dancer with the Dresden SemperOper Ballet.”

“For a century, Argentina and Uruguay have duelled over who invented tango, the sultry music and dance synonymous with Latin passion. … At last, however, a truce has been declared. The respective culture ministries of Montevideo and Buenos Aires set aside their rivalry jointly to petition Unesco, the UN’s cultural agency, to grant tango world heritage status.”

“The company is launching a global competition asking anyone who’s cyber-savvy to transform the late choreographer’s masterpiece, “Clytemnestra,” into a brief online video. The challenge: picking a character from the story and creating a four-minute scene linked to today’s life.”

“If a dancer was touched by Balanchine they were obviously incredibly lucky, but there was also this adulation that went along with it. There’s hope in a way that these Balanchine ballets will take on a new, almost uncomplicated freshness because they’re being approached really just as works of art in their own without the mystique or aura of the choreographer.”

Boston Ballet Center for Dance Education is the largest ballet school in North America. The school’s “shiny new studio will be a breeding ground for Boston Ballet patrons, inspiring the sort of devotion that turns parents of budding ballerinas – and a remarkable number of women and men working to perfect their own wobbly jetés – into subscribers, volunteers, board members, and donors.”

“Nevada Ballet Theatre has been adored by loyal fans for decades, even during its not-so-great performances. It’s hard to say what these supporters will say as James Canfield takes the company deeper into the contemporary realm.”