Category: dance

“The Louisville Ballet today named a new executive director: Dwight E. Hutton, a former dancer and dance administrator who most recently led the Smuin Ballet in San Francisco. He takes over in Louisville from Jack R. Lemmon, who resigned last month to become executive director of the Colorado Ballet in Denver.”

“Against a debt of around $400,000, Ballet BC was able to offer $255,000, which worked out to each proven creditor receiving $500 plus 25 cents on the dollar for the remainder they’re owed. The outcome means that the company’s dancers will be back in the studio on Monday morning.”

“In December, the ballet canceled live orchestral music for the rest of the season because of flagging ticket sales and donations. It also laid off at least two teachers, and now a Miami Beach city official says the group has depleted a $2 million reserve.”

Sylvie Guillem says dancing in one is “like wearing a big plate.” They’re difficult and expensive to make. They can give partners a rash. And they positively reek of wispy 19th-century clichés; abstract modern ballet tends to avoid them. Are tutus over? Maybe not…

“The Vienna State Opera announced Thursday that French star dancer Manuel Legris was chosen to direct its ballet from 2010. Legris, 44, will take over from the current ballet chief, the Hungarian Gyula Harangozó, at the same time that Dominique Meyer leaves the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris to head Austria’s leading opera house.”

“The City of Angels Ballet offers free classical ballet training, along with pink satin shoes and fabulous costumes, to hundreds of children from some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods.”

“The Joffrey Ballet on Monday held a ribbon cutting ceremony to open its official school, the Academy of Dance.”

“Dance on film can exist as an art form quite different from dance onstage. When a director makes us see or think about movement in new ways, or uses a camera as a choreographic tool to amplify our senses, dance and film can seem a perfect fit.”

Poet-performer John Hegley says there’s no cause for panic about the health of Morris dancing:
“The Morris is a mate of mine
the rumours state it’s in decline!

My answer is a little dull,
it’s not decline – it’s just a lull:
like concertinas squeeze to shut
until the arms unbend,
like deckchairs go back in the hut
at every summer’s end.”

“A company of disabled and non-disabled dancers, Candoco was never going to settle for sideshow status: it was main billing or nothing. And now, they’re players on the world stage.”