“Cunningham is much more interested in effects than intentions. That’s a good credo for audiences too.” As Merce himself said, “It is hard for many people to accept that dancing has nothing in common with music other than time and the division of time.”
Category: dance
A Dance Festival Focusing on the Practical
The two-year-old program “Crossing the Line” at New York’s Alliance Française gets resource-starved New York dancers and choreographers together with French presenters who have facilities and funding: “I see it as a production air bridge. It’s like flying artists to where the space and the money are.”
Where Ballet And Football Meet
“Both arts require strength, grace and poise; and the protagonists of each are known for prima-donna behaviour and for wondrous athleticism that can be delicate or brutal.”
Texas Ballet Gets A Temporary Reprieve
“Retrenched but hardly done with a battle to survive, Texas Ballet Theater has accepted a $500,000 cash-raising reprieve as a signal to conduct business as usual. Additional pledges bring an emergency underwriting drive to more than $1.1 million so far, with anticipation running high for a promised cash kick-in of some $100,000 during the next several days.”
What Defines A Chunky Move Dancer
“There is a sense that they are revealing something about themselves on stage. They don’t play themselves, they are essentially just being themselves. I know that sounds very simple, but a lot of people find it very hard to be like that on stage. They feel they have to have a kind of persona. That’s distracting.”
Hitting Rock Bottom (In A Good Way)
Merce Cunningham’s “Ocean,” an ambitious music and dance extravaganza set to the music of John Cage, has been performed only eight times in the 14 years since its premiere, despite strong reviews whenever it is staged. The latest performances took place last week in a massive rock quarry in central Minnesota, the most ambitious staging yet, and 3,600 people drove as much as 180 miles to see it.
ABT Snaps Up Ratmansky
Alexei Ratmansky, the outgoing director of the Bolshoi Ballet, has been appointed artist in residence at American Ballet Theater. Observers hope that the innovative Russian choreographer will shake up the ABT’s “largely stale” offerings of recent years.
Royal Ballet And Its Body Problem
The Royal Ballet, Britain’s leading ballet company, “has told a committee advising the Home Office that very few British applicants have the required level of artistic excellence or aesthetics to dance with the company.”
Texas Ballet To Open On Schedule
“With only one day remaining until its self-imposed deadline, Texas Ballet Theater has raised the $500,000 in cash that officials had said was needed to open the 2008-09 season and remain fully operational at least through mid-October.”
Government Report: Britain Needs More Ballet Dancers
Britain needs more math teachers, hovercraft officers and ballet dancers, according to a draft list of occupations with a shortage of workers published by a government advisory body on Tuesday.