Category: dance

“A performer with the famed American Alvin Ailey dance troupe on Tuesday said he was twice forced to perform steps for Israeli airport security officers to prove his identity before he was permitted to enter the country.”

“The company’s new three-floor, glass-and-steel complex at 10 E. Randolph — a permanent home that is part of a larger condominium structure, and complete with seven state-of-the-art rehearsal studios (including one that can morph into a 144-seat black box theater), offices, a wardrobe and laundry suite, a physical therapy room and an on-site box office — has been a long time coming.”

The Varna International Ballet Competition in Bulgaria has only given out four Special Distinction Grand Prix awards in its 44-year history. Whitney Jensen is the only female and the only dancer from the United States to be awarded that honor.

“The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra announced that it will accompany the financially beleaguered Texas Ballet Theater for the ballet’s October performances at Bass Hall, with the cost being absorbed by” a local foundation. But the local musicians’ union chief is warning the ballet that it could face pickets if it attempts to revert to an earlier plan to use canned music.

“The film pays fetishistic attention to all of ballet’s detailed contrivance: the elaborate makeup, the constant audience-consciousness, the endless attention to minutiae of musical timing and technical articulation. Brilliantly it closes in on one particular feature of ballet technique.”

“The Texas Ballet Theater’s chairwoman and its artistic director said Thursday that they would be willing to step aside if that would help the ballet raise $2 million by Sept. 10 — including $500,000 in cash — to stave off bankruptcy or a shutdown.”

“We’ve met with Bravo about some kind of reality show. I don’t think I was controversial enough. I said I’m not going to create controversy, and I saw them glazing over. They wanted diva ballerina fits and glass in the pointe shoes, that kind of thing. We’re trying to move away from those cliches.”

After 10 years, the company, which developed a growing following in Boston, has dissolved because of funding challenges, artistic director Martha Mason said

Are we in the midst of a dance boom? You’d have to think so from the way hot-shot choreographers are going out and forming their own companies.

“We may be bombarded with depressing news about the recession, housing crisis, credit crunch. Yet step inside any community hall in Britain and, judging by the sea of smiling faces you’re likely to meet, you would think that times had never been so good. Everyone, it seems, is dancing.”