Category: dance

Dance has never been more popular in Britain – and now the government is to respond to the nation’s enthusiasm by ploughing £5.5m into dance education.

Some say the popularity of “reality” dance shows on TV has boosted the audience for dance. But some dance experts see a deadening effect. “It’s like a fast-food version of dance.”

“On Wednesday the Royal Opera House will announce its new ballet and opera seasons – and add a little extra news. The ballet directorship of Monica Mason, due to come to an end in 2010, will be extended a further two years until after the 2012 Olympics, when she will be almost 70.”

A year ago the West Australia Ballet was on the rocks. Now, thanks to an infusion of money, the company is adding ten dancers. “Revelations that elite dancers were struggling to pay the rent in boomtown Perth was a wake-up call for the Government, ballet management, corporate supporters and WA dance fans.”

Carla Peterson, the artistic director of New York’s Dance Theater Workshop, is on a mission to preserve, revive, and perform great dance works that had their premieres in recent years and risk being forgotten because of a lack of exposure. “Making this a permanent curatorial mandate signals Ms. Peterson’s deeper commitment to historically important contemporary works.”

“Tumultuous times have returned to the Boston Ballet, which said on Thursday that the number of dancers in its main company will shrink by nearly 20 percent.” The cuts include at least two principal dancers, and come just days after the company announced the departure of its executive director.

“Gus Giordano, an early and tireless popularizer of American jazz dance who organized the first Jazz Dance World Congress, died on March 9 in Chicago. He was 84.”

According to a carefully massaged joint statement, Valerie Wilder “has decided to step down” after five and a half years as the 50-dancer company’s executive director. Boston Ballet’s Finnish-born artistic director, Mikko Nissinen, will assume Wilder’s responsibilities while the board tries to find a permanent replacement.

Those who saw New York City Ballet make its London debut in 1950 are still talking about it. Now the company is making its first return visit in 25 years…

Yuri Grigorovich, 81, “was the Bolshoi’s artistic director from 1964 until 1995, when he was forced out amid accusations that its reputation had stagnated and crumbled with the Soviet Union. His appointment this week as a ballet master by general director Anatoly Iksanov marks a stunning return.”