Category: dance

Heather Myers is a second soloist in Boston Ballet. But she’s getting a big break, an opportunity to choreograph for her company. “She’s done very mature works for the workshops and Boston Ballet II. I wanted to give her the opportunity. . . . We need new choreographic voices.”

Although no one will actually admit it, the British ballet establishment suffers from a Messiah complex. It longs for a Great Choreographer to step forth and take command, as Ashton and MacMillan did. It wants Keanu Reeves as Neo in The Matrix. It wants The One, and the classically trained Christopher Wheeldon looks like the current best bet.

“Judith Jamison, artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, announced on Thursday that she would retire in 2011. She plans to maintain her connection to the company, which she joined as a dancer in 1965, as artistic director emerita.”

“To put it simply, I make dances because I can’t help it. Working on dances has become a way of life, an addiction that at times resembles a fatal disease. Even so, I’ve no intention of kicking the habit.”

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had decided that the national ballet company should be revived after long neglect. He also had decided that the job must be done by Nina Ananiashvili, an international star from Tbilisi who had performed with the Bolshoi, the Houston Ballet and Ballet Theater and toured around the world.

“Why would the world’s foremost classical ballerina choose to turn up in New York leading a small company performing three works newly choreographed on and for her?”

It’s been 25 years since City Ballet has performed in London. It’s a very different company today…

“As a child, Li Cunxin endured poverty so extreme that children from his commune raided rats’ nests for food. In a fluke, he was chosen to go to China’s leading ballet school, overseen by Mao’s notorious wife, Jiang Qing, even though he had never danced a step. Then there was his dramatic defection to the US in 1981, and an acquaintance with former US first lady Barbara Bush that helped reunite him with his parents.”

Lisa Jo Sagolla compiles a list…

“Called to jury duty three years ago at State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Arthur Mitchell gazed at the elegant rotunda of the courthouse at 60 Centre Street and saw his dancers performing there.” So they are…