Category: dance

“Celebrating its diamond anniversary, the San Francisco Ballet will premiere 10 new ballets by as many choreographers – big names from here and abroad – during its New Works Festival April 22-May 6.” The company kicked off the 75th anniversary celebrations this week with a huge gala that attracted nearly 1,400 guests.

Bill T. Jones has “reached a level of popular success he would have mocked once-upon-a-youth ago – in 2007 he won a Tony award for choreographing the sexual-coming-of-age Broadway frolic ‘Spring Awakening,’ and in November he became the first dancer to perform a piece-widely acclaimed-at the Louvre.”

The new money is expected to help the theatre expand in North American and European markets.

“In the first decade of the San Francisco Ballet saga, emerged the mixed parentage – European in origin and vocabulary, American in flavor and energy – that has shaped the identity of classical dance in this country.”

Beginning next month the Merce Cunningham Dance Company will begin recording “Mondays With Merce,” an online video program featuring weekly episodes of Mr. Cunningham’s Monday class, on its Web site, merce.org.

The Baryshnikov Arts Center has appointed the former director of creative services at Carnegie Hall, Stanford Makishi, as its new executive director.

“Classical ballet may idealise a very youthful type of body beautiful but it can’t do without age and experience. Within the studio it’s the older members of the profession who have the longest memories in the teaching of repertory and technique. And they’re a necessity on stage too.”

Hundreds of Philippine prison inmates have become YouTube stars for their dances. “Inmates spend up to four hours a day practicing a growing repertoire of more than two dozen dances. In addition, those who signed up for auditions and made the troupe have continued rehearsing their Sinulog choreography.”

Elite pro footballer Graham Taylor has taken up dance. “He has also noticed that, as with many Premiership squads, British dancers are in the minority in the country’s top companies, and he thinks there are a few things the two worlds could learn from each other.”

The McMaster Report suggests some changes in the ways the arts do business. But British dance already incoporates many of the report’s ideas. “Many of our companies have become a magnet for performers from around the world, while the range of dance programming at our theatres is, in my experience, unmatched anywhere else.”