Category: dance

Australian Dance Theatre champions a breed of dance that’s “gut-wrenching athleticism, with the ballistic leaps, twists and tumbles of a method Gary Stewart has called ‘extreme movement’, enhanced by training in martial arts, gymnastics, breakdance and yoga as well as classical ballet and contemporary dance.

“A dentist was dancing to a song on the radio while drilling a woman’s tooth, and the patient wound up in the hospital when the drill bit snapped off and lodged near her eye, a lawsuit alleges.”

A dancer’s career is short. And when it’s done, there’s school and another career to be thought about.

The population of Iceland is tiny. But still, the country has a dance company. Perform a program 10 or 15 times and the entire population has seen it…

“Beginning its 13th installment Friday, Dance Chicago will feature some 450 dancers in 30 performances spread out over the next five weeks — easily the most diverse and compact showcase of local dance.”

“Dance, as an art form, is restricted to certain kinds of narrative and styles of presentation. If its stories, characters and body language have to be more overt than in straight theatre, simplifying these conventions still further for children can lead to them feeling patronised.”

BalletX is a two-year-old dance company in Philadelphia. It “is able to offer 20 weeks of work among rehearsals and performances, but that work is not contiguous. As a result, some of the dancers are already booked elsewhere in March, when the company’s spring season is scheduled, and will have to be replaced. The two directors also must rely on other jobs to help pay the bills. Neenan danced for 13 years with Pennsylvania Ballet, until Oct. 14; two days later, he was back with the company in his new role as choreographer.”

Twyla Tharp’s new ballet, which will receive its world premiere at American Ballet Theatre on June 3, will be set to a commissioned score by Danny Elfman, known primarily for his compositions for film and television, including scores for “Chicago,” “Edward Scissorhands,” and “The Simpsons.” It will mark Mr. Elfman’s first composition for ballet. The piece will also feature costumes by fashion designer Norma Kamali.

“Now 32, Tamara Rojo is at her peak, capable of exquisite refinement and outrageous daring, of voluptuous sensuality and mercurial temper. “I believe an artist should be the channel for all those things. I want to know what each choreographer has to tell me; the way to do that is to embrace the style of each ballet we do rather than adapting it to what suits me.”

In the world of high-end ballet, “the stager — the person who has taught the dancers the steps, timing, architecture and intention of a ballet but is not the choreographer — is, from a public point of view, the ghost in the machine… The largely unsung stagers make it possible for ballets to be reproduced all over the world.”