Category: dance

Intensive dance instruction for those looking to make a career in the field is nice and all, but what about elementary-level dance education for the general schoolkids of the world that actually seems relevant to their everyday life? “About seven years ago, Alvin Ailey educators broadened their school visits to include more than just dance technique… The lessons tap into the life of the famed African-American dancer to bring to light history and social issues.”

The San Francisco Ballet will mark its 75th anniversary next year with a spring festival of 10 new works by 10 choreographers, a PBS special and a U.S. tour, along with a regular season of programs.

London is awash with dance. Sadler’s Wells, Covent Garden, SouthBank, the Barbican and The Place all have dance seasons. But can the city support so much movement?

Under Tony Blair’s rule, UK dance has thrived in many ways. “After decades of being squeezed into small, grubby or unsuitable theatres, a cash-rich mix of lottery funding, Arts Council money and private sponsorship has allowed dance to be re-housed in an amazingly glamorous style… But there is one bleak note amid this bonanza. The problems of funding never go away – the lack of money, the inequities of its distribution – and the final months of the Blair decade have been particularly bad for dance.”

Modern American ballet is innovative, exploratory, diverse… and strangely devoid of black women. “While other minorities have made inroads in classical ballet, the complicated reality of racial inequality persists, especially for black women… Many black dancers suggest that a primary obstacle is stereotyping. Black women are perceived as being forceful, which doesn’t square with the ethereal image of a ballerina.”

“Lincoln Kirstein — patron of the performing, visual, and literary arts; novelist; poet; critic and historian of dance, photography and painting — was one of nature’s titans. He looked the role. Nobody who saw or met him can easily have forgotten the imposing physical impression he made.”

Colorado Ballet is a solid company. But it faces some big challenges in the next few years. And if it is going to move up a step or two to the next level, some even bigger changes will have to take place. So what’s the plan?

Star ballerina Sylvie Guillem is traveling the world these days, having left life in a company behind. “Had she stayed with the Paris Opera Ballet, she would now have reached the company’s mandatory retirement age of 42. She shrugs off this notion with disdain. ‘Older is better. You have maturity, you have experiences, and you want to live all the minutes. Soon I am going to have to stop. I’m not blind. I’m not stupid. But I want to make the most of every second that is left.”

New York City Ballet has a new Romeo and Juliet. “Staging such a large production is like first creating, then fitting together thousands of interlocking jigsaw pieces. However the work is judged by critics, audiences and posterity, the requirements are always the same: money, time and very, very hard work.”

“Kirstein and Balanchine — the shy, Boston-bred impresario and the iron-willed Russian — were not an obvious pairing. Kirstein was the intellectually driven scion of a family that made its fortune from Filene’s department store. He was not a good student; it took him three attempts to get into Harvard. While he was still there he made his first venture as a cultural force with the founding of a literary journal, Hound and Horn (whose European editor was Ezra Pound).”