Category: dance

Tina Pereira “turned a pas de deux into a solo, and then danced an unrehearsed duet with an ad hoc partner, to win the prize for best female dancer at the Seventh International Competition for the prestigious Erik Bruhn Prize last weekend.”

“The problems that threaten to destroy the dance service organization involve the usual suspects: a breakdown in board leadership, an overwhelmed director who rarely returns phone calls, fundraising woes, major debt.”

“Bourne is likely the most successful choreographer alive. His ‘Swan Lake’ is touring Australia more than 10 years after it opened; the new ‘Mary Poppins,’ which he helped direct and contributed choreography to, is on Broadway; ‘Edward Scissorhands,’ which opens Wednesday at the BAM Opera House, is midway through a United States tour that will last until May.”

Los Angeles is littered with the bodies of those who have tried to start a ballet company. The latest effort – Los Angeles Ballet – is mindful of the past, and modest about its claims for the future. But the company has put together a solid core. “LAB has 21 dancers from around the country on contract for 22 weeks. Most are in their early- to mid-20s; some are teenagers straight out of elite training posts like the School of American Ballet.”

“Former Boston Ballet soloist Kee-Juan Han, 49, has been named to head the Washington School of Ballet, the institution announced yesterday. He will take over in July, becoming only the third director of the 63-year-old school, founded by the late Mary Day.”

Okay, so a Marine and a former Soviet ballet star walk into a dance school… no, wait, it’s not a joke. “The choreographer and the combat veteran perform a unique pas de deux as artistic director and executive director” of a small but intense dance academy in small-town Maine, which “carries on the art’s much-revered Imperial Russian tradition yet aspires to become America’s preeminent school for training dancers for the professional ballet.”

“Praise dance is a form of worship that seeks to articulate the word and spirit of God through the body. Though it is far from a new phenomenon — in biblical times, dancing was embraced during celebrations and worship — it was forced out of the Christian church during the Reformation, and has been fully welcomed back only in the past 20 or so years. In recent years praise dance has become an increasingly popular part of church services across the country.”

In the past few years it seems like everyone is staging Twyla Tharp dances. “They are doing Tharp in Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Tulsa, Okla., Charleston, S.C., and Sacramento, Calif.; at Sarah Lawrence and Hunter colleges, and at the Royal Danish Ballet and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.” So what accounts for the big interest?

“Dance Theater Workshop’s executive director, Marion Koltun Dienstag, is resigning next month, the organization said yesterday. … Her departure follows the resignation of the artistic director Cathy Edwards, a pioneering force in contemporary dance, who was replaced last year by Carla Peterson.” (third item)

“Bollywood dancing has hit the northern English county of Yorkshire – famed for its love of what was once Britain’s favourite dish before it was overtaken by chicken tikka masala. In fact, so popular is Bollywood dancing in Yorkshire that the county’s pre-eminent theatre … is staging a performance of a play called Bollywood Jane throughout June. More than 60 eager young people from all walks of life are auditioning to take part….”