Category: dance

A long-derelict theater in Minneapolis is a big step closer to a long-planned reopening, following government approval of a bonding bill that will provide $11 million towards the project. “When it’s finished, the Shubert will immediately become home base for a host of dance groups, including James Sewell Ballet and Minnesota Dance Theater.”

Peter Boal has completed his first season running Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet. “Boal has brought youthful energy to the company, as well as a dance bag full of new-to-PNB works, many chosen from choreographers for whom Boal himself danced. Among the dancers, new faces are emerging from the corps de ballet as future stars, while the veterans are dancing with renewed vigor. And that energy isn’t just up on the stage: People are talking about PNB, in a way that they haven’t for a long time.”

While English ballet may “not conform to the standards some desire, there is much to be said for a system that’s inclusive, even eccentric enough to nurture a talent like Will Tuckett. By his own admission, when Tuckett graduated from the Royal Ballet School in 1988, his gangly body, sharp blue eyes and slightly cussed attitude were hardly the attributes of a future classical prince. Yet while other companies might not have given him a second glance, Tuckett was fast-tracked into Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet (now the Birmingham Royal Ballet), and then the Royal.”

“The Ford Foundation grant will fund the DTH School and Dancing Through Barriers, its education and community outreach program. Over the next four years, the DTH School will develop and implement a strategic recruitment plan, augment its curriculum to offer more robust training and artistic experiences including guest faculty and choreographers for its students. It will also formulate a comprehensive K-12 curriculum for use in rendering its education activities and residencies in New York City and around the world.”

“In her unparalleled career in dance, where she educated the world about the power of African dance as found throughout the diaspora, Dunham mixed academic research and showbiz flair. An anthropologist as well as a choreographer, she studied dance in the Caribbean islands, blending movements she found there with Western dance. Her style was not scholarly; she reveled in eroticism. She sought not to re-create specific rites but to transport the audience the way a spiritual experience might.”

The new Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York aims to correct some balance in American cultural life. “Misha feels America has let the arts down. There’s no money for arts in education, artists aren’t subsidized – in fact, they’re looked at as liberal freaks. It’s a very sad state of affairs. Everything we’re doing is to make it better.”

It’s a question worth pondering after the high profile failure of the city’s big touring dance program…

American Ballet Theatre is facing a slew of impending retirements, with several of the company’s biggest stars approaching the magic age of 40, at which most dancers have to at least contemplating ending their careers. How ABT absorbs the inevitable departures, and how it goes about rebuilding its ranks, will be the most important elements of the company’s long-term future as one of America’s most prestigious ballet troupes.

Jorma Elo is “a dancemaker who has rocketed onto ballet’s A-list by virtue of choreography that is a thrilling blend of classical technique and contemporary dance. Jorma Elo has an affinity for the startling: Ballerinas with their legs stretched out to tomorrow, choreographic effects enhanced by mysterious lights and shadows, and undulating set pieces that intertwine or interrupt the ballerinas’ patterns of movement.”

Nashville Ballet has hired its own former marketing director to be its new executive director. Andrea Dillenburg worked for the company in the late 1990s, has most recently been working for the Atlanta Symphony, will succeed Paul Kaine at the helm of Nashville Ballet.