Category: dance

A new documentary traces the history and legacy of the world-famous Ballet Russes, and actually brings together some of the company’s original stars for the first time in decades. “The extraordinary film splices interviews with the surviving dancers with original 16mm footage of performances and nervous, gossipy backstage moments and more than 400 archive stills, gathered from the dancers’ private collections and from trawls on eBay, which produced every Ballets Russes programme from 1933-62.”

The cash-strapped Ohio Ballet has canceled what remained of its 2005-06 season and is asking its subscribers not to ask for refunds for the two sets of performances that will not take place. The company’s artistic director, who has lent the ballet $40,000 this season in an effort to stabilize a dire fiscal situation, is also complaining about what he calls biased coverage in Cleveland’s only daily newspaper.

“Chicago is fast becoming a ballet boomtown — a magnet for long-necked beauties with narrow, gently sloping shoulders. And with this weekend’s formal announcement that this fall the New York City Ballet will make its first visit to Chicago in more than 25 years, the city’s dance calendar has begun to rival its classical music lineup.”

Ethan Stiefel should have been the guy to make a dance company work in the Los Angeles area. But he was thwarted. Why? “Too bad he had to learn the hard way what the rest of us have understood for a long time: Everybody wants a resident world-class ballet company in the Southland, but nobody wants to pay for it. And rather than repeating [oft chronicled reasons] and clucking sadly yet again, how about considering a radical proposal? How about forbidding anyone to start yet another new local penniless ballet company until we’ve doubled our dance audience through a host of development strategies?”

“Now that the future of Ohio Ballet is in jeopardy, a resident dance company is needed at Playhouse Square, and Ohio Dance Theatre could be a candidate. Regrettably, however, the classically trained contemporary ensemble is not yet ready to step up into the big leagues.”

After a 26 year absence, New York City Ballet is returning to Chicago, and will appear at the harris Theatre. “The announcement is historic on a number of levels. In addition to a long-overdue return by a great troupe, the plans signal a new era for the 2 1/2-year-old Harris, venturing into new territory as a presenter of its own attractions. Opened in fall 2003 as a rental house, mostly for local companies, the theater, part of Millennium Park, did not sponsor presentations itself. Now, that’s changing in a blockbuster way.”

“In the 18 years since its inception, the festival has produced a number of choreographers who have established themselves on the international circuit, including Robin Orlin, Boyzie Cekwana and Vincent Sekwati Koko Mantsoe. It has also created an artistic community of contemporary dancers and dance-makers, serving as a means for South African artists to express hopes and fears about their society in ways that were often not condoned elsewhere.”

London’s Royal Ballet will focus on new choreography in its 2006-07 season, with works by four British choreographers leading the programming.

The Saratoga Perfoaming Arts Center, which has been recovering from financial challeneges of the past few years, has decided to forgive $1.2 million in debt owed to the organization by the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame. “The $1.2 million figure represents approximately 15 years of accumulated losses incurred by the museum and absorbed by SPAC. White said that writing off the museum’s debt will not affect SPAC’s current operating budget or its projected surplus for 2006.”

It’s labor contract resolved and its budget reduced, Washington Ballet announces a new pared-down season. “A long-running labor dispute forced the cancellation of nearly half of December’s run of ‘The Nutcracker,’ which the ballet company said resulted in a substantial loss of ticket revenue that in turn led to the scrapping of other scheduled performances and the laying off of the dancers. A tentative agreement on a first-ever employment contract with the American Guild of Musical Artists, the dancers’ union, was reached this month. With the ballet back in business, we’ve made a decision to invest in the artistic product.”