Category: dance

Cincinnati Ballet is learning African dance. “Essentially, ballet is an attempt to reject gravity. Almost everything a ballet dancer does is trying to deny the existence of it. Leaps, pirouettes – even pointe shoes themselves. They’re about giving an appearance of weightlessness. In much African dance gravity is an ally, a force to work with, not against.”

London’s Dance Umbrella is 25 years old, and now founder Val Bourne is close to retirement. “Not since Ninette de Valois founded the Royal Ballet has a British dance institution been so intimately identified with a single individual. From the early shoestring days to Umbrella’s current high profile, it has been Bourne’s own tastes that have governed the festival’s programming. It was Bourne who nurtured the London careers of American choreographers such as Trisha Brown and Morris, and Bourne who doggedly supported native talent such as Michael Clark.”

“Dunham brought to audiences, other artists and students an array of movement possibilities that had not been seen or used before in contemporary dance. Today it’s impossible to imagine modern dance without these influences.”

Cleo Parker Robinson is a long time luminary in Denver’s dance scene. “But Robinson’s optimism has been sternly tested during the past year by events that threatened her company financially and brought her great sadness. Last year the company was stung when the Denver Center for the Performing Arts ended a major annual gift of $200,000 it had been making since 1998.” And that was just the start of the troubles…

Australian Ballet and Bangarra Dance Theatre (an aboriginal company) collaborate on a piece. “The traditional Aboriginal element of dance and that kind of spirit that flows through the movement is what makes it so unique, and such an amazing hybrid of old and new…”

The Bolshoi and the Kirov are two of the world’s premiere ballet companies. “This summer the two companies will play opposite each other in London’s West End, the Bolshoi at Covent Garden, the Kirov at the Coliseum. Both insist there is no box-office war, nothing more than a market opportunity to rake cash while the west effetely rests. But the haste with which the seasons have been cobbled together and the simultaneity of their launches exposes a breach in the entente and the outcome of the undeclared contest will leave casualties on both sides.”

“Susan Marshall presented a 20th-anniversary season at the Dance Theater Workshop that confirmed her reputation as an inventive and persuasive dance maker. Like very few other choreographers (Doug Varone is another), Marshall understands intimacy and is moved by it.”

The British government is convening a think tank on dance. “Among the subjects up for discussion are education and health, employment and the relationship between the commercial and subsidised dance sector.”

“I feel it’s unfortunate that people feel that there’s a hidden intellectualism in dance, but it’s one of those places where marginalization looks elitist and it’s not. Lace-making is not a popular thing, and in a way it’s the same thing with dance. We’re small, not because we don’t want more people, but because this is a different way of looking at the world that isn’t born out of capitalism or religion.”

Wales’ culture minister says things are well for dance in his country. “There is no doubt that there is much to celebrate in dance in Wales at present. Young dancers from Wales are making names for themselves, particularly in contemporary dance. We have seen dance performances from international ballet companies such as the Kirov for the first time in Wales as well as innovative productions from our own dance companies such as Earthfall, Diversions and India Dance Wales.”