Category: dance

“Since it was founded in 1940, the Dance Notation Bureau has been at the forefront of dance preservation, and it has one of the most important collections of dance scores in the nation. But on Oct. 28, it laid off five of its six staff members, including its executive director, Ilene Fox… Dance notation, using a system of symbols called Labanotation and functioning much like a music score, enables dances to be recreated accurately long after a choreographer has died. The bureau’s library houses more than 700 scores for dances by choreographers from George Balanchine and Doris Humphrey to Bill T. Jones and Mark Morris… For now, the library remains active and accessible. But the institution is on the ropes.”

“Unlike scripts for plays or scores for symphonies, ballets have no physical record for choreography. This is a relatively new concern for the dance world. Coming into the 21st century and losing many of the choreographers – the great geniuses of the 20th century – made it more apparent to us that we must conserve our heritage and do everything in our power to pass that legacy on to the next generation. Financed through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the project will attempt to preserve all aspects of a ballet.”

The Rockettes are coming to Toronto with their Christmas show, and the National Ballet of Canada is fearful for its Nutcracker. “In 2006, the company will have the added advantage of a new home, but the competition will be stiff. Not only will the Rockettes be at the Hummingbird, but the much-hyped Lord of the Rings musical will be up and running at the Princess of Wales Theatre.”

“Members of Bavaria’s folk dancing association are incensed that they have been allocated just 45 seconds to perform during next year’s World Cup opening ceremony on June 9 in Munich. Millions of TV viewers from across the globe are expected to watch the opening celebrations before the first match of the tournament between Germany and a team to be drawn next month. The folk dancers are also furious after organisers banned women from performing – leaving the men, who wear Lederhosen and Bavarian hats decorated with the beard of a mountain goat, to slap their thighs alone.”

“War has haunted choreographers of all ages and artistic orientations in the past few years. Given that people’s bodies serve as the medium of dance, it is hardly surprising that a struggle involving their destruction preoccupies the art. Still, choreographers are careful about how they approach the war in Iraq.”

A film on Ballet Russes “refers to several linked ballet companies, and the catalyst for the film was a 2000 reunion of veterans of the various troupes. What makes this film delightful is the people involved, the women made-up, coiffed, bejeweled, with their evident joy at seeing one another again, sometimes after nearly 40 years, and their unstoppable reminiscences. What makes this film important is what it tells us about the evolution of ballet as an art form.”

“At the press conference last season announcing her popular appointment as artistic director, Karen Kain was pointedly asked whether the National Ballet of Canada would be going ahead with plans to produce a new version of The Sleeping Beauty. Nimbly avoiding a definitive answer, the erstwhile ballerina reaffirmed her desire to preserve the company’s classical heritage. To some of her listeners, this was a polite way of saying no to her predecessor James Kudelka’s announced intention to re-make yet another of the full-length ballet classics in his own choreographic image… And as much as one might admire the creativity of James Kudelka, the closer we can come to experiencing such a work in its classic state, the better we are likely to understand its classic meaning.”

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet used to have a problem attracting boys for its dance school. So the company instituted a financial incentive program that has seen enrolment for boys grow from about 25 to 250 each year. “The professional division of the ballet has reaped the benefits, with a larger talent pool of young male dancers to choose from.”

Raven Wilkinson, who joined Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1955, was “not the first black ballet dancer to be given a regular post; that honor belongs to Janet Collins, hired by the Metropolitan Opera Ballet in 1951. Nor is she the most famous of such pioneers. Arthur Mitchell originated important roles in several seminal Balanchine ballets in the 1950s and ’60s, then founded the Dance Theatre of Harlem. But Wilkinson was the first black ballet dancer to tour the nation – not only to towns in the east, west and north but also to St. Louis, Macon and Savannah, Ga., Charleston, S.C., and Hattiesburg, Miss.”

“Like a laboratory devoted to the science of dance, Movement Research is so important that without it, much of contemporary dance in New York would be left without a pulse. The organization, led for the last three years by Carla Peterson, was established in 1978 as an artist-centered service institution, and the goal has remained much the same: to foster investigation in dance.”