Category: dance

Uliana Lopatkina is only 30, but “despite her tender age, is now lionised almost universally as the greatest ballerina today in Russia, a country where they know about such things. Effortlessly, it seems, in the 10 years since a 5ft 9in beanpole with a square jaw and an apparently boneless body emerged from the juniors of the Kirov Ballet, a living legend has grown up around her.”

“On the eve of the Lincoln Center Festival’s revival of his protean 1994 work, “Ocean,” no one argues when the 86-year-old Merce Cunningham is hailed as the world’s greatest living choreographer. But people still don’t entirely know what he is, though. Devoted fans and critics commonly dismiss one aspect or another of his complex art so they can fit it into their own smaller notions of dance…”

“Emerging choreographers face a variety of obstacles, financially and logistically, to their artistic development. There is no clear path to becoming a choreographer, and until companies or funders start to recognize a name, artists are left to secure dancers, studio space and training in a world without apprenticeships. Even for people who grow up in dance, what it takes to be a choreographer remains something of a mystery.”

“From unpromising beginnings as a gawky young dancer, Uliana Lopatkina has become the greatest ballerina in Russia today, and a national legend… Russian ballet had been known for its small, delicate women, but the then Kirov director Oleg Vinogradov was mad about Sylvie Guillem and eagerly started unearthing tall new girls in her image – his ‘basketball team’, as they were known.” A decade on, Lopatkina is changing the face – and the body type – of classical ballet in Russia and beyond, but she remains quite conservative in her choice of roles, as well as in her assessment of what a dancer with her body can (or should) attempt.

“Dance in America is very much alive, and the competitive dance circuit – in which children as young as 6 strut their sequined stuff in jazz, hip-hop, tap and lyrical dance numbers at dozens of events across the nation – is among the most exhilarating and, some say, least artistic of its manifestations. The proliferation of competitions, which were sparse 30 years ago but now draw tens of thousands of participants, most between the ages of 10 and 16, has helped to fuel the growth of private dance studios and to raise the caliber of dance teachers and students.”

Paris has a “new three-week festival, Les Étés de la Danse de Paris (Paris Dance Summers), which will be inaugurated with three world premieres on Tuesday by the San Francisco Ballet. Despite an intense interest in the art form, the city has lacked a summer dance festival since 2001, when it withdrew its underwriting. The Paris Opera Ballet shuts before Bastille Day and nothing in dance happens after that for both tourists and the Paris public.”

“Christopher Wheeldon has split a lot of pants lately. And if his rehearsal antics aren’t quite as outre as those of Mark Morris, no one in the dance world would be surprised to learn that Wheeldon’s demeanor is tilting in that direction. Just as Morris emerged in the ’80s as the savior of modern dance, Wheeldon has, since 2000, been tagged as the great hope of classical ballet. And he’s busy.”

Ballroom dance studios across the US are reporting a surge of interest as a new film about kids dancing and the TV series “Dancing with the Stars” attract audiences. “Two generations have missed ballroom dancing; they haven’t partner-danced. There’s a resurgence now because people see it and want to know how to look like that. When you do non-partner dancing, you’re both doing your own thing. Now people want to do the same thing.”

Negotiations between the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and its orchestra have broken down in the wake of the company’s latest proposal, which includes a 25% pay cut and would give PBT the right to substitute recorded music for the live orchestra on a case-by-case basis. “The orchestra took a 12 percent pay cut in 2002 and an additional 5 percent pay cut in October 2003 to help offset red ink for the financially troubled ballet.” No new talks are scheduled between the two sides.