Category: dance

Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre has tapped the former COO of the city’s public television station to serve as its interim managing director. Robert Petrilli is credited with helping station WQED out of a serious fiscal hole, a relevant bit of experience, since PBT is running a $1 million deficit and recently asked its pit musicians to take a 50% pay cut.

Christopher Wheeldon is touted as dance’s next great genius. But Tobi Tobias is still to be convinced. “Most observers, dance critics in the lead, are so grateful for what Wheeldon can do, they don’t ask for much more.  Me, I find nothing moving behind the craft—no hint of the deep feeling that can permeate ostensibly abstract work, no creation of an architectural universe that proposes a mysterious and  absorbing world in itself.”

“In the world of dance, one of South Africa’s toughest townships may seem an unpromising place to start an academy for classical ballet. But hundreds of black children have been auditioning for the programme, part of an emerging generation that is taking the country’s arts into a new post-apartheid era.”

“After a disappointing holiday Nutcracker run, Boston Ballet has cut the salaries of virtually all its employees, with some workers taking short, unpaid leaves. The move is part of an expense-cutting plan meant to keep Boston Ballet on track for a balanced annual budget.” The company’s holiday struggles were due in large part to increased competition from the big-budget Radio City Christmas Spectacular, which forced Boston Ballet to move its Nutcracker to a much smaller theater. The company is assuring its employees that no one will be laid off.

Is San Francisco Ballet the “best company in North America?” That’s what Mark Morris told the crowd assembled for the opening of the company’s 72nd season.

Robert Gottlieb deems New York City Ballet’s current season better than usual. But. “We’ve recently been told by Anna Kisselgoff, in one of her farewell columns in The New York Times, that “professional Balanchine mourners” should move on. But to what? To her beloved Boris Eifman? (Yes, she’s still defending the indefensible.) Believe me, Anna, we want to move on—to any large talent that presents itself. That’s why everybody hangs over Christopher Wheeldon, praying that he’ll be the one to lead us into new green pastures. What we won’t do is abandon the standards that George Balanchine established, both for his own ballets and for the dancers in what we still can’t help thinking of as “our” company. Far from wishing Peter Martins ill, people like me cherish everything positive that he does. But that doesn’t mean we have to tamely accept second-rate performances.”

Peter Boal is finishing up his career dancing with New York City Ballet before moving to take over directing Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet. What might he bring to PNB? “Boal is a rare commodity—a great dancer who is not a great star. Charisma, an essential element for stardom, is not part of his makeup—though he’s a disarmingly nice fellow on- and offstage. The glory of Boal’s dancing lies in the fact that it is not dependent on expressive personality. Indeed, it’s entirely free from self-advertisement.”

Colorado Ballet, like dance companies in several cities around America, fretted before Christmas when the Rockettes Christmas show came to town. The company, like many, depends on annual Nutcracker revenues to survive. So how’d the Rockette showdown go? “Not surprisingly, the Rockettes drew huge numbers: 155,063 paid attendance for 64 performances. That translates to an impressive 88 percent capacity. More remarkable are the final numbers from Nutcracker. December’s Paramount engagement held its own, compared with the previous, Rockettes-less run. Some 33,600 attended 31 shows (30,100 paid). That total matches numbers from 2003 – 33,400 (29,250 paid).”

Does “crossover” modern into ballet diminish ballet? John Rockwell argues the point: “Ballet is not over. Of course its choreographers should still be steeped in ballet vocabulary; nearly all serious dancers have ballet training these days. Of course experimentation that is silly or destructive should be condemned. Of course different dance genres should maintain their integrity, even as they evolve. But beware of a mind-set that shuts off all innovation for fear of infection. To close oneself off to anything beyond the embattled walls of the academy is to ignore a whole wide world of potentially exciting dance and of ballet evolution.”

The Joffrey Ballet has given up on plans to renovate and build a new home, due to soaring costs. “The 48,000-square-foot structure, which has been appraised at $4.5 million, was in substantial disrepair. Construction bids to renovate the building ballooned to the upper $30 million range.”