Category: dance

“Dance, by its very nature, lends itself to a wealth of interpretations — by critics, audience members and even the performers themselves.” Paul Taylor says that once his dances leave the safety of the studio, “they cannot help but be transformed into something else, for better or worse. A conversation with Mr. Taylor shows how fraught the relationship between criticism and artistic control can be. He views criticism with a mixture of pleasure and disdain, although he does not follow reviews as diligently as he used to, he said.”

Ballet is ballet, right? Just as in music, a global sensibility has eradicated national styles, right? Not exactly. “Variations in ballet style make life for balletgoers more interesting, by reminding audiences that companies from different countries and schools have very different, culturally inflected ways of performing a codified technique that is generally thought to be the same everywhere.”

Everyone wants to know when the next Nureyev is coming. Or the next Baryshnikov. Or the next Balanchine. Or the next Graham. But why, asks Jack Anderson, are we so bound and determined to replace these legends? They were irreplacable, and the fact that they are gone shouldn’t mean that today’s dance stars should be expected to live up to what they accomplished. By constantly focusing on what the dance world has lost, we risk not recognizing the true innovators of today.

“Few people think of ballet, a highly structured dance form developed in Europe, as a viable exercise alternative, probably because it has evolved as a performance art that required dedication and early training to achieve mastery. There are a lot of people out there who want to dance. They don’t realize you can have all of the aerobics, abdominal work, stretching and strengthening and get it all in ballet.”

Last week San Jose Silicon Valley Ballet said it might have to close if it didn’t raise $1.2 million. So the company applied to the San Jose city council for emergency funding. In the meantime, the company raised the money from other sources, so despite pleas from the company’s director that the city money was the “linchpin” to the company’s fundraising efforts, the city council turned down the dance company’s request for a $100,000 emergency grant.

The Martha Graham Company is back. But it’s been away long before the legal dispute that shut the doors. “In fact, this famous troupe, the oldest dance company in America, had been in trouble long before [heir Ron] Protas took over. Graham, who was born in 1894, choreographed for sixty-five years, but she was in top form for only the first half of that run. In the nineteen-fifties she slipped into despair and alcoholism. Eventually, she stopped going to the studio. The dancers ran the company. Later she dried out, and came back, but on the arm of Protas, whom many of the dancers and staff found impossible to work with. Some quit; others were fired. Year by year, the company consisted of increasingly young people facing, without the old-timers’ guidance, increasingly serious problems: debt, dissension, cold reviews, defecting funders.”

Aussie Stanton Welch succeeds 66-year-old Ben Stevenson at the head of Houston Ballet. “One of ballet’s brightest young stars, Welch has created several critically successful one-acts at American Ballet Theatre (ABT), San Francisco Ballet and other major companies. His appointment automatically boosts Houston Ballet’s international profile, and not just because he’s generated good media buzz for nearly a decade.”

Dance has been a part of opera since its beginnings in the 17th century. But “the biggest difference between choreographing for an opera and a concert dance is not time or money — it’s the role of the choreographer. ‘Your goal is to realize the director’s vision, not your own. Different art forms have more in common than people think. What makes good opera also makes good dance — structure and the ability to tell a story.”

When Boris Eifman started his dance company in 1977, he was spurned by Soviet authorities. ” ‘Back then, the authorities looked on me as a pornographer, not a choreographer.’ His crime was not to dissent from Soviet politics, but to choreograph in a style that challenged the orthodoxies of Soviet ballet. Today, Eifman Ballet Theatre is one of Russia’s prime cultural exports, and Eifman, its 56-year-old director, cuts an engaging ambassadorial figure.”

“Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley — which just Monday told a city panel that it might close by week’s end without an emergency $100,000 grant — on Tuesday said it could stay in business because it raised some of the money in pledges within the past 24 hours, Executive Director Andrew Bales said. Even if Bales is able to make payroll for now, it’s unclear how the ballet will solve its underlying funding problems. Last year, the ballet had to be rescued by four board members who came up with $2 million in donations. And it remains unknown what would happen if projected ticket sales fail to materialize.”