Category: dance

A Massachusetts judge has thrown out a lawsuit brought against the Boston Ballet by the mother of a former company dancer who died of anorexia. The suit claimed that ballet officials told the young dancer she had to lose weight to join the troupe: Heidi Guenther was 5’3″, and weighed 93 pounds when she died in 1997. Nando Times (AP)

In 23 years writing about dance for the New Yorker, Arlene Croce was a strong voice. “Unlike many dance critics covering a beat, Croce did not write to be liked, or even to be rewarded by her employers. She wrote to be read. She could not be predicted or controlled, and, combined with her intellectual talent and her rhetorical genius, the result could be explosive in senses either exciting or terrifying, depending on whether the reader is on the sidelines of the action or the target of it.” The New Republic

The choreographer and his company have a gleaming new home in Brooklyn. But it’s more than a home; it’s a statement about one of the most exciting choreographers of our time. The New Yorker

The line between athletics and dance have blurred in recent years. Now a group of Italian gymnasts enters the dance circle, working with choreographers to refine their movement. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

A lot of movement, a lot of fuss, a lot of clamor. And for what? “There was a time when this competition gave every dancer their chance. Is it now being turned into a beauty competition where only those resembling a stereotyped story-book image of a prince can pass? Or must dancers grovel at the feet of a bunch of civil servants and beg ?” Culturekiosque

“People regularly spoke of Madam in hushed tones: what would she think of this ballet and that? Who would she like? Who wouldn’t she like? I heard tales of her fearsome authority and her strong opinions, always freely expressed.” The Times (London)

on Thursday at age 102. A dancer with the Ballet Russe and then founder of the Royal Ballet, Valois established ballet in Britain when the country had no classical dance tradition and became a revered choreographer, teacher, and director. “Her influence on the development of ballet in this country cannot be overstated.” BBC

from the UK dance community. Sir Anthony Dowell, director of the Royal Ballet described her as “one of the 20th century’s greatest and most influential figures in the world of the arts.” BBC

An apparent dispute between St. Petersburg and Moscow has interrupted the return of Anna Pavlova’s remains to Russia. Her ashes, in London since the ballerina’s death seventy years ago, were to have been sent back to her native country at the request of the mayor of Moscow; now the Russian Embassy has cancelled the request. BBC

Mark Morris and his company are moving into their new home in Brooklyn. The “sumptuous five-story, 31,000-square-foot building diagonally across Lafayette Street from the Brooklyn Academy” cost $6.2 million and is “a palace of modern dance, arguably the only one of its kind in the United States. ‘This is unusual, and it is also historic and unprecedented’.” The New York Times (one-time registration required for access)