Category: dance

The Martha Graham Company may be dead but the Martha Graham Contemporary Dance Center is opening a new school this month. No, that doesn’t mean the disputes between the Graham heir and the Center’s leadership have been sorted out. New York Times 01/01/01 (one-time registration required for access)

It’s quite possible with the dissolution of the Martha Graham Company, that her works will fall into oblivion. “Whatever its quirks, though, the Graham case is part of a widespread phenomenon: the disappearance, real or potential, of choreography. Even in this era of satellite imaging and fingertip access to unfathomable resources, much of the world’s dance catalogue has been erased.” – Washington Post

“Just as no football fan would ever mistake a Brazilian forward for a German one, so the seasoned ballet-goer likes to think they can tell an American or a Russian from the back of the gallery. Go to any performance of The Nutcracker in London or Manchester this week and you’ll see Danes dancing with Spaniards, Italians dancing with Japanese. Look hard and you may detect subtle differences of style. Yet stereotypes need to be handled with care: the surnames tell only half the story.” – The Telegraph (London)

Two years ago New York City Ballet’s Jenifer Ringer seemed to be caught on a frigid downward draft, endangering a once promising career. But she managed to pull out of her dive to become one of the company’s promising new principals. – New York Times

“The origins of much American entertainment – jazz, blues and rock-and-roll, social dancing from the Twist to the Hustle to college-fraternity stepping, as well as hip-hop culture, just to give a few examples — go back to the African slave trade. Those whose lives were uprooted and stamped with foreign ways in turn left an indelible mark on the art of their adoptive land.” – Washington Post

Readers respond to stories about excluding a 4th grader from the San Francisco Ballet School because of her looks. “Unfortunately, it’s partly due to this knee-jerk reification of elitism for its own sake that ballet has become an airless theater, a music-box model that the rich come to thoughtlessly admire.” – San Francisco Chronicle

Juilliard works at training a new generation of choreographers. – New York Times

It appears from the outside that the Australian Ballet is in trouble. “Yet, as dancers leave the company in what look like droves, the board and management react, as they usually do at times of looming crisis, by appearing not to notice that something is wrong.” So maybe it isn’t. – The Age (Melbourne)

Since the South African government has discontinued funding for dance a new for-profit company has stepped in to see if dance can be commercially viable. The obvious first choice? “Nutcracker” of course. – The Daily Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg)

The National Ballet of Canada has had a rough time in the past year with the public relations fiasco surrounding the dismissal of dancer Kimberly Glasco. The company is hoping to relight its image with an extravagant new production of “Firebird.” – CBC