Sherrie Silver: “Donald [Glover] is somebody who likes to learn, so that made my job easier. I changed the choreography quite a few times. It was really complicated at one point, then I made it simpler, then I changed my mind again and called another rehearsal.” — The Guardian
Category: dance
Classical Ballet Is Rooted In One Russian’s Sexist Assumptions, But Is That A Problem?
Marius Petipa’s 19th century choreography for Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and many more classical ballets is focused on how a ballerina becomes a sculpture in male hands. “The woman goes on point; the man does the partnering. The positions may not be reversed. What’s going on here? Is he serving her or controlling her? He subordinates himself to making her all the more spectacular, but which one is in charge? We can say that such behavior glorifies women — or that it falsifies them.” – The New York Times
How The NBA Exploits Its Dancers
If the body-shaming tactics allegedly employed by many NBA dance teams are troubling, the dancers’ stories suggest that the compensation is worse. Three women remembered getting paid $50 a game; one said she took home $65. Three others said they made just $25 a practice, and one said that she and her teammates weren’t paid for practice at all. To put all that in perspective, the average price of a single NBA ticket during the 2012-2013 season (the earliest year this salary was mentioned) was $50. – Yahoo News
Fortnite Made Dance Moves Fabulously Lucrative. So Now The Courts Have To Figure Out Who Owns What
“There’s no definitive case law determining this.” When the Copyright Act of 1976 was passed, it finally established rules around choreography, with some limited fair use cases around criticism and dance education. Strangely enough, it covered even pantomime, but not an individual dance move as we’ve culturally come to understand it in the ensuing decades. – The Verge
Chunky Move, Melbourne’s Leading Contemporary Dance Company, Names New Artistic Director
Antony Hamilton, a longtime dancer and sometime choreographer with the company, replaces Anouk van Dijk as artistic director. Joining him as executive director is Kristy Ayre, also a former Chunky Move dancer; the two will be joint CEOs. — The Age (Melbourne)
A Dance Is A Dance Of Course, Of Course (Unless…)
Can you copyright the moves? There’s more to the Fortnite video game complaints than copyright infringement. The plaintiffs are also bringing in their “right of publicity,” a different matter that looks at the dance moves as part of someone’s identity, whether the dance is copyrighted or not. – Washington Post
The Pros And Cons Of Ballet’s Ranking System
Most European companies have at least five ranks for their dancers, based on the system developed at the Paris Opera Ballet. Most North American companies limit themselves to corps de ballet, soloist, and principal; the Joffrey does without rankings altogether. And when Dutch National Ballet artistic director Ted Brandsen wanted to make his company’s seven-rank system more egalitarian, the dancers themselves objected. Joseph Carman looks at the advantages and disadvantages of dancer ranks. — Dance Magazine
Wendy Whelan Laments That Today’s Young Students Know Too Little About American Ballet’s History
“Today, as I travel around the country giving master classes, … I can’t help but notice my students’ eyes widening as they look to each other wondering who exactly [one or another once-famous American ballerina] is. … As we navigate ourselves forward, it might be good to glance back more often, to see how and why those before us did what they did.” — Dance Magazine
Ballet Is Catching On In Saudi Arabia (!)
They’re certainly not at the point of having public performances by women in tights and tutus yet, but ballet classes are becoming ever more popular, for adult women as well as for girls, especially in Jeddah. — Arab News
Lawsuit Over “Fortnite” Video Game Dance Moves Could Be A Rabbit Hole
At what point does a social dance become so normalized, that no one flinches to see it? Because individual movements can’t be copyrighted, it’s not like they have an expiry date (like music) when they slip into the public domain. With today’s rapidly evolving technology, where things are easily sharable and monetizable, it might be time to revamp the Copyright Office’s laws for individual dance moves. – Dance Magazine