Category: dance

When Merce Cunningham Collaborated With A Computer Program

No, it wasn’t to generate random patterns of movement; rather the contrary, in fact. Ellen Jacobs, for years his company’s publicist, recounts how, at age 70, when his body could no longer demonstrate to his dancers everything he wanted, he began using a software program called LifeForms: “He carefully moved the limbs of these avatars — he called them Michelin men — joint by joint, in multiple directions, and wondrous new possibilities appeared.” – The New York Times

Rewriting Irish Dancing’s Weirdly Strict Gender Rulebook

Trans dancers are challenging the conventions. Hayden Moon says it’s not easy: “I’d spent years learning to be high on my toes and not make any noise and never let my heel touch the ground, doing all of these very pretty kicks and leaps and jumps. And then all of a sudden I was getting told by my dance teacher that I wasn’t loud enough.” (And that’s the least of the challenges he’s faced in the Irish dance world in Australia.) – Dance Magazine

David Hallberg Looks Back On His Final Days At The Bolshoi

In 2011, Hallberg joined the Bolshoi Ballet as a principal, the first American (and one of the few foreigners) ever to do so. In 2019, he danced what would turn out to be his final performances there, and perhaps anywhere. A New York Times photographer followed him over his last months at the Moscow theater, and here he talks with Roslyn Sulcas about some of the photos. – The New York Times

This Ballet Company Is Canceling ‘Nutcracker’ But Not Its Fall Season

The Richmond Ballet is foregoing its annual cashflow lifeline because the piece simply involves too many people to be done safely while the pandemic continues. But the company’s Studio Series will begin performances on Sept. 15, with maximum audience reduced from 250 to 70 and both viewers and dancers wearing masks. – Richmond Times-Dispatch

Contemporary Dance In Indigenous Stories

Dancing Earth engages in Indigenous futurism — art that incorporates Indigenous perspectives of what the future could look like — by embodying interconnected communities and social change in the company’s story-like performances. In turn, the performances often function as both dance productions and contemporary rituals of transformation and healing for audience and dancers alike. – High Country News

Italy Bans Public Dancing

As in other countries around the world, new cases in Italy are being driven by young people, with several clusters traced back to nightclubs crowded with maskless patrons. Yet the new rules aimed at stopping young people from gathering en masse have also swept up older Italians for whom an evening at the dance hall is a cherished part of life. – The New York Times

In Wake Of Sexual Misconduct Accusations, Ballet School In UK Shuts Down Completely

Earlier this month, more than 60 former students at Ballet West, a boarding school in the Scottish Highlands, accused Jonathan Barton, the school’s vice-principal and son of its principal, of pressuring teenage female students at the school to have sex with him and carrying on affairs with some of them. Over the past week, Barton resigned, the police began an investigation, and the teaching accreditations of both Bartons were withdrawn; consequently, Ballet West is now beginning the process of liquidation. – The Herald (Scotland)