Category: dance

So far, donors have been generous. Nearly 87 percent of those who bought tables for the canceled gala donated the sums to the company. Before scrapping their plans, the company had budgeted to spend $23.5 million this season. That’s been slashed to $11.5 million, largely by canceling in-person performances, postponing a $3 million production of Alexei Ratmansky’s “Swan Lake,” furloughing half the staff and reducing dancer contracts from 40 weeks to 27 weeks. The company’s $1.9 million federal Paycheck Protection Program loan ran out in June. – Palm Beach Daily News

It’s not news that the Khomeinite doctrines that drive the Islamic Republic’s authorities are dead set against dance, music, and any other way that women might display themselves to the public. That applies not only to cultural imports from the West, but even to classical Persian art forms. What’s more, disapproval of public dance performance has a very long history in Iran. Reporter Rachel Spence talks to a classical dancer and a musician about the arrest, exile, and imprisonment they and their colleagues face for practicing and preserving their art. – Financial Times

“In the beginning, people kept saying, ‘What are they doing?!’” Mr. Ajala said. “I had to convince them that ballet wasn’t a bad or indecent dance, but actually something that requires a lot of discipline that would have positive effects on the lives of their children outside the classroom. I always say, it’s not only about the dance itself — it’s about the value of dance education.” – The New York Times

“[The company] hosted galas at its St. Petersburg theaters, featuring solos and duets performed by dancers who had undergone weekly tests for coronavirus. More ambitiously, it had begun staging full-length ballets, with a run of … La Sylphide.” Audience members were kept masked and distanced, and the theatre was keeping the dancers on a fairly thorough testing and safety regime. That wasn’t enough: 30 company members have gotten sick, and ballet troupes elsewhere in Europe are watching nervously. – The New York Times

“He has stunned Covent Garden audiences as the doomed Prince Mayerling, a tormented Leontes in The Winter’s Tale, Lewis Carroll’s bewigged White Rabbit and a gloop-smeared Gregor Samsa in The Metamorphosis. But after 15 years as a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet, Edward Watson is to retire and join its team of coaches.” – The Guardian

Sure, the acting is off, critics universally pan them and the dancing can be just so-so, but the category endures because there is still something so great about the completely nonsensical yet formulaic comfort of a good bad dance movie. And yes, while some of the films below are eye-roll-inducing and others are genuinely entertaining, let’s face it: None of them ever stood a chance on an Oscars shortlist. – Washington Post

When Aesha Ash got hired as a City Ballet dancer, she felt the weight of her people on her back. “I wasn’t just dancing for myself, and I wasn’t just dancing to rise through the ranks and be seen by a director to promote me,. … It was so much bigger than that. I was trying to battle stereotypes and biases on that stage every single night. And I succeeded in some and I failed in others.” Now she’s teaching, but she’s still trying to clear a path for other Black dancers. – The New York Times

From this vantage point early in its run — and I’m pronouncing this with my fingers crossed that no virus outbreak occurs — the festival can be seen as a cultural marker in ways both subtle and magnificent. It’s a psychic harbinger, a sign that performing arts survive and that smart, creative planning can win — at least for the small audiences each night, who are screened on arrival and sit on socially distanced blankets or benches, or watch from their cars, and for the coronavirus-tested artists performing there. – Washington Post

“Whether or not companies can figure out how to incorporate digital into their strategy is going to decide which will fold. Linking digital programming to data, marketing and operations is a long-term necessity. COVID has only made this more clear.” – Pointe