Category: dance

Back in 2005, as they were nearing retirement from Pennsylvania Ballet, Christine Cox and Matthew Neenan decided to put together a little group to dance at the Philly Fringe. They hoped that maybe, one day, they’d perform at Jacob’s Pillow and Vail. Now BalletX has ten dancers on 40-week contracts, commissions major choreographers, does up to eight world premieres a season, and tours around the U.S. (yes, including Vail and the Pillow) and to Europe. – Pointe Magazine

Yorgos Loukos, director of the Lyon Opera Ballet for 33 years, was sacked by unanimous vote of the company’s board of directors. The reason was discrimination: in 2014, he had fired then-34-year-old dancer Karline Marion two days after she came back from maternity leave and shortly before she was to have gotten tenure. – Expatica (AFP)

That’s the quest of some dancers in American Contemporary Ballet as they try to recreate Astaire’s routines. “Although Astaire’s style — the nimble and quick footwork and weightless slides — is not technical, re-creating his dancing for the stage requires a high level of musicality and nuance” – and leaves some dancers feeling like imposters. – Los Angeles Times

In Burkina Faso, hundreds of thousands of refugees from neighboring countries are trying to find peace and a future in the capital. One of them, an 18-year-old dancer who’s been on the run since 2012, “knows that people like him wait years or decades to leave war zones — if the opportunity ever arrives. He must stand out to have a chance.” – The Washington Post

“How is their pelvis shifting? How is their back moving? Is their foot collapsing in as they’re plieing? Is their weight over as they jump onto one foot?” They’re finding points of weaknesses before they turn into problems. – News 5 Cleveland

Some of them are sweet and sentimental, but they can be every bit as weird as those of actors and athletes. Sarah Kaufman talks to a dozen or so dancers from several companies about what they do and why. – The Washington Post

“In his autobiography, Taylor said he had asked Balanchine if there was any way it should be performed. His reply: ‘Is like fly in glass of milk, yes?'” City Ballet soloist Jovani Furlan learned the dance, titled Variations, from Paul Frame (who learned it from Taylor); Furlan has now taught it to, and is alternating performances with, Michael Trusnovec, long the star dancer in Taylor’s own company. Gia Kourlas interviews them both. – The New York Times

“Alberta Ballet’s longest-serving artistic director, Jean Grand-Maître, will step down after a three-year transition period that will see him passing the torch to [company ballet master] Christopher Anderson by 2022.” – Calgary Herald

“Though her work has evolved beyond the minimalist choreography that first garnered her critical notice in the 1980s, [Anne Teresa] De Keersmaeker remains a formalist. Throughout this production, she makes ingenious use of traveling wedge formations, each gang shaped loosely into a triangle with their leader at the point, as they circle, stalk, intimidate, and prepare to pounce. [Director Ivo] van Hove says that De Keersmaeker’s facility in moving groups of bodies around a stage is partly why he chose her to choreograph this musical, as it is one in which ‘groups are really important.'” – American Theatre

“Both are 69 now. As the wife and husband who founded the Los Angeles dance company in 1980, the two continue to strike the delicate balance between artist and administrator” — a job Erwin gave up his own career in journalism to do — “between ambitiously creative and cautiously pragmatic.” – Los Angeles Times