Category: dance

On Saturday, officials announced that the government would withdraw, at least temporarily, a plan that would have raised the full-benefit retirement age, now 62 for many workers, to 64 for all professions. The Paris Opera Ballet’s dancers currently stop working at 42, then receive monthly payments equal to 45 to 48 percent of their top salaries. – The New York Times

“French-born Nederlands Dans Theater alumnus Medhi Walerski has been named the troupe’s artistic director, starting officially in July 2020. … [He] replaces longtime artistic director Emily Molnar, who is taking the helm of the critically acclaimed NDT after the end of this season. She has steered Ballet BC for a decade, helping to bring it out of a financial crisis and taking it to a world stage, where it has won acclaim on tours to Europe and the U.S.” – The Georgia Straight (Vancouver)

“I imagine that Cunningham came to understand not only the value of this kind of in-depth documentation, but the independent strength of the photographs as well. The elemental vitality and spirit of these images will forever celebrate Merce Cunningham’s groundbreaking work, to which he devoted his heart, mind, and body.” – New York Review of Books

“Whether Jo is tackling Amy for a most grievous sisterly infraction or the sisters are tumbling over each other to get ready for a party, Gerwig keeps the sisters in constant, surging motion. That energy explodes in the film’s dance scenes, which happen in sweaty, crowded beer halls, proper Paris ballrooms and even on a snow-covered porch. For the swirling dance sequences, Gerwig and her cast got a big choreographic hand from San Diego’s Flannery Gregg.” – Los Angeles Times

Who better to portray godlike aliens, aerial crime-stoppers and lethally elegant badasses than dancers? Dance training is excellent preparation for the bodily toll of action films and long days on the set. Perfectionism, physical presence, a taste for adrenaline — these attributes are par for the course for dancers. – Washington Post

“While not every 6-year-old is ready to sit through Swan Lake, some enterprising troupes are adding kid-friendly performances to court the same audiences who buy Nutcracker tickets.” Rebecca Ritzel looks at three of those enterprising troupes. – Dance Magazine

“[Lyndsey Winship] talked to dancers and choreographers [Shobana Jeyasingh, Céline Gittens, and Final Bow for Yellowface co-founders Phil Chan and Georgina Pazcoguin] about ballet’s slow pace of change, which problematic ballets should be thrown out and which ones could be creatively reimagined.” – The Guardian

Yuan Yuan Tan wasn’t even intending to join the company back in 1995, but no principal dancer in the history of the company has lasted as long. – San Francisco Chronicle

Pugh founded Ballet Memphis in 1986 with two dancers and a $75,000 budget. The organization grew over the years and now has a company of 21 dancers and a four-million-dollar budget. It also performs a full season in Memphis and tours nationally and internationally. – The Commercial Appeal

Some of these developments are already underway (dealing with ballet’s ethnic stereotypes, more varied colors in ostensibly skin-tone dancewear, more women running companies, the tap revival), some are always to be hoped for (concentrating on health), but a couple might not be so obvious. – Dance Magazine