“With just 10 dancers, [Ballet X is] a model of what is possible for small contemporary ballet troupes — and it embodies many of the ideals that larger companies are striving for today. It commissions lots of women. Half of the company members are dancers of color. The work pushes ballet in new directions, whether through innovative story ballets or genre-bending collaborations. It’s deeply rooted in its Philadelphia community, and has fostered an open company culture rarely found in ballet.” – Dance Magazine
Category: dance
High School Students Condense Marvel Movies Into One Seven-Minute Summary Dance
Yes, there are spoilers, but it’s beautiful (and think how much time you’ll save!). – The Verge
A Gender Gap In Ballet Leadership Seems Too Weird – But It’s Real
Girls outnumber boys up to 20 to 1 in ballet classes, and so it seems like ballet would be one place – maybe the only place – where women would have the majority of leadership roles. Nope. “A whopping 72% of ballet companies have a male artistic director. Those women who do get the title of artistic director earn only 68 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts.” And for choreography, the numbers are far worse. – Forbes
At Age 100, Henry Danton Is Still Teaching Ballet
“He’s just completed a residency at the Belhaven University Dance Department in Jackson, Mississippi, and teaches ballet around the state, where he resides in a small town outside Hattiesburg.” (Yes, he drives himself.) The Today show pays Danton a visit. – NBC News
50 Years Ago: Pittsburgh’s Big Bang Of Dance
What was happening here 50 years ago that sparked the creation of two of the city’s biggest and oldest forces in professional dance? – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Choreographer David Bintley On 24 Years Running Birmingham Royal Ballet, And On Why He Left
“I haven’t made anything for three years. First, there is no money, second the job has tilted so much towards administration there is no time to make stuff. I have always said there are two different kinds of AD – those that choreograph and those that don’t. At certain times in a company’s history you will need one or the other. At this point in my life I simply want to make dance. I’m happy not to be a director any longer. I don’t want to be stuck in an office again.” – The Stage
PBS NewsHour Visits Cambodia’s All-Gay-Male Classical Dance Troupe
“In 2015, artist Prumsodun Ok formed Cambodia’s first all-male and gay-identified Khmer dance company — in his living room. Part of his mission was to support the revival of an art form all but destroyed by the reign of the Khmer Rouge. Ok told his dancers they would need to be brave in order to give voice to a marginalized community. He shares his brief but spectacular take on honoring tradition.” (video plus transcript) – PBS NewsHour
How Do People Win Dance And Other Reality Competition Shows?
Literally, it’s the luck of the draw – or where they’re placed before people vote. The later, the better. (Though the very first performers also do well.) Why? The “recency effect” and a kind of grade inflation. – Phys
The Dances That Shook The World
What freaked out Elizabethan England? A dance from (gasp!) Italy, of course, where “a man clasped his female partner tightly around the waist with his left hand, took hold of the busk (the rigid point on the corset below her bosom) with his right, and lifted her high into the air so that his thigh was under her bottom.” Scandalizing! – BBC History Magazine
Reimagining ‘Giselle’ For The Social Media Age
“Imagine this scenario: Hilarion likes Giselle, but she swipes right on Albrecht, and is smitten. Little does she know, Albrecht is already involved with Bathilde. When Giselle finds out, she livestreams her downward spiral (perhaps her hair even comes down in the midst of her heartbreak?), and enters a realm of women who’ve similarly been ghosted, or otherwise spurned by online relationships. This is the basic premise of Joshua Beamish’s new @giselle.” – Pointe Magazine