Category: dance

“ALL — a physical poem of protest … explores what [Mia] Habib refers to as ‘the protesting body.’ It can be performed for up to 12 hours, though the New York iteration will clock in at a brisk 45 minutes. And there’s one other integral component — all the performers are nude. For Ms. Habib, a Norwegian-Israeli choreographer based in Oslo, the result illustrates group strength: What is the power of bodies meeting together in a public space?” In a Q&A with Gia Kourlas, she explains what that power is. – The New York Times

Among the questions: whether Oklahoma! choreographer John Heginbotham was snubbed, why Casey Nicholaw (The Prom) was nominated for Best Director but not Best Choreography, the wonderfulness of Hadestown, and whether or not the Best Choreography award will make the telecast. – Dance Magazine

Just this year so far, she’s made high-profile work for the Martha Graham and Paul Taylor companies, New York City Ballet, and Ballet Across America at the Kennedy Center — and her own company is about to make a major appearance in London. “I’m nervous, and I’m worried, and I stay up at night,” she tells Gia Kourlas, I have so many steps in my head. … Sometimes I think, am I making the same dance over and over again?” – The New York Times

Ink, a London transfer, starring Bertie Carvel and Jonny Lee Miller and directed by Rupert Goold, about Rupert Murdoch’s transformation of Britain’s The Sun into the notorious tabloid it is today, features several dance numbers choreographed by Lynne Page. Sylviane Gold talks to Page about the movement she devised for the show and how it’s different from what she’d do with a musical. – Dance Magazine

“[Othella] Dallas is one of the few founding members of the Katherine Dunham Dance Company still alive — and the only one still teaching, primarily through a dance school she opened in Basel in 1975 … [It is] the only known institution in Europe that teaches pure Dunham technique.” – The New York Times

Warren Carlyle: “Kiss Me, Kate — really more than anything I’ve ever done — has really, really tested my range. It was an interesting challenge for me in that each and every single number had a different approach.” – Dance Magazine

Michael Pastreich served as CEO of the Tampa Bay-based Florida Orchestra, the state’s largest, for 11 years. He steps in at the Washington Ballet for outgoing executive director Michael Mael. – The Washington Post

A new biopic tries to pinpoint it. Nureyev’s glamour and celebrity — he was a regular at Studio 54, where he hobnobbed with the likes of Liza Minnelli and Truman Capote — gave ballet a new allure, which wasn’t hampered by his reputation for perfectionism, arrogance and tantrums.  – The New York Times

Ahmed Joudah began life in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, auditioned for the main ballet company in Damascus as a completely self-taught dancer when he was 16, then had to flee Syria when the civil war broke out. Now, he says, “I’m a dancer and dance is my passport. But when it comes to the official papers, I have no passport. I’m a stateless refugee, so I have no home. I have no place to go back home, to build a life.” – Deutsche Welle

Melissa Young began her career as a dancer with Dallas Black Dance Theatre, and since then, she’s been rehearsal director, academy director, associate artistic director, and interim artistic director – and now she’s got the job permanently. She saw the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater when she was a teenager, and, she says, “from that moment on, I knew THIS was what I had to do. There was no turning back. There was no plan b to fall back on.” – Paper City Magazine