Category: dance

“Atlanta Ballet has announced it will produce a full-length show based on Margaret Mitchell’s Civil War-era novel, published in 1936. The Ballet was awarded exclusive rights from Mitchell’s estate last year and plans to have Scarlett, Rhett and Ashley on their toes by 2003.” – The Age (AP) (Melbourne)

Why has choreographer Lucinda Childs largely made her career in Europe? “European governments have always spent generously on the arts, with France showing particular interest in contemporary American dance. And when choreographers like Mr. Cunningham, Trisha Brown and Ms. Childs were struggling to find backers in the United States in the early 1980’s, France stepped in to rescue them. Today, Ms. Childs is revered across Europe as a grande dame of American dance. In the United States, though, her work is so rarely seen that she has assumed almost mythical status.” – New York Times

Nijinsky “danced for only a decade and spent more than half his life in a mental asylum before he died in London in 1950” but his life has a grip on our dance imagination. The author of a remarkable 1997 film riff exploring the dancer’s life talks about his magnetism. – Los Angeles Times

The Bolshoi continues in turmoil after the company’s leadership was replaced by the Russian president. New Artistic Director Gennady Rozdestvensky has clashed with ballerina Nina Ananiashvili, who “questioned some statements of his first speech as the leader of Bolshoi”. – Russia Today

“Can Balanchine’s ballets have a viable life elsewhere? The recent Balanchine Celebration at the Kennedy Center answered that question with a yes of Joycean force.” – New York Magazine

Currently one of Europe’s most celebrated choreographers, Angelin Preljocaj sees the political in the poetic and his revisionist “Romeo and Juliet,” soon to premiere in London, is no exception. “We are plunged into a future-world in which the streets have become war zones policed by leather-clad cybercops and Romeo doesn’t just hop over Juliet’s garden wall, he first has to slit the throat of one of her machine gun-toting bodyguards.” – London Times

“Last month, in a shocking putsch on the eve of the fall season, the Kremlin announced it had fired the Bolshoi’s director, the legendary ballet dancer Vladimir Vasilyev, and replaced him with a team of business-oriented managers. The coup was planned with such secrecy that Russian journalists compared it with a KGB operation.” But can the company be saved? – The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

It’s not so easy being a male dancer, writes one of Canada’s most famous male dancers. “Working for four hours at a stretch, without a break, trying to get it perfect, is fine if you are the one being lifted. For the lifter, it is not so fine. It is gruelling. Perfection, in this instance, can go hand in hand with abuse of another human being. It is so very easy for the man in classical ballet to feel resentful, depressed, discouraged, even vindictive, as he fights to be a worthy partner, dancing behind the ballerina, trying to display her at her best.” – Ottawa Citizen

The Lyons Dance Biennial goes Asian. “The focus is on Asia and the silk trade, but folk material has been deliberately played down. The event is essentially a contemporary dance festival, thankfully free of embarrassing Orientalisms.” – New York Times

Where are the mentors for today’s choreographers? Who helps midwife a dance and develop it into something finished, something unique? – Boston Herald