11 replies to this topic

[dirac]

Yuri Grigorovich will stage 'Swan Lake' and 'Spartacus' in Greece. Item in brief.

Quote

At Badminton theater, choreography of ”Spartako” and a tender adaptation of ”Swan Lake” will be presented. Superb scenes, amazing costuming and a cast and crew of seventy people regarding dancers will come together to amaze and inspire any viewer.

[dirac]

The National Ballet of China performs at the Edinburgh Festival.

Quote

But in 2008, Zhao Ruheng, the former artistic director of China’s National Ballet, asked her young choreographer Fei Bo, then just 28, to take the epic opera and translate it into a two-hour ballet, his first full-length work.

The result, which has already sold out its performances at Edinburgh this year, has been described as a “fusion” ballet, blending Western classical ballet and a classic symphony orchestra with traditional Chinese instruments and a character from Kunqu Opera.

[dirac]

Q&A with Damian Woetzel.

Quote

VD: What is your creative process for the dance festival?

DW: There are a few factors that go into how I make up a program. Some choreographers arrive with a piece virtually finished based on what they want to do — whether it comes from the music or the dancers participating in the ballet. There is a wide variance as to how these pieces are created. For instance, Emery LeCrone is going to go to work with director, Gill Bogs, from the Colorado Ballet to create a piece. Christopher Wheeldon is going to do most of his work and in Vail. He has chosen his dancers and I've spoken with him about the venues and where it's going to happen. Chris takes it from there. Charles “Lil Buck” Riley is bringing a new piece that will probably start in Los Angeles. The pieces are all very individual in nature because a lot of different factors go into it — including length, personnel, type of music and other things we haven't yet thought about.

[dirac]

Q&A with Brett Raphael of Connecticut Ballet.

Quote

Q: What pieces will be performed for the Summer Dance Caravan Middlesex Community College performance? What should spectators expect?

A: Our repertoire is broad, it is not just classical, so we are putting together a program that is appealing to almost anyone who enjoys dance. The Summer Dance Caravan features dramatic, classical and contemporary ballet — featuring "Paquita," a Spanish-style classical ballet, "Indian Summer," a dramatic piece taking place on the eve of the stock market crash in 1929 and "Pulse," a contemporary piece featuring Japanese music.

[dirac]

Alexandra Ballet announces the lineup for its new season.

Quote

"Sleeping Beauty," "Peter and the Wolf" and "The Nutcracker" are among the attractions in Alexandra Ballet's 2011-2012 season.

[dirac]

Greensboro Ballet performs this weekend.

Quote

This performance culminates their 2nd Annual Summer Festival, which has been going on all month long.  It was an intensive for the serious dancers with special guest teachers:  Anna-Marie Holmes, Emery LeCrone,  and Summer Broyhill.

[dirac]

A story on Mikhail Baryshnikov's plans to sell his Sneden's Landing house.

Quote

The 5,880-square-foot mansion on Lawrence Lane overlooks the Hudson and has five bedrooms and five bathrooms. It sits on 1.12 acres and was on the market for US$3.695-million. The home was a 19th-century barn before it was converted in the early 20th century and later expanded in the 1990s. Rumour has it the buyer, a hedge-fund honcho with a home at 15 Central Park West, is planning a big renovation.

[dirac]

An interview with Eric Gauthier by Victor Swoboda in The Montreal Gazette.

Quote

Gauthier, by contrast, has shown a penchant for wit and playfulness right from the time of his arrival in Germany in 1996 as a member of the Stuttgart Ballet. He was a natural interpreting Mercutio in John Cranko’s celebrated Romeo and Juliet. It was Gauthier who persuaded the company’s star ballerina, Alicia Amatriain, to perform the wacky ballet parody Grand Pas Classique with him at Montreal’s Gala des Étoiles in 2004. Its choreographer, Christian Spuck, is clearly an exception to the German heaviness rule. (While at Stuttgart Ballet, Gauthier interpreted eight roles created by Spuck.)

[dirac]

Judy Leering reminisces about dancing with Nureyev in "La Sylphide."

Quote

A friend had asked for his shoe as a souvenir. “I went to his dressing room to ask him and he said, ‘Here, have this one,’” she said.

“As he took his shoe off, he revealed a foot that was tightly bound by bandages.

“I asked him why and he said, ‘I couldn’t even walk without them.’”

[dirac]

A look at the job of the artistic director by Valerie Lawson in The Australian.

Quote

In each case, the dance company boards faced a substantial challenge and responsibility. A great leader of a dance company needs many skills: intelligence -- of course -- empathy, integrity, charisma, stamina, a thick hide, imagination, the ability to multitask and delegate and, above all, a firm vision.

Red flags include too much emotional (or any other kind of) intimacy with the dancers, going AWOL (surprisingly common with directors spreading themselves far and wide), inability to balance the repertoire between safety and risk, and an insensitive manner in the studio. But of course the proof lies in the doing, not at the interview stage.

[dirac]

A story on the Mariinsky's visit to the U.S. by Yelena Andrusenko for The Voice of Russia.

Quote

"The question that bothered me before the tou was: what does America know about the new performances of the Mariinsky ballet? The answer was: nothing so far. Now, Americans have seen two of our new works. Our dancers were really superb both in “Anna Karenina” and “The Little Hunchback Horse”. I was conducting both performances and watched them with great pleasure. We managed to assert our reputation for being one of the world’s best ballet troupes, or, the most admired troupe, if you like. Those are not my words. It’s what people in New York said."

The Mariisnky invited the renowned choreographer Alexei Ratmansky to create a new version of “Anna Karenina” based on Leo Tolstoy’s novel. The previous version was released in the 1970s and starred the great Maya Plisetskaya. Ratmansky came up with an interesting idea: to show the ballet for three successive nights, each time a new ballerina taking the title part, thus offering the pubic three absolutely different but equally magnificent Annas danced by Mariinsky soloists Diana Vishneva, Yekaterina Kandaurova and Ulyana Lopatkina.

[dirac]

A review of "Premieres Plus" by Sanjoy Roy in The Guardian.

Quote

The solos work better than the duets, Acosta showing off his pantherine grace in Miguel Altunaga's Memoria, Yanowsky revealing an introspective side in Kim Brandstrup's Footnote to Ashton. But even here, as well as in the remaining items – a blandly tasteful film by Simon Elliott, and duets by William Tuckett, Edwaard Liang, George Céspedes and, finally, Acosta and Yanowsky themselves – weighty imagery is loaded on to material too thin to support it. It all ends up looking arty and feeling empty, with Acosta in particular casting around for some dramatic raison d'etre. The same goes for Premieres Plus as a whole: Acosta seems to be exploring a new role without yet finding his heart or his guts in it.