12 replies to this topic

[dirac]

A co-founder of Ballet B.C., David Y.H. Lui, is dead at 66.

http://www.theglobea...article2169132/

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Mr. Rankin says Mr. Lui had a history of heart problems but he isn't sure what caused his death on Wednesday.

http://www.cbc.ca/ne...d-lui-obit.html

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Lui was a prominent member of the performing arts scene in B.C. for more than 40 years, founding Ballet BC and Dance Spectacular, later replaced by the Dance Alive series.

He also was founding artistic director of the cultural program at the Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival and the developer behind the Scotiabank Dance Centre, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. A rooftop garden at the centre is named after him.

[dirac]

A review of the Royal Academy exhibition "Degas at the Ballet" by Alastair Smart in The Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph...ine-review.html

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How do you solve a problem like the Impressionists? So familiar have their scenes become, so many table mats and biscuit tins do they adorn, it’s easy to forget just how groundbreaking they were.

Which leaves today’s curators in rather a pickle: how to stage an Impressionist show that recaptures the radical spirit of old? One option, that adopted for "Degas & the Ballet", is to suggest a startling twist to the art we think we know so well. In this case, it’s to stress the importance of photography and early film on Degas’ dance scenes. And the result? An undeniable success.

[dirac]

An interview with Karen Kain.

http://www.edmontonj...4322/story.html

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“I’m so proud of the company as it stands today, but I remember when Celia Franca invited Nureyev into our midst and we had an extraordinary decade, kind of on his coattails. We developed an international reputation because we were suddenly appearing every summer in New York and Chicago and all over the place.

“Dance (in the 1970s) was really on the up level of the dance boom with all the defectors from Russia and all the mystery and passion surrounding all that. It was just such a wonderful time to be a young dancer. And now I struggle to provide the kind of opportunities we had then. I struggle to provide those for the artists of today because it just is a different time and it’s more difficult to go on tour.”

[dirac]

Dance listings for the fall season by Sid Smith in The Chicago Tribune.

http://www.chicagotr...0,6886888.story

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Fall looms as a dance bonanza. Twyla Tharp premiering a new work at Hubbard Street, the Joffrey Ballet unveiling a new full-length and Robert La Fosse returning after too long an absence — and that's all just in the latter half of one week in October.

[dirac]

Dancers from "Ocean's Kingdom" have their picture taken by the Hudson.

http://6thfloor.blog...lent-excursion/

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On a Friday evening two weeks ago, 10 dancers from the New York City Ballet and Peter Martins, the ballet master in chief, headed over to the Hudson River at 145th Street for our photo shoot with Ryan McGinley for this week’s Look. They were in full costume and hair and makeup for the new ballet “Ocean’s Kingdom,” for which Paul McCartney has just composed a score and for which Stella McCartney has designed the costumes. Our crew consisted of McGinley’s photographic team, including the lighting designer Chris Bisagni; a coterie of hair and makeup artists; members of the McCartney creative team; and others from the the ballet company.

[dirac]

An obituary for Lui in The Vancouver Sun.

http://www.vancouver...0734/story.html

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He was also the leading force behind Ballet BC, founding it in 1985 with Jean Orr, president of the Vancouver Ballet Society, just as Vancouver was getting ready to welcome the world to Expo 86.

The Pacific Ballet Theatre, the city’s leading dance company, had fallen apart after being in operation for 10 years, leaving a hole in the city’s cultural scene. Lui stepped in to fill the gap, calling a meeting of the major art funders in the city — the mayor, the provincial government’s cultural services branch and the Canada Council and set the ball rolling for the creation of Canada’s fourth ballet company.

[dirac]

An interview with Merrill Brockway.  

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The director and producer of that series [Dance in America], Merrill Brockway, is now helping a new generation meet those artists and view their work. Last spring Mr. Brockway, 88, published a memoir, “Surprise Was My Teacher” (Sunstone Press), which details his career during a golden age of television and his collaborations with dancers like Graham, Balanchine, Merce Cunningham and Twyla Tharp. He was also allowed to donate the archive to the National Dance Institute of New Mexico for educational purposes.

[dirac]

A review of the National Ballet of Canada by Bob Clark in The Calgary Herald.

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In the world-premiere performance on the National’s mixed program — of James Kudelka’s very likable homage to Johnny Cash, entitled The Man in Black — six Cash covers of well-known songs by Ian Tyson, Gordon Lightfoot, Springsteen, and others, are given some spirited contemporary ballet-meets-country and western dance treatment by three men (Kevin D. Bowles, Patrick Lavoie, and Jonathan Renna) a woman (Stephanie Hutchison), all in cowboy boots.

Though too illustrative of song lyrics at too many points (word painting, anyone?), Kudelka’s choreography nevertheless impressed with its brand of big-step, line dance ingenuity — especially in the work’s frequent close formations — as well as with the energy and facility of the dancers who brought the sextet to such entertaining life.

[dirac]

Another obituary for David Y.H. Lui.

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Since the 1970s, Lui has been responsible for bringing many arts performances to B.C., founding many B.C. arts organizations, including the B.C. Arts Council and developing the Scotiabank Dance Centre. He was also involved in designing the on-land cultural program for Vancouver’s Dragon Boat Festival.

[dirac]

Dance listings for the new season by Claudia La Rocco in The New York Times.

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The company returns to City Center, and so does Twyla Tharp’s exhilarating “In the Upper Room,” celebrating its 25th anniversary. There will be a premiere, from the Stuttgart Ballet’s Demis Volpi, but otherwise it’s modern dance all the way: Merce Cunningham’s “Duets,” Martha Clarke’s “Garden of Villandry” and, appropriately, Paul Taylor’s Great Depression-era “Black Tuesday.” (There will, don’t worry, be plenty of ballet-ballet at the Metropolitan Opera House season, including “The Dream,” “Giselle,” “Apollo” and “The Bright Stream.”)

[dirac]

A story on the Royal Academy's new exhibition, 'Degas and the Ballet,' by Paul Levy in The Wall Street Journal.

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So, the ballet pictures are not "about" a tableau of loveliness that ravished his senses, or sexual desire. Degas famously said: "They call me the painter of dancers, not understanding that for me the dance is a pretext for…rendering movement." The curators of this show mostly buy into this—that these pictures (and plenty of the posthumously discovered and cast sculptures, too) are his response to the challenge of rendering the human figure in motion (and, of course, he did this for horses in his celebrated racing pictures).

This leaves a few questions unanswered, one of which is why did he ignore the many male dancers available for him to observe, draw and paint.....

[dirac]

A review of the Australian Ballet's 'Romeo and Juliet' by Carol Middleton for Australian Stage.

http://www.australia...ian-ballet.html

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Graeme Murphy’s new production of Romeo & Juliet is a visual delight. We gasped in awe as the curtain rose on the opening tableau – the lovers entwined within a conch shell, reminiscent of paintings of The Birth of Venus. From this entrancing start the scenes unfurl in subtle palettes of colour, notably mauve and emerald and silver. Juliet’s home – the icy domain of the Capulet family – is a constantly changing crystal palace, the colors and textures echoed in the extraordinary and beautiful costumes of designer Akira Isogawa.

[dirac]

A review of the Grand Rapids Ballet Company by Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk in The Grand Rapids Press.

http://www.mlive.com...company_ce.html

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Kowroski was radiant as the heroine of the illusive story, sweet and simple one moment, fiercely complex the next. Askegard's partnering was rock solid. They project energy and fill space with motion in remarkable ways.

The evening opened with Paul Taylor's “Company B” a work of modern dance created for Houston Ballet, so it's a little of both, set to the music of The Andrew Sisters. Two numbers featured newcomers, Steven Houser, dancing to “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” with boyish charm. Tara Gragg, a trainee, worked her young womanly wiles over a cast of six men in “Rum and Coca-Cola.”