12 replies to this topic

[dirac]

Atlanta Balletreceives a $2 million grant.

Quote

Beyond benefits to daily operations, the gift will establish a long-sought cash reserves fund, which will serve as an internal line of credit for the company.

Atlanta Ballet has been on a creative and operational roll in recent years, especially with the 2010 opening of the opening its headquarters Michael C. Carlos Dance Centre, a $10.9 million conversion of 1955 appliance factory on Marietta Boulevard, on the edge of Atlanta's burgeoning Midtown West district.

[dirac]

Ballet Jörgen Canadahas to cancel a proposed visit to Yellowknife for financial reasons.

Quote

But the funding for the tour didn't come through. A federal government grant which would have helped bring the troupe to Yellowknife was $40,000 short of what was needed.

Artistic director Bengt Jörgen said the company was willing to cover half of the shortfall, but needed to find private-sector funding for the rest. The company didn't find a sponsor, so the show had to be cancelled.

[dirac]

Personnel changes at Rochester City Ballet.

Quote

Rachel DeGuzman has joined the staff as director of advancement, and Kylee Fassler has been hired as development manager. Deborah Tretter has been promoted from communications manager to senior marketing manager.

DeGuzman was hired to lead the newly integrated marketing and development departments and establish new strategic partnerships and projects for Rochester City Ballet. She previously served as the marketing and publicity manager at the Nazareth College Arts Center, as well as director of development and communications at The Commission Project and director of development at Garth Fagan Dance. She is chair of the New York, New York marketing committee for the Visit Rochester Industry Council.

[dirac]

Atlantic Ballet Theatre of Canada presents "Ghosts of Violence" in London.

Quote

London Abused Women’s Centre (LAWC) and the London Coordinating Committee to End Woman Abuse (LCCEWA) are presenting a one-night performance of Ghosts of Violence, Feb. 22, at the Paul Davenport Theatre at the University of Western Ontario. Ghosts of Violence is a ballet performance inspired by the lives of women who have lost their lives at the hands of an intimate partner.

Related.

Quote

The full-length production grew out a short work artistic director and choreographer Igor Dobrovolskiy created in 2007 for a fundraiser for the New Brunswick Silent Witness Project, a Canadian chapter of a North American-wide campaign to raise awareness of ­domestic homicide and its victims. The original piece drew such strong response from the audience that Dobrovolskiy began receiving requests to choreograph a full-length work.

[dirac]

A review of 2011 in danceby Carolyn Kelemen for explorehoward.com.

Quote

It was just last summer that the stunning, 5-foot-10-inch Alicia (now known officially as Alicia Graf Mack) rejoined Ailey's troupe. Soon she was back in the thick of a world tour that garnered her much deserved recognition for her sublime dancing.

Still, my fondest remembrance of Alicia's dancing came in late spring at the Ballet Royale studio on Red Branch Road, where she danced a solo for friends, families and, especially, for mentor Donna Pidel. Indeed, the Columbia native is the shiniest star in this planet's dance galaxy, and ranks first in our list of best dance performances of 2011.

[dirac]

A preview of the new yearin dance by Paula Citron in The Globe and Mail.

Quote

The event with the biggest hype. The Bolshoi Ballet (Sony Centre, Toronto, May 15-19; NAC, Ottawa, May 23-26) is, along with the Kirov, the summit of classical dance. The fact that both companies have toured within a year of each other is a balletomane’s dream. Nonetheless, the Sony Centre needs to be more adventurous. The Bolshoi is performing Swan Lake in Toronto, which the Kirov performed in the city last year. Ottawa, meanwhile, gets Don Quixote by the Bolshoi; last year it got the Kirov’s La Bayadère. Toronto doesn’t need another Swan Lake so soon: Whether choreographed by Konstantin Sergeyev (Kirov), or Yuri Grigorovich (Bolshoi), it’s essentially the original Petipa/Ivanov version.

[dirac]

Frank Augustynwill hold a workshop this weekend.

The first ballet workshop was held in January 2007. “That first year was a lot of work, but it’s grown along with the arts centre and is now on its annual roster,” she said. “We get people coming from across the province. The majority of participants aren’t from Cambridge.”

Augustyn is currently the chair of the dance department at Adelphi University in Long Island, NY. He joined the Ballet Company of Canada in 1970 and has danced on major stages all over the world, working alongside some of the best choreographers.

[dirac]

An article about Andrey Konchalovskiy's Nutcrackerfilm by Matt Singer for IFC.com.

Quote

Okay, so clearly he wasn’t that obsessed with “The Nutcracker.” In fact, it kind of sounds like he doesn’t like “The Nutcracker” at all. And yet he still spent twenty years trying to adapt it. His eventual solution was to remove all the ballet from the ballet and replace its “quite poor story.” Andrey, I’m sorry. When you turn “The Nutcracker” into the adventure of a little girl and an obnoxious toy fighting giant rats dressed like Nazis who dance and occasionally electrocute sharks, you lose the right to call anything a “quite poor story.” That’s just how it works.

[dirac]

The Myers Dance Centerwill hold and open house.

Quote

The event will feature a demonstration by the Northeast Ballet company class and a reception with the dancers immediately following.

[dirac]

Toni Bentley's "The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir" is adapted as a play in Spain.

Quote

The language in Ms. Bentley’s memoir is explicit and its attention to detail is often as extreme. Ms. Stoffel stuck to the original text, blending Ms. Bentley’s thoughts and emotions with some of her more down-to-earth and even empirical observations. At one point, for instance, she launches into a lesson in anatomy. The audience follows her presentation with the help of an overhead projector and slides of the human body, part of the clever set designed by Alain Bainée, who has worked with the movie directors Woody Allen and Pedro Almodóvar.

[dirac]

Dance Magazine has published its 2012 25 to Watch. Thanks to Helene for the link!

Quote

Houston Ballet’s newest principal, Danielle Rowe, is a modern version of an old-fashioned ballerina. Queenly without added pretension, Rowe possesses an understated regal quality without the heavy dust of nostalgia. In Ben Stevenson’s Sleeping Beauty, her Lilac Fairy oozed fresh sparkle. In Wheeldon’s Rush, her true colors came forth. Rowe understands Wheeldon’s potent use of geometrical shape as a pause, charged with purpose, never stagnant. “Rush allowed me to cultivate my ability to highlight shapes amidst movement,” says Rowe, who joined HB last February after 10 years with The Australian Ballet. “I discovered the significance of stillness and its ability to give greater depth to my dancing.” There’s always a sense of proportion in her movement, a just-enough-ness that locks our eyes onto her....

[dirac]

The chairman of Ballet San Jose resigns.

John C. Fry, president of Fry's Electronics, is expected to resign Thursday as chairman of Ballet San Jose's board of directors. According to Stephanie Ziesel, the ballet's executive director, Fry "wanted to be less involved" with administrative duties. He has served as chairman since 2004. But his firm, Ziesel said, will continue its financial support: Fry's has given more than $20 million to the ballet company since March 2004.

[dirac]

Twyla Tharp is interviewed by Hedy Weiss in The Chicago Sun-Times.

Tharp first turned to Sinatra songs in 1976 when she created a duet, “Once More Frank,” for American Ballet Theatre. In 1982, her own company danced the premiere of “Nine Sinatra Songs,” which is widely considered to be one of her finest pieces, and has subsequently been performed by dozens of other troupes. That work also served as the source for the 1984 “Sinatra Suite,” which was devised for Ballet Theatre and put Mikhail Baryshnikov in the spotlight.

(According to Tharp, she and Baryshnikov had hoped Sinatra would actually sing at an ABT gala back then, but it never happened. Yet in 1983, Sinatra requested that Baryshnikov perform Tharp’s piece at his Kennedy Center Honors award ceremony.)