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Twyla Tharptalks about her new work, "The Princess and the Goblin," to Gia Kourlas in The New York Times.

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Even though, as she put it, the representational approach to ballet "has been in the doghouse for a while," she sees it re-emerging as a reaction against modernism. Still, there’s always the question of language. Many story ballets falter when the libretto is overly complicated.

"I think that needing to translate into words to tell the story of a ballet is a problem," she said. "The ballet needs to tell its own story in such a way it can be received without having to be translated into language. That the emotions can be felt, I think, that’s another thing. Abstract can tend to be very sterile, and the so-called narrative has the capacity for an emotional connection."

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A reviewof BalletMet Columbus and the Columbus Jazz Orchestra by Barbara Zuck in The Columbus Dispatch.

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Byron Stripling, the orchestra’s artistic director, is onstage with the band throughout and oversees the proceedings with his customary skill and savvy, even breaking into song toward the end of the evening in Randy Duncan’s Testify. The versatile keyboard artist Bobby Floyd offered meaningful moments of his own, this time — in honor of gospel — on the organ.

Add the BalletMet dancers and it’s an embarrassment of riches. After Harrison McEldowney’s overly busy CTA, the company settled beautifully into Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s ode to Gershwin via Miles Davis in Miles To Go. What a joy to hear these timeless Gil Evans’ arrangements live and to enjoy such stunning choreographic interpretations. The standouts last night were Olivia Clark, Annie Mallonee and Jimmy Orrante (casting alternates).

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A KUOW radio story on Pacific Northwest Ballet's "Don Quixote."

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Boal followed up on Baryshnikov's tip. But what he heard wasn't encouraging. Ratmansky's Dutch production was huge. It featured more than 80 dancers. PNB's entire company, including apprentices, numbers only 46 people.

Boal: "I thought, we're sunk! But he said, 'No, wait. We had a lot of extra dancers onstage, we might be able to pare it down.' So, he was willing to make it work. And it's a stretch for us, but it will work."

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The model Anna Zanovello talks about eating disorders in the worlds of ballet and fashion.

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She told the magazine that, as bad a reputation as fashion may have when it comes to diet and body dysmorphia, ballet is worse still.

'Well, I met a lot more bulimic girls [doing ballet],' she told the magazine. 'I think it’s worse in ballet because they check your weight and if you’re above a certain weight, you leave the school. It’s horrible.'

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Gwinnett Ballet Theatre hires a new artistic director, Wade Walthall.

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A preview of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre'snew season by Mark Kanny in The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

I love to turn to some classics and to explore new repertoire," says artistic director Terrence S. Orr. "Our brand-new full-length ballet, 'Moulin Rouge,' will be a fantastic introduction to our repertoire. I am excited by our return to the August Wilson Center and doing another Mark Morris ballet. And we're doing our first Anthony Tudor ballet. He didn't do that many ballets, but they are great. He's underutilized by many people. And it's a fabulous story."

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Sacramento Balletholds in-studio previews of its Cinderella.  Photos.

On Thursday afternoon, artistic director Ron Cunningham welcomed ballet enthusiasts to the event held at their studio at 1631 K St. Cunningham introduced several of the dancers performing in “Cinderella.”

Richard Smith and Rex Wheeler are cast in the roles of Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters, giving them a comic role. Their dance moves brought laughter from the audience at various points. They were also dressed in costume for the performance, while most of the rest of the cast wore casual ballet outfits.

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Another obituary for Dorothea Tanning.

Dorothea Tanning was a fashion illustrator at Macy’s in New York when, at a party in 1942, she met Ernst, who was then married to his third wife, the wealthy American art collector Peggy Guggenheim. Shortly afterwards, informed by a friend that she did interesting paintings, he visited her studio looking for works to show at an exhibition called 30 Women at his wife’s new gallery, Art of This Century. Impressed by a not-quite-finished self-portrait, Ernst suggested the title Birthday, stayed to play chess, and fell in love. He persuaded Peggy Guggenheim to include the piece in the show, which was renamed 31 Women. Peggy Guggenheim was later heard to say she wished that she had left it at 30, because within a week Ernst had moved into Dorothea’s apartment.

From 2010, an item in brief on an exhibition of Tanning's designs for Balanchine by Joan Acocella in The New Yorker.

The three other ballets that Tanning worked on, all for Balanchine’s N.Y.C.B., soon vanished. Tanning, now almost a hundred years old, has lent these designs to the Drawing Center, for a show that will run through July 23rd. In the words of Robert Greskovic’s catalogue essay, trying to remount the lost Tanning ballets would be like “trying to grasp the elusive sleepwalker.” But the drawings are marvellous to look at

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A review of San Francisco Balletin 'Onegin' by Rita Felciano for danceviewtimes.

Yet despite considerable shortcomings, "Onegin" is easy to love; audiences in the three performances I saw were ecstatic. The story telling is clear; the characters layered. Every scene pushes the drama/melodrama a step ahead. The melding of acting and dancing -- Cranko's greatest achievement -- is superb. The ballet also gives dancers, who have been told all their lives "not to act', a rare opportunity to draw on a wider range of their expressive potential. San Francisco Ballet has the artists to bring this off; they cannot be faulted if the material is not better than it is.