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[dirac]

Interviews with Lourdes Lopez.

Miami Herald via Palm Beach Post

She also learned that she needed to be around dancers and not in an office. That led to her greatest leap of faith, launching Morphoses with Christopher Wheeldon, in 2007. Wheeldon was then ballet’s most celebrated choreographer, and the new troupe was greeted with much excitement. But fundraising and organizational problems led to his departure in 2010. Lopez continues to head a reduced version of Morphoses, turning it into an experimental, project-based company that does one multimedia work a year.

She continued out of what she calls a combination of stubbornness and belief in dance. “Nothing about the arts is easy,” she says. “If those of us who care so much are not willing to go the extra mile, how can we ask people to give us money?” She has persuaded the boards of MCB and Morphoses to let her explore a partnership between the two organizations, with Morphoses possibly serving as a choreographic incubator for the Miami company.

Miami New Times

Lopez looks to technology to bring what dancers do to places people are already gathered. Live-streaming rehearsal footage to a park, a bar, or a pool patio, for instance, could introduce ballet, which has historically and problematically been seen as an elitist art form, to many potential new audience members. "I want to reach out to the community. I want everybody to come to Miami City Ballet. I'm not just targeting and it's not about identifying. It's about being inclusive of everybody," she says, acknowledging that several people have asked her how she intends to reach out to Miami's Cuban population.

[dirac]

Mikhail Baryshnikov appears in "In Paris" as part of the Berkeley Repertory Theater season.

By contrast, Baryshnikov seems to do everything with great passion. Although he has been giving interviews since the '70s, he still finds joy in conversation, holding forth on everything from arts education to political history in a brief phone chat from the Baryshnikov Arts Center in Manhattan. Friendly but also mysterious, he diverts attention from himself to the issues about which he cares deeply, such as incubating new works from experimental minds like Krymov.

"I am a fan; I have seen all of his work," Misha says. "His is a very pure aesthetic."

[dirac]

San Francisco Ballet announces plans for its 80th season. Video.

San Francisco Ballet's historic 80th season will include the Northern California premiere on Feb. 13, 2013, of John Neumeier's "Nijinsky," a two-act work based on the stormy life and career of the famed Ballets Russes dancer set to music by Chopin, Schumann, Rimsky-Korsakov and Shostakovich and performed at War Memorial Opera House by the choreographer's own company, the Hamburg Ballet.

Related.

The opening night gala is Jan. 24, followed by eight programs in alternating repertory, from Jan. 29 through May 12. And, typical since 1944, the 80th season begins with "Nutcracker" performances from Dec. 7-28 in the War Memorial Opera House.

Program 1 includes the San Francisco Ballet premiere of Serge Lifar's "Suite en Blanc"; Jerome Robbins’ "In the Night" and a new work by McGregor to be named.

[dirac]

South African Ballet Theatre moves toward a merger with a modern dance troupe.

It announced the proposed merger between The South African Ballet Theatre (SABT) – formed in 2001 by dancers after the closure of the State Theatre Ballet – and Mzansi Productions, a classically based contemporary dance company co-founded in 2008 by Dirk Badenhorst (an ex SABT co-founder) and Esther Nasser.

The gist of this move was that both boards had decided to pool their National Lottery Distribution Trust funding and resources. The stated intention is to create a company which “will be classically-based but capable of embracing a range of techniques, among them contemporary dance and African dance genres, to ensure wider accessibility and to appeal to a broader range of audience preferences”.

[dirac]

A story on San Francisco Ballet's next season announcement by Allan Ulrich in The San Francisco Chronicle.

Prepared in 1943 for the Paris Opera Ballet, "Suite en blanc" is a plotless, one-act dance set to Lalo's "Namouna." It remains the only work by dancer-choreographer Lifar to maintain even a tenuous hold on the international repertoire, though it survives in Europe and has been danced in this country by the Houston Ballet and the touring Australian Ballet. Why has it arrived here so late?

"Why not?" responds Tomasson in a phone conversation from his office. "It's a good, neo-classic piece. We need and the dancers need an opportunity to mix traditional works like this in with all the contemporary creations. And, of course, there's a segment of our audience who simply likes 'ballet.' "

[dirac]

A doctor gives his wife a ballet for her birthday. Video clip.

‘Probably saved my life because had I been sedated I may have stopped breathing all together,’ says Dr. Luedke. ‘That there is my guardian angel and I just wanted to give my guardian angel something back.’

He knew Dr. Susan was a board member of Dance St. Louis, so he called executive director Michale Uhtoff and proposed an idea

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[dirac]

A brief Q&A with Royal Winnipeg Ballet soloist Amanda Green.

Q:Obvious question: What’s your favourite ballet to dance?
A: In most recent years, I would say Swan Lake.
Q: What would you be if you weren’t a dancer?
A: I do like to knit and my Mom is a knitter. In that aspect I think maybe fashion design.

[dirac]

A review of Avi Scher & Dancers and the Ailey company by Mary Cargill for danceviewtimes.

Avi Scher's third season, like his earlier ones, featured essentially a pick-up company, augmented by some big names; Herman Cornejo, of ABT fame, was the biggest this season. But there was no pick-up feeling about the dancers, as they seemed to dance for and with each other. Scher has the ability not only to make his dancers look good, he also makes them look interesting, and it was pleasant to spend an evening without munching on any stale "after Balanchine" pretzels. The program was varied, balanced, and engaging, though Scher seems to have caught the modern tic of point shoes with bare legs. The small stage made the sight of pale, slightly wobbly thighs a bit unappealing.