4 replies to this topic

[dirac]

Kevin Garlandof the National Ballet of Canada announces retirement plans.

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Kevin Garland will retire in June 2013 after more than 10 years as the executive director of the National Ballet of Canada.

“I’m a bit happy … I’m a bit sad,” she said Thursday with a laugh. “One thing for certain: it’s been a truly wonderful experience.”

Related.

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Her tenure turned out to be just as dreamy for the dance company. Among her major accomplishments at the helm, Garland played a key role in the creation of the National Ballet’s new home at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, brought on Karen Kain as artistic director in 2006, helped establish the company’s tours abroad — including a recent trip to L.A. — and grew the budget from $18-million to $29-million, despite the financial hit that came along with the the 2008 recession.

[dirac]

Ballet Austin takes "Light/The Holocaust and Humanity Project" on the road.

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"There is a reason you don't see a boxcar, because it's not about the boxcar. It's about being forced into a situation against your will, into a situation where you are dehumanized, where you are treated less than (human), and what that does to you," Mills explained at the downtown Ballet Austin headquarters. "Hopefully it was metaphoric enough that people understood that that's the way genocides happen."

Mills created the confrontational, distinctly contemporary ballet in 2005 after spending 18 months researching the Holocaust, when Germany's Nazi party exterminated more than 6 million Jews during World War II. The ballet is set to contemporary music by Steve Reich, Evelyn Glennie, Michael Gordon, Arvo Part and Philip Glass.

[dirac]

A piece on the status of women in today's ballet world by Lauren Warnecke in The Huffington Post.

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Either way, Kelly's claim that women are now both full-bodied and put in positions of power is decidedly skewed.

The great majority of artistic directors of the major ballet companies are male. While eating disorders may not be as prevalent as they once were due to the increasingly athletic demands of the artform, thin is still in. Add to this the enormous disparity of the number of ballerinas to the number of jobs available, and ballet is still very much a man's game.

[dirac]

Sarah Lane may come to the rescue of Cork City Ballet, which finds itself without a ballerina for "The Sleeping Beauty."

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Artistic Director of Cork City Ballet Alan Foley revealed to the Cork News that negotiations are now underway in an effort to secure American Ballet Theatre (ABT) star Sarah Lane, who controversially went public last year and admitted she did most of the dancing for the part that won Portman an Oscar. If the San Francisco-born dancer is secured, she would perform alongside her Madrid-born husband Luis Ribagorda, an ABT corps member whom she married in December 2007.

“We are in discussions with Sarah, who is looking at her schedule with a view to working out an arrangement. If they can’t, then we are in talks with another married couple, where she is the principal ballerina with the New York City Ballet,” said Mr Foley.

[dirac]

A preview of the Ballet West gala.

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Truly an evening to remember, this year's Ballet West Gala features a sampling of Petite Mort, Bolero, George Balanchine’s Diamonds, Marius Petipa’s La Esmerelda, Defile performance by The Ballet West Academy, and a new work for Ballet West II – Without Fall, choreographed by Principal Artist and Ballet West II Director Christopher Ruud.