dirac

The Times piece is an op-ed about female athletes who were/are part of the University of Oregon's track and field program. According to the original news article in The Oregonian, one of the objections of the protesting athletes was that their powerful coach (who seems to be an idiot; he asked one woman if she was putting on weight because she was on birth control) was holding them to Olympic-level standards that weren't appropriate for them: Tennis is indeed an entirely different discipline and it's possible for some female players to compete successfully without maintaining Navratilova-like standards of fitness. There have been times when Williams has toted more weight than is good for her game. I expect that part of the problem is that women naturally carry more body fat than men, which is an advantage if you are a member of the Donner Party but can be a handicap in athletic endeavors. You combine this with the powerful cultural pressures that lead even ordinary women to become obsessive about their looks and weight and it's a toxic formula.

A review of Birmingham Royal Ballet by Jenny Gilbert for The Arts Desk.

A review of the Royal Ballet by Vikki Jane Vile for Broadway World.

Misty Copeland is interviewed for Washington Post Live.

A review of Ballet Black by Mark Monahan in The Telegraph.

Ballet Black presents a new film, "Eightfold."

An interview with Will Tuckett about his new piece for Ballet Black.

Misty Copeland appears on "Good Morning America" to flog her new book.

An interview with Ruth Essel.

A review of the Royal Ballet in "The Dante Project" by Leigh Witchel for dancelog.nyc.

An interview with Maria Kowroski.

A review of Miami City Ballet in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by Robert Greskovic in The Wall Street Journal.

Louisville Ballet gets ready to return to the stage. (TV news clip.)

New York City Ballet's Jenelle Manzi talks about her snack business and skin care.

An interview with Maria Kowroski.

A review of the Royal Ballet by Emma Byrne in The Evening Standard.

A review of New York City Ballet and Bill T. Jones by Jennifer Homans in The New Yorker.

A review of the Birmingham Royal Ballet by Zoe Anderson in The Independent.

A Royal Ballet "Giselle" photo gallery.

Reviews of the Royal Ballet in 'Giselle.' The Guardian The Times The Jewish Chronicle Bachtrack

Interesting to speculate on the reasons - writer's block? Or maybe Croce wasn't/isn't suited to the long form? Maybe there's a lot of material waiting to be cobbled together. Hard to imagine, if they got as far as announcing publication. In any case, I wish her long life and health, and I'm sorry we never got the book.

I get you, but it seems to me a dancer can be too heavy and still not reach the bar of actually disfiguring the choreography or failing to get across artistically. That can leave the critic in a tight spot, and I can well understand resorting to the "euphemism du jour" in some circumstances and not risking the aggravation. (In my experience I've tended to be uncomfortable watching very thin dancers and rarely if ever experienced the opposite sensation.)

A profile of Harper Watters of Houston Ballet by Mimi Swartz for Texas Monthly.

The Royal New Zealand Ballet presents "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

Q&A with Tracey Alvey, the artistic director and CEO of Alabama Ballet.