dirac
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Dancers of the Mariinsky are disinvited from the Youth America Grand Prix gala.
QuoteBut Youth America Grand Prix’s leaders removed the dancers from the program after critics said the organization was lending support to the Russian government by hosting the artists. The Mariinsky is a state-run theater in St. Petersburg led by the conductor Valery Gergiev, a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin.
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Sarasota Ballet closes its season with a triple bill.
QuoteBut for now, she [Jessica Lang] is focused on staging the company premiere of her “Lyric Pieces,” set to music by Edvard Grieg, which she created in 2012 in a commission for the Royal Birmingham Ballet.
A scene from the Birmingham Royal Ballet production of Jessica Lang’s “Lyric Pieces” which she created for the company. She is staging a new production for The Sarasota Ballet. ROY SMILJANIC PHOTO/PROVIDED BY SARASOTA BALLET
It is part of a triple bill that closes The Sarasota Ballet season along with Christopher Wheeldon’s 2001 “The American,” which it first performed in 2010, and Frederick Ashton’s “Sinfonietta,” first performed here in 2014.
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Brett Sjoblom of Nashville Ballet returns to the stage after a knee injury.
Quote"Yes, that's terrifying, but I figured this is what I have to do," Brett said. "This is my last resort. The pain was so bad if I didn't get the surgery, I would have had to stop dancing. That was not an option. It was so excruciating, I had to call it at that point."
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Miami City Ballet takes "Swan Lake" on the road.
QuoteEnchantment and calamity will indeed color the storyline when Miami City Ballet (MCB) reveals this panorama from the perspective of choreographer Alexei Ratmansky. His tending to the work’s 19th-century roots first bore heirloom fruit in 2016 with the Zurich Ballet before our local company took charge of the North American premiere in 2022. Now the production opened in Miami at the Arsht Center this week, then moves to Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center and West Palm Beach’s Kravis Center.
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A review of James Sewell Ballet by Sheila Regan in The Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
QuoteAnother little-known ballet about a controlling wizard titled "Ballet des Porcelaines" ( "The Teapot Prince") is from 1739. A new adaptation by choreographer Phil Chan and producer Meredith S. Martin was performed at Northrop Friday and Saturday, challenging racist tropes of the original, where the villain is an evil Chinese wizard who turns his victims into porcelain.
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Ozark Ballet Theater presents "CInderella."
QuoteWhile preparing for their biggest production to date, David Sanders and Katie Stasse of Ozark Ballet Theater raised money to purchase a collection of Soviet-era costumes from the Kyiv National Ballet while also sewing costumes for their students at their dance studio in Bentonville. At the same time they were also searching for a professional to dance the lead in their production of Sergei Prokofiev’s “Cinderella,” based on the choreography of Vadim Fedotov.
Just a week after Sanders joined us for an interview, their Prince Charming was called away on a family emergency. And that left the couple who run the ballet school together to find not only Cinderella but her Prince Charming, too
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A review of Pacific Northwest Ballet by Rich Smith in The Stranger.
QuoteLast time, PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal & Co. paired choreographer Crystal Pite's masterful, hyperkinetic meditation on nature with some very good but more or less disconnected ballets. This time, the program felt so cohesive it amounted to a religious experience—one that, incidentally, might best be experienced from the cheap seats.
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A gala in Seoul featuring dancers from the Bolshoi Ballet is canceled.
QuoteThe organizer, Ballet & Model, who had signed a deal with the Sejong Center last October to stage the show at the venue, made several changes to the cast and program on March 28.
The number of ballet dancers decreased from 20 to 8, with the number of Bolshoi Ballet's principal dancers down from 12 to six. Six programmed pieces were scrapped, while four new numbers were added.
QuoteA ballet performance in South Korea featuring dancers from Russia's Bolshoi Ballet was cancelled abruptly, the organisers confirmed to AFP Tuesday, amid growing tensions between Seoul and Moscow over Ukraine and North Korea.
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Nashville Ballet presents "Romeo and Juliet." TV news video.
QuoteNashville Ballet has announced the highly-anticipated production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet will return to Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Jackson Hall on April 20 - 21, 2024 under the artistic direction of Nick Mullikin.
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A review of Pacific Northwest Ballet by Moira Macdonald in The Seattle Times.
QuoteThere’s a moment, while watching Crystal Pite’s glorious “The Seasons’ Canon” at Pacific Northwest Ballet, when you suddenly forget to breathe, dazzled by a vision of bodies caught in light. The particular movement in that moment is simplicity itself: A long line of dancers perpendicular to the audience — it seems to be endlessly stretching, upstage and beyond — raise their arms in unison, and drop them on different beats. And yet, the shapes made by those arms, falling like lacy dominoes, seem beautiful in an otherworldly way, creating a sort of creature that briefly comes to life, making from a group of bodies something you could never have imagined. That’s the wonder of dance, and it’s what Pite’s so good at here: creating a language of movement, making dancers seem not mortal but magical.
Review of PNB by Melody Datz Hansen in Broadway World.
Quote“The Calling,” a four minute solo piece by PNB’s next resident choreographer Jessica Lang, is also a returning favorite. Performed Saturday night by soon-to-retire principal dancer James Yoichi Moore, “The Calling” has never seemed to me like a piece to be witnessed, but more a private moment of grief and redemption the audience is privileged to glimpse.
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Southern California Ballet presents Coppélia.
QuoteThis is the first time Southern California Ballet has staged the complete two-hour ballet since 2018, said Toby Batley, SCB’s co-artistic director with Martha Leebolt.
“We want to give our dancers the opportunity to do a full-length classical ballet from the Romantic Era,” Batley said. “The music is beautiful and likely will be recognized.”
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Q&A with Julianna Rubio Slager of Ballet 5:8.
QuoteThere’s a power dynamic in traditional pas de deux, especially when women are in pointe shoes. Is there anything that emerged for you choreographing this that surprised you or felt like a departure from what you expected?
Yeah, I think what’s cool about it is that even when lifts are involved I focused on sharing weight and a dynamic of coordination where the female is just as involved as the male. In classical ballet there’s a lot of “Now I pose and you lift me” kind of thing. Here they’re kind of tangled up together and a lift emerges out of it. It was really fun to create. It really empowered me as a female choreographer to get involved and not just copy what’s been taught to me, but find my own way of moving. -
Photo gallery from a party for Alonzo King's Lines Ballet.
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Cleveland Ballet's interim president and CEO gets the job permanently.
Quote[Larry] Goodman, a former board member, became Interim CEO in December following the resignation of founding CEO Michael Krasnyansky and the termination of his wife and founding artistic director Gladisa Guadupe. During his short tenure, Goodman came to better appreciate the dance company and wanted to continue his work.
QuoteThe interim leader of Cleveland Ballet, installed in December 2023 to stabilize the organization in a time of turmoil, now has the job on a permanent basis.
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Steven McRae talks about recovering from injury and the need for companies to take better care of dancers.
QuoteMcRae became one of the company's biggest stars, but he did it by pushing his body to extremes with little care for his physical and mental well-being, relying on a steady intake of painkillers to survive performances and being so burned-out that he felt emotionally numb when he came off stage.
Something had to give, and, aged 35, it was his Achilles.
"Now I know I was dangerously underweight and not as powerful as I thought," he said.
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Clare Kretzschmar is the new artistic director of Ballet Hartford.
QuoteBallet Hartford co-founder Leyna Doran is stepping down from the artistic director position but is not leaving the company. She will take on a new role as executive director.
Kretzschmar and Doran are among the choreographers contributing to “Planets,” a series of dances set to the famous score “The Planets” by Gustav Holst. Kretzschmar is choreographing the “Venus” section while Doran is doing “Saturn.”
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Dancers at Youth America Grand Prix set a world record.
QuoteUnder Guinness’s rules, once enough dancers were there, they would have to stay on pointe for 60 seconds. Bianca was not worried. “One minute isn’t that hard,” she said. “I’m so used to doing it for longer.” Kendall Morgan, 13, from Los Angeles, said it took practice and strength to stay on pointe “and make it look good.” But like Bianca, she said she was ready. “This is something we’ve worked on since we were little,” she said.
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A preview of San Francisco Ballet's 2025 season by Joshua Kosman in The San Francisco Chronicle.
QuoteFor her second season as artistic director of the San Francisco Ballet, Tamara Rojo has planned a program dedicated to the work of Dutch choreographer Hans van Manen, full-length story ballets by herself and Kenneth MacMillan, and a celebration of recent choreography from the U.K. under the title “Cool Britannia.”
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The Aspen Santa Fe Ballet announces its summer season.
QuoteThe series opens with a curated “Gala Performance” featuring dancers from Joffrey Ballet, Royal Ballet, Houston Ballet, Boston Ballet, and Ballet West and will run for two evenings. Time-honored classical works interlace with neo-classical works by Christopher Wheeldon, Ulysses Dove, Yuri Possokhov, Gerald Arpino, and William Forsythe. The Joffrey’s celestial “Round of Angels” danced to Mahler’s “Adagietto” crowns this truly exquisite evening of dance.
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Grand Rapids Ballet appoints a new executive director.
QuoteCurrent Executive Director Glenn Del Vecchio, who has been with Grand Rapids Ballet since 2009, is “ready for the next adventure in his journey” after 15 years of leadership, according to the organization.
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A review of San Francisco Ballet's "Mere Mortals" by Saul Sugarman in The Bold Italic.
Quote“Mere Mortals” at San Francisco Ballet gave so much sensory input that it feels impossible to convey in words, but I think that’s part of the point. Here is a show I could easily see at Coachella, the Super Bowl, or an OG Lady Gaga music video. It is so much, from provocative costumes to never-ending beats, visuals, and of course very synchronous, bending dance; Not mind-bending per se, but the actual sort of contortion I’ve come to expect from Cirque du Soleil.
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A review of Swedish National Ballet by Maggie Foyer for Bachtrack.
QuoteWith Royal Swedish Ballet, it was a treat to watch two 19-year-old dancers, Maya Schonbrun and Darrion Sellman making their debuts in the lead roles. Schonbrun is an exceptional talent. She captured the two characters giving both Odette and Odile distinct, well-rounded interpretations; no mean feat, even for a seasoned ballerina. Technically her Odile was first rate. Her musicality and dramatic focus never faltered and she executed a faultless series of fouettés. Her Odette displayed the iconic arched back and sweep of neckline for a swan queen, beautiful classical line and effortless balance. Schonbrun is a joy to watch and a name we’ll be hearing more of.
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Tupelo Ballet presents "Cinderella."
QuoteThe entire company of 55 dancers is involved, along with a few younger dancers in walk-on rolls and three male guest artists dancing with the company.
They've been rehearsing since early January, and many new costumes have been added to the production since the last time it was performed by Tupelo Ballet in 2013,
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A review of San Francisco Ballet by Katie Sweeney for The Bold Italic.
QuoteGender fluidity isn’t traditionally associated with ballet, where the women wear point shoes and play princesses while the men lift the women and portray kings. However, with Dos Mujeres, SF Ballet is moving beyond stereotypical gender roles. Upon returning home to her family’s restaurant in Cuba after her mother’s death, Carmen, danced by principal Sasha de Sola, falls in love with a female chef. But she brought her husband with her. A love triangle emerges between Carmen, the knife-wielding chef, Escamillo, played by Jennifer Stahl, a powerful female figure, and Joseph Walsh, the husband, whose movements mimic toxic masculinity.
Sunday, April 21
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Yuna Yamada of Japan is a winner at the Youth America Grand Prix.