dirac
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The winners of the 2024 Youth America Grand Prix.
QuoteOver the course of the competition, 120 finalists—out of 2,000 dancers—were selected to participate in Wednesday night’s Final Round. The winners were announced at Saturday’s awards ceremony, along with many other dancers who received summer intensive scholarships, invitations to pre-professional training programs, and company contracts.
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A new documentary focuses on the return of Steven McRae from a career-threatening injury.
QuoteDirector Stéphane Carrel followed him for almost two years, step after step, for better and for worse. His documentary hides nothing of the difficulties, the anxieties of this brilliant performer who finds himself forced to start from scratch, or almost. The title of the film refers to resilience, this ability to never give up.
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Nominations are announced for this year's National Dance Awards.
QuoteGraham Watts, dance writer, critic and chair of the National Dance Awards, said: "This is the best year yet for the diversity of nominations across the dance sector with a rich list from flamenco, South Asian dance, dance and musical theatre as well as the usual plethora of nominees from ballet and contemporary dance – all spread over a record number of companies."
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Ballet Jazz Montréal celebrates its fiftieth anniversary.
QuoteThe program includes a new creation by company member Ausia Jones, We Can’t Forget About What’s His Name, Crystal Pite’s Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue, and Aszure Barton’s Les Chambres des Jacques.
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A review of Karen Valby's new book, "The Swans of Harlem," by Marianka Swain in The Sunday Telegraph.
QuoteValby’s group biography, The Swans of Harlem, has a singular purpose: to write them back into history. She does so with righteous passion but in a narrative mishmash that jumps between third- and first-person, and includes some cloying comments from family members, along with more interesting snippets from the quintet’s frank contemporary chats. Valby also points out that racial discrimination is still rife, citing the recent case of Staatsballett Berlin’s ballet mistress telling black dancer Chloé Lopes Gomes to wear white make-up in order to “blend in”.
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Ballet Kelowna closes its season with a ballet based on the Scottish play.
Quote[Alysa] Pires says she believes Macbeth has been so successful because it's quite different from a typical ballet piece.
"When we think of story ballets, often we think of tutus and tiaras, our Sleeping Beauties, our Swan Lakes, and this is something that is really different."
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BalletMet closes its season with "Romeo and Juliet."
QuoteThe ballet − based on Shakespeare’s play about two young people whose intense affection for each other is complicated by their warring families − is the last production overseen by outgoing Artistic Director Edwaard Liang.
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The National Ballet of Cuba continues its tour through Spain.
QuoteThe first of the performances also included the love duet of “Espartaco”, by Plisetsky, Anette Delgado, and Dani Hernández, and “Rítmicas”, by Iván Tenorio, with Gabriela Druyet and Yunior Palma.
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Bejart Ballet Lausanne visits China.
QuoteAfter a remarkable 13-year hiatus, the renowned Bejart Ballet Lausanne made a triumphant return to the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, captivating audiences with a series of performances from April 19 to 21. The company, founded by choreographer Maurice Bejart in 1987, showcased four timeless classics, marking a momentous occasion in the world of dance.
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An audio interview with Australian Ballet's resident choreographer Stephanie Lake.
QuoteFrom performances for the family in the living room and whizzing around the ice rink in Canada … living in different countries, moving from Saskatchewan to Tasmania … and moving between dance companies, and through stages of life.
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A review of West Australian Ballet in "La Bayadere" by Isabelle Leclezio for Dance Australia.
QuoteBefore applauding the incredible talents and hard-work of the artists involved in this production, it is necessary to acknowledge that, having seen the same production performed in 2019 by West Australian Ballet, a great opportunity to reimagine the ballet and bring about meaningful change has been missed.
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A story on the leadership transition at Smuin Ballet.
QuoteFor anyone familiar with the dance landscape in America, particularly here in the Bay Area, Seiwert's appointment to the position was a welcome if not totally unexpected surprise. A nationally prominent choreographer who has created works for companies across the country, Seiwert danced with Smuin Ballet for nine years and was the company's Choreographer in Residence from 2008-2018.
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A woman is found beaten to death near the Miami City Ballet building.
QuoteIn a statement, Miami City Ballet said it “is cooperating with the authorities investigating the tragic incident that occurred in the area outside our building early this morning.”
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Ballet dancers opine on balletcore.
QuoteHouston Ballet first soloist Harper Watters sees it both ways. “I have spent the majority of my career trying to shift people’s perception of what a ballet dancer looks like, who they are, and what interests them,” he says. “So when it comes to this cookie-cutter idea of ballet being pink, it’s frustrating since we all know there is so much more complexity and dimension to our world, and to our fashion.”
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Social pages report on the Youth American Grand Prix gala.
QuoteHundreds of young aspiring ballerinas in white tutus covered the David. H Koch Theater stage, performing a Grand Défilé, a YAGP traditional pièce d’occasion, to open the evening. A congratulatory video with celebrities and ballet leaders was shown, which included Misty Copeland (Principal, ABT), Susan Jaffe (Artistic Director, ABT), Julie Kent (Co-AD, Houston Ballet), Natalia Makarova (Former Principal Dancer of ABT, Royal Ballet, and Bolshoi Ballet), Tate McRae, Kevin O’Hare (Director, Royal Ballet), Sascha Radetsky (AD, ABT Studio Company), Rob Schneider, Sasha de Sola (Principal, San Francisco Ballet), Stanton Welch (Co-AD, Houston Ballet), and many more. This was one of a variety of special video projection sequences, creative and directed by Joshua Beamish.
QuoteThe gala program opened with a banger: Grand Défilé, a YAGP traditional pièce d’occasion, choreographed by Carlos Dos Santos, Jr. set to music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Hundreds—literally hundreds—of students in white filled the stage in packed lines and tight but intricate formations. The dance was as impressive as it was adorable, and there were audible “oohs” and “aahs” all around.
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An appraisal of Ballet West's season by Lee Roka in The Utah Review.
QuoteBallet West’s staging of Red Angels, first set by Ulysses Dove thirty years ago for the New York City Ballet’s Diamond Project, succeeded marvelously in elucidating the transfixing dimensions of the work. It is about as perfect a pure abstract dance composition of top athleticism could ever be. The April 18 performance highlighted the strengths of the company’s deep bench of talents in the two couples: Emily Adams and Dominic Ballard; Amy Potter and Jordan Veit.
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A look at the cultural trope of the "dangerous ballerina" by Margaret Fuhrer in The New York Times.
Quote“I don’t think anyone is going to see ‘Abigail’ for the dancing,” said Adrienne McLean, a professor of film studies at the University of Texas, Dallas, and the author of “Dying Swans and Madmen: Ballet, the Body, and Narrative Cinema.” “What they’re going to see it for, without necessarily being aware of it, is this pop culture idea of the dangerous ballerina.”
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A review of the Estonian National Ballet in "Anna Karenina" by Maggie Foyer for Bachtrack.
QuoteLaura Maya, as the eponymous heroine embodies the fragility of a woman consumed by an overwhelming passion. In a range of exquisite dresses and displaying a challenging range of emotions, she dominates the evening shared with her dashing lover Count Vronsky (Leonardo Celegato) and husband, Karenin (Sergei Upkin). She is a potent figure, defying convention, following her heart and choosing death rather than life without love.
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A preview of this year's Dancing in the Park program in The San Francisco Chronicle.
QuotePerforming at this free 3½-hour showcase are leading troupes like ODC/Dance, Robert Moses’ Kin, and Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu, whose founder and director Patrick Makuakane won a MacArthur Fellowship genius grant last year. Right alongside these established powerhouses, young dancers from the Alonzo King Lines Ballet Training Program will take the stage, along with the ODC Dance Jam for teenage artists and the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts Conservatory Dance Department.
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Tampa City Ballet presents a ballet inspired by Frida Kahlo.
QuoteDrawing on her personal diaries, Núñez aims to capture Kahlo’s complex emotions, which oscillate between physical pain and vibrant exuberance, through a series of dance performances as vivid and revealing as Kahlo's own paintings.
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The Australian Ballet presents "Carmen."
QuoteSet to Rodion Shchedrin’s brilliant arrangement of Bizet’s score, Inger’s retelling of Carmen, created in 2015, draws upon Mérimée’s original novel and examines the ugly manifestations of machismo through the eyes of a young boy. The winner of the Benois de la Danse in 2016, this is ballet on heat and not to be missed.
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A preview of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's final program of the season.
QuoteT’əl: The Wild Man of the Woods — which makes its world première at the Centennial Concert Hall Thursday to Sunday alongside Carmina Burana — is an evening-length ballet based on the oral history of elder Elsie Paul, a knowledge keeper of the Tla’amin First Nation on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast.
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Yuna Yamada of Japan is a winner at the Youth America Grand Prix.
Quote"I want to be a dancer influential enough to make the audience smile," said Yamada, 12, from Sapporo.
QuoteYamada Yuna, a first-year junior high school student from the city of Sapporo, won the top prize in the classical dance category for girls aged 9 to 11.
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preview of New York City Ballet's new season by Rachel Sherman in The New York Times.
QuoteStarting in the fall, in response to audience feedback and what Wendy Whelan, City Ballet’s associate artistic director, called “new ways of life” following the pandemic, curtain times will be pushed up, with all evening performances beginning at 7:30 p.m. (Matinees will remain at 2 p.m. on Saturdays and 3 p.m. on Sundays.) In addition, about 40 percent of the season’s repertory performances will include only one intermission, down from the standard two.
Dieter Graefe RIP
in Ballet Obituaries and Memorials
Posted
Thank you for posting, naomikage. He certainly lived up to the trust Cranko placed in him. RIP.