Sunday, November 1

[dirac]

An interview with Wayne McGregor.

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But McGregor is full of energy and revelling in the Venice brief. “It’s a blank canvas,” he says. “We can really invent what we want to do.” And what he wants to do is “work in a way the Biennale hasn’t before”. McGregor wants to deliver an experience that’s not Eurocentric. “Contemporary dance in the African continent has not been widely shared,” he says, “and a lot of South America as well.”

 

[dirac]

New York City Ballet releases a new video, "Thank You, New York."

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The performance, choreographed and directed by Peck, with cinematography by Jody Lee Lipes, is the culmination of NYCB's five-week digital fall season and the finale of a week-long festival of world premiere films.

 

[dirac]

Caitlyn Mendocino of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre talks about her beekeeping.

 

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Ms. Mendicino enjoys sharing her budding bee knowledge with others, including fellow PBT dancers. Her fiance, Brian Dunning, who dances professionally with Dayton Ballet in Ohio, helps her out. He accompanies her on hive visits, which she usually makes on weekends when she’s off from PBT rehearsals.

 

[dirac]

An article on the influence of White Russian emigres on the Chinese dance scene by Paul French for The South China Morning Post magazine.

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Initially audiences were small and unenthusiastic. The Shanghailanders of the early 1920s seemed to prefer lighter fare, and the Chinese evinced little interest in this strange dance.

Then in August 1922, at the relatively advanced age for a prima ballerina of 41, the notorious Anna Pavlova arrived in Shanghai aboard the liner Empress of Canada with her troupe of two dozen dancers and assorted musicians. For the next fortnight Shanghai could talk of little else.

 

[dirac]

A review of Fall for Dance's second program by Marianne Adams for danceviewtimes.

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The most delectable was the world premiere of “to be seen,” a City Center commission by Kyle Abraham set on Calvin Royal III, who, along with New York City Ballet’s Taylor Stanley, collaborated on the creation process. The dance, set to Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero,” was a slowed down, introspective experience of a man existing in conversation with his environment and with his thoughts. Royal, who was recently promoted by the American Ballet Theatre to the rank of Principal, moved across the stage with maturity, plasticity and a very conscientious presence to the legendary Ravel music.  At times he seemed to be taking it in, at times journeying through it, with his emotional response and movement trigged by something within it. It was a path of plain, unperturbed walks with hands in pockets, but also daunting moments warranting of head grabbing, and amid that were strings of sustained plasticity where Royal’s body would weave around its axis, his legs tracing circles with ronds de jambe par terre.