Friday, April 30

[dirac]

Yat-sen Chang denies groping teenaged students.

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The 49-year-old told Isleworth Crown Court he was a "kind person" and did not touch any of them inappropriately.

He denies two counts of assault by penetration on a female aged 16 or over and 12 counts of sexual assault

 

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But speaking today in defence, Kathryn Hirst asked Chang whether he had touched or done anything 'towards any of these young women that was inappropriate or sexual'.

He told Isleworth Crown Court: 'No.'

 

[dirac]

Q&A with Adam Sklute.

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Clearly it worked, you were able to get back and remarkably have a season in November, and you are one of the first troupes around the world to do that in front of a live audience. What were some of your biggest hurdles for that fall season and the biggest lessons you learned from it?

Preparing for the fall season was a tricky time, but before I speak about it I have to take us back to even earlier than that. Over the summer we became the first and the only major company in the U.S., if not the world, to do a large-scale summer intensive program.  We had 265 students from around the country -- we obviously did not open it internationally -- and 75 staff and faculty.  We usually have 400-450 students, but this was still quite substantial.  To achieve that, we had to put in multiple work protocols and manage them very strictly: reduced class sizes and student “pods,” staggered schedules to keep people from being in the hallways, residence in the nearby Holiday Inn Express rather than the usual dormitories, among others.  As a result, we did not have one single illness on site. Not one. From that experience we knew we could make it work if we were really smart about the process, which gave us courage to come back to live performances.

 

[dirac]

An interview over lunch with David Hallberg.

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Now 38, Hallberg started dancing as an eight-year-old. “Fred Astaire was my idol. I just wanted to be like him. I started dance classes and became quite obsessed with tap, I was tapping everywhere. Then, when I was 13, so quite late, I found ballet and that was my calling.” There is a long pause. “It sounds sort of head-in-the-clouds but it really was a calling. It was something stronger than myself. I had to dance. I didn’t question it. It was a force stronger than me. Then there is a question of responsibility to the talent you have been given. Some people adhere to that responsibility and some people don’t. Some people don’t want to work.And then it became a question for me of how hard can I work with this? It can’t just be talent, it can’t just be hard work. They have to pair.“

 

[dirac]

 A review of Pennsylvania Ballet by Ellen Dunkel in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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The suite of dances Corella chose to present is both classically lovely and somewhat old-fashioned feeling, with its backdrop of corps dancers and fussy tutus, tiaras, and hairstyles. It is impressive to see how he managed to turn the intimate Performance Garage, where the digital season was filmed, into a formal space, framed by large candelabras.

 

[dirac]

Nancy Lassalle has died at age 93.

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Over the years Ms. Lassalle had been a patron, trustee, and benefactor of the School of American Ballet and the New York City Ballet. After serving on both boards for many years she continued as trustee emerita.

She also had published a book of her photographs of George Balanchine intensively teaching and demonstrating. An artistic director, Mr. Balanchine was one of the major figures in 20th-century ballet.

Related.

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Her last act was to revive the serial Dance Index, first established by Lincoln Kirstein, and now published by the Ballet Society / Eakins Press. 

 

[dirac]

Victor Glemaud talks about his costume designs for Lauren Lovette's new ballet.

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Glemaud and Lovette decided the outfits should have bold colors and a modern silhouette. “To ideate, we hung up framed artwork throughout my live/work space,” he explains. This led them to focus on one specific piece of art “which featured these beautiful jewel tones.”

 

[dirac]

American Ballet Theatre returns to Orange County.

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“When I think of American Ballet Theatre, I think of perfected technique and pristine work ethic at its finest. I used that as the core of this ballet and branched off into what I thought each dancer might want to do but might not often get the chance to execute,” Lovette said. “What resulted is a very classical ballet that folds itself inside out and shows equal parts conforming and resisting the structure of polished classical ballet.” 

 

[dirac]

A review of Australian Ballet by Virginia Balfour for Performing ArtsHub.

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The three works begin with the classical romantic exuberance of the third act wedding of Raymonda, choreographed by Marius Petipa and staged by Hallberg. First performed in 1898 in St Petersburg, the wedding scene is perhaps the most famous part of the ballet. It fuses Hungarian folk dance with classical ballet in a technically challenging piece. The Australian Ballet first performed the piece in London with Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev in the leads, but the piece has not been seen in Australia in a generation.

 

[dirac]

An interview with Sergei Polunin.

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Sergei Polunin: I think everybody, all the older ballet generation, should be in jail