Monday, November 15

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Misty Copeland and ballerinas of Dance Theatre of Harlem are featured in a segment of WBUR's "Tell Me More!"

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In this iteration of “Tell Me More!,” Copeland will join — for the first time ever — four pioneering Black ballerinas, Lydia Abarca-Mitchell, Sheila Rohan, Gayle McKinney-Griffith and Karlya Shelton-Benjamin, who made history domestically and internationally in the 60s and 70s as part of the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

 

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Leadership resignations at the Springfield Ballet Company.

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The board president and the artistic and associate directors of the Springfield Ballet Company have resigned less than a month before its biggest production is set to return a year after COVID-19 wiped it out.

 

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A review of the National Ballet of Canada by Rebecca Ritzel in The Globe and Mail.

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Three classic roles in the ballet, set to Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, went to company stalwarts. Jurgita Dronina radiated joy, as well as stunning technical prowess, as the Russian Girl. Each gesture was so well articulated that Dronina – who spent the pandemic birthing her second child and teaching floor barre from a playroom – summoned every eye in the crowd with a flick of her wrist. Tanya Howard checked her balance a handful of times as the Dark Angel, but was otherwise a poised Charon-like figure ushering dancers into the next world. Jumps were the most difficult skills for the dancers to maintain during the pandemic, and a few leaps did look weak during Serenade. Sonia Rodriguez compensated by bringing nuanced delicacy to the Waltz Girl, and was ultimately carried offstage by four men, her own abs of steel bracing her back in an arch.

 

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A preview of Twyla Tharp's new program, "Twyla Now," by Gia Kourlas in The New York Times.

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For the program, she starts with works she already has — sort of. The first of the three is the most straightforward: the lively “Cornbread,” a 2014 duet, danced by Tiler Peck and Roman Mejia of New York City Ballet and set to music by the string band Carolina Chocolate Drops. It’s a virtuosic display of daring speed and glittering musicality.

“Everybody’s going to go, she’s crazy,” Tharp said. “That was the end, wasn’t it? When do we open with the end? What do you do next?”

 

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"La Bayadere"is canceled in Chatham after protests from the Hindu community.

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"It was highly irresponsible for an establishment like Brook Theatre to allow such a ballet which had been blamed for patronising flawed mishmash of orientalist stereotypes, dehumanising cultural portrayal and misrepresentation, offensive and degrading elements."