Saturday, August 6

[dirac]

Cleveland Ballet opens its season this month.

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The performances are excerpts from the iconic “Swan Lake,” which will be the company’s premiere performance this October in its Playhouse Square home. Last fall the ballet company announced it would make Vermilion’s Harbourtown Fine Arts Center in Vermilion its summer residence.

 

[dirac]

Michael Auer, former ballet master at the Royal New Zealand Ballet, is banned from all company premises.

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At least three complaints had been made about Auer’s behaviour since he arrived from the United States with [Patricia] Barker in 2017. At that time, she was was accused of nepotism when her husband got a job at the company. Auer was initially employed on a specific technology project, but since 2019 he was working as a guest ballet master.

 

[dirac]

Ballet BC celebrates its thirty-fifth anniversary.

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The beloved collaborative and creation-based dance company was keen to mark their 35th anniversary in a big way – an evening dubbed MOMENTUM, which took the best bits of so many galas, and pulled them together. Out was a formal dinner, in was roving nosh and drink for the 300 in attendance. In place of speeches and staid presentations, were performances of new works that popped up throughout the evening.

 

[dirac]

Rupert Christiansen defends ballet against charges of racism and transphobia in The Spectator.

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But by common consent a ballet class offers the most rigorous and empowering training to which a dancer can aspire. It is the gold standard: a good ballet dancer can adapt his or her body to any other style, benefitting from levels of cardiovascular fitness and muscular flexibility, balance and precision, that demonstrably surpass those attained by professional athletes and sportsmen. It’s a regime as tough as hell, and not without its potential drawbacks (badly taught or monitored, it can harm knees and hips in particular), but a dance school that does not offer ballet is quite simply denying its students the chance to reach their highest physical potential.