Monday, August 15

[dirac]

Solange will compose the score for a new work by Gianna Reisen for New York City Ballet.

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This step into ballet is the latest in a series of adventurous turns by Solange, 36, who began her career young as a singer and dancer — including with her sister, Beyoncé, in Destiny’s Child. Solange’s work later blossomed into multihyphenate and more independent territory, with her music — starting with the 2012 album “True” and continuing with “A Seat at the Table” (2016) and “When I Get Home” (2019) — often doubling as a gathering place for genre-crossing, interdisciplinary artists. In her art and in the streets, she has also been an activist for Black Lives Matter and other causes.

 

[dirac]

A story on the current roster of dancers at Boston Ballet by Karen Campbell in The Boston Globe.

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Also of note, more than a third of the main company dancers are BBII alumni, and 22 percent are alumni of the Boston Ballet School. The popular and gifted Cirio (whose sister Lia is also a company principal dancer) is a case in point. After training at the Boston Ballet School, he joined BBII in 2007 and worked his way through the ranks to principal dancer in 2012. He left the company three years later for new repertoire and more international touring, with stints at American Ballet Theatre (2015-2018) and English National Ballet (2018-2022). His return to Boston Ballet offers the chance to do more contemporary projects, like working one-on-one with choreographer William Forsythe, and to reconnect to the artistry of George Balanchine.

 

[dirac]

A review of Scottish Ballet's "Coppelia" by Mark Monahan in The Telegraph.

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The always sinister, Pygmalion-ish concept of men first inventing and then desiring fake women inevitably evokes Stepford. But director-choreographers Morgann Runacre-Temple and Jessica Wright’s piece (dramaturgy by Jeff James) feels in many ways more like Alex Garland’s 2014 chiller Ex Machina writ large, while the climax is, in the best way, pure Black Mirror.

 

[dirac]

Dusty Button and Mitchell Taylor Button withdraw their civil suit against Edmonton  Oilers' owner Daryl Katz.

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The claims against the NHL team’s owner, Daryl Katz, were made by dance teacher Mitchell Taylor Button and his wife, Dusty Button — not by the alleged victim, Sage Humphries, who denied the accusations through an attorney. 

 

[dirac]

The New Atlantic Ballet Theatre of Canada appoints a director of Indigenous programming.

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Nipahtuwet Naka Wespahtuwet Possesom from Sitansisk, or St. Mary's First Nation, has worked with the Atlantic Ballet on numerous projects over that time, including a ballet debuting in May.

He is the first person to hold this position at the ballet.

 

[dirac]

A review of the Royal New Zealand Ballet in "Cinderella" by Michelle Potter for Dance Australia.

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The choreography covers a range of styles from classical (or perhaps neo-classical is a more appropriate description) to the crazed disco-style, alcohol-infused, drug-induced movement in the final "Happily ever after" scene. Highly memorable are the three duets between Cinderella (Mayu Tanigaito) and the Royal Messenger (Laurynas Vejalis), which grow in intensity as their relationship blossoms, and the duets between Prince Charming (Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson) and Prince Dashing (Shae Berney) in which Prior shows, in choreographic terms, an equality between the two men.

 

[dirac]

A review of Australian Ballet's "Bodytorque" by Leila Lois for ArtsHub.

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Many beautiful bodies and resplendent ideas collected in the Brunswick black-box space of Transit Dance. The program, though detailed in a beautiful matte flyer displaying photographs of Australian Ballet dancers Callum Linnane and Dimity Azoury, was not easy to follow and I had to check the running order following the event.

 

[dirac]

A review of Scottish Ballet in Coppélia by Laura Cappelle in The Financial Times.

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Does it make for a truly augmented ballet? Yes and no. The action is clear and fast-paced, helped along by Mikael Karlsson and Michael P Atkinson’s propulsive mix of orchestral and electronic music, which features witty nods to Léo Delibes’ scintillating 1870 score. Live filming tricks are already overused in contemporary theatre but they are relatively new to ballet, and camera operator Rimbaud Patron followed the fluid but somewhat repetitive choreography seamlessly.

 

[dirac]

An interview with Fume Kaneko.

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Kaneko, who is a principal of the Royal Ballet in London and recently danced the role of Juliet as a guest artist in the Cape Town City Ballet’s production of Romeo and Juliet, had her first ballet lesson at the age of three. A punishing schedule of combining normal school with ballet practice led to success in international competitions for the young dancer, but despite ballet’s popularity in Japan there was little scope for a viable professional career. Kaneko joined the Royal Ballet in the 2010/2011 season, not knowing any English. “It was very hard because I had lived with my family until I was 19,” she says.

 

[dirac]

The National Ballet of Canada offers outdoor performances free of charge this month.

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This is the second year in a row that the National Ballet has partnered with Harbourfront Centre to produce “Sharing the Stage” at the canopied, waterside 1,100-seat Concert Stage; but it’s the first time the company has been able to do it the way it always wanted.