Tuesday, February 21

[dirac]

Alonzo King's LINES Ballet visits Michigan.

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King has noticed a difference between European and American audiences that he traces to school and educational experiences. In Europe, art and dance are still very much a part of the curriculum for students of all ages so audiences there feel confident in engaging the work, in talking about it and in challenging it. Americans tend to be more hesitant, waiting for people to tell them how to interpret things, something King resists doing.

 

[dirac]

Hanover Ballet visits Israel.

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When Germany’s Hanover Ballet performs “The Lover” at The Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv on March 2-4, its acclaimed choreographer, Marco Goecke, won’t be joining them for the trip.

Goecke was fired last week after smearing dog feces on the face of a dance critic who had criticized his work.

 

[dirac]

An interview with Precious Adams.

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Having earned the part of a snow angel, she spotted Fabrice Calmels — one of few professional dancers of color at the time — backstage. The 6-foot-6 Joffrey Ballet lead dancer had just started his career then, but he lifted Adams onto his shoulders when her mom asked them to pose for a photo. It was a formative experience that exposed her to the possibility of ballet as a career. It made such an impression on her, in fact, that after another two years of practicing and performing locally, Adams enrolled at Canada’s National Ballet School at 11.

 

[dirac]

Tips from the director of physical therapy at Boston Ballet on avoiding sore feet.

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"If you're in a pointed shoe, it's going to shove your big toe inward and that's where you're going to get bunions from," she said. "Trying to make sure your shoe is very comfortable and your toes hit without squeezing makes a big difference."

 

[dirac]

Adam W. McKinney talks about his new job as the artistic director of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.

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"I'm excited about bringing in new stories to Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre," he said. "And those are stories that are representative of us, of the diversity of Pittsburgh, of the diversity of ballet. And that will also be represented in our sets and in our costumes and in our audiences."

 

[dirac]

 The Hamburg Ballet visits Chicago.

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Claudia Cassidy, the Chicago Tribune's fierce and feared longtime critic unitl 1971, also factors into the story. She championed the play "The Glass Menagerie" after its quiet Chicago premiere, rescuing it from obscurity. Years later, she reviewed a performance by Sybil Shearer, whom Neumeier cites as his greatest influence in terms of movement invention. Near the end of the review covering several individual dance works, Cassidy wrote, "And in most of them a slender dark boy named John Neumeier made you watch him, without trying. I am very much afraid he is a dancer." It was Neumeier's first review.