Friday, July 28

[dirac]

Frank Augustyn teaches at a New Brunswick ballet school.

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Augustyn admits he was impressed by the level of skill the dancers have learned from the Rothesay school.

“They teach the foundational work of ballet which is really the underpinnings of all dance,” Augustyn says. “And it’s not always easy to do, to teach that kind of training to a very young child.”

 

[dirac]

Carlos Acosta talks about his ambitions for the Acosta Dance Centre.

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He said: "I wanted to bring the centre here, in Woolwich, because there is a very high population of African descendancy.

"Some of the dances that we're going to be teaching is Afro-Cuban dance, Afro-Cuban beats, more popular dances that speak about Africa.

"So hopefully, one of the things that we're doing at the centre is to benefit the community so hopefully the locals can come and get involved."

 

[dirac]

A visit to Mark Morris' company class by Alastair Macaulay in The New York Times.

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Morris, who used to teach his company class five times a week, now teaches twice a week. “It’s just the last year or two I’ve cut back,” he said. He now shares teaching assignments with company alumni. Surprisingly, for a modern-dance master, he teaches a ballet class, with a live pianist. The dancers start by standing at the barre, bringing more and more parts of the body into play with each exercise. Then, after about 40 minutes, they work without support in the center of the room. Finally they move expansively across the room, in phrases involving turns and jumps.

 

[dirac]

The Royal New Zealand Ballet presents "Nightscapes."

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Te Ao Mārama, choreographed by Moss Te Ururangi Patterson, brings wairua to the eurocentric proscenium. His ongoing partnership with the RNZB is commendable. Te Ururangi Patterson deconstructs and teases open the performance arena. He states, ‘I’m really interested in indigenising the art space’. The work is bold and requires the audience to ‘open their hearts to a new way of experiencing te ao Māori’.