Sunday, April 21

[dirac]

Yuna Yamada of Japan is a winner at the Youth America Grand Prix.

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"I want to be a dancer influential enough to make the audience smile," said Yamada, 12, from Sapporo.

Related.

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Yamada Yuna, a first-year junior high school student from the city of Sapporo, won the top prize in the classical dance category for girls aged 9 to 11.

 

[dirac]

An audio interview with Australian Ballet's resident choreographer Stephanie Lake.

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From performances for the family in the living room and whizzing around the ice rink in Canada … living in different countries, moving from Saskatchewan to Tasmania … and moving between dance companies, and through stages of life. 

 

[dirac]

BalletMet closes its season with "Romeo and Juliet."

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The ballet − based on Shakespeare’s play about two young people whose intense affection for each other is complicated by their warring families − is the last production overseen by outgoing Artistic Director Edwaard Liang.

 

[dirac]

A review of Karen Valby's new book, "The Swans of Harlem," by Marianka Swain in The Sunday Telegraph.

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Valby’s group biography, The Swans of Harlem, has a singular purpose: to write them back into history. She does so with righteous passion but in a narrative mishmash that jumps between third- and first-person, and includes some cloying comments from family members, along with more interesting snippets from the quintet’s frank contemporary chats. Valby also points out that racial discrimination is still rife, citing the recent case of Staatsballett Berlin’s ballet mistress telling black dancer Chloé Lopes Gomes to wear white make-up in order to “blend in”.

 

[dirac]

Ballet Jazz Montréal celebrates its fiftieth anniversary.

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The program includes a new creation by company member Ausia Jones, We Can’t Forget About What’s His Name, Crystal Pite’s Ten Duets on a Theme of Rescue, and Aszure Barton’s Les Chambres des Jacques.