“The al-Kharrats say they are the only family in Syria who have continuously performed the Sema, as the dance is known, ... through years of war, repression and threats from extremist groups like ISIS. … Now, they say they are hopeful about new opportunities under the new Syrian government.” - The World
In glass-sided vertical wind tunnels, powerful fans shoot air upward at approximately the speed a human body would fall from an airplane. …But over the last 20 years, … because the tunnels can be viewed from the ground, indoor skydiving has become a spectator sport. - The New York Times
“They will also be paid more for their appearances outside of cheering for the Dallas Cowboys. It’s a happy ending to a grueling season and a key milestone in the dancers' long fight for fair pay.” - Time
Following the early departure of Lourdes Lopez at the end of this past season, the company has appointed 45-yeard-old Gonzalo Garcia, a former principal at San Francisco Ballet and New York City Ballet who is currently repertory director for the latter. Garcia succeeds Lopez and MCB founder Edward Villella. - Miami Herald (MSN)
Nearly half the company’s dancers — including its top two female principals — are leaving after a season marked by strained relationships with leadership, internal strife and what the dancers describe as a toxic work culture. - SunCoast Searchlight
Going right back to the original, Agnes DeMille’s “Laurey Makes Up Her Mind” in Oklahoma!, the power of the dream ballet lies in ‘being able to express something that words aren’t able to. … It liberated our form of storytelling and offered something really human and deeply revealing about the characters.” - The Guardian
“In my opinion, they are asking for proof of things that are not tangible. We are really trying to jump through all of the hoops no matter how small. The hoops get tinier and tinier but the standards and criteria are not tangible.” - Dayton Daily News
In contrast to the mess at Dallas Black Dance Theatre last year, when dancers voted to join a union and were promptly fired, leading to a nationally publicized fiasco, the dancers at Texas Ballet Theater, who voted to join AGMA in 2023, have just signed their first contract. - KERA (Dallas)
After months of increasingly public complaints by company dancers, Demis Volpi, an Argentine-German choreographer who succeeded company founder John Neumeier one year ago, will officially end his tenure at the close of this season. By mutual agreement, he is stopping work immediately. - DPA (Yahoo!)
“In the dark, brick-walled basement of the Kharkiv National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre, a dance company has created a space protected from drones and bombs.” A performance of Chopiniania in April was the first complete classical ballet given in the city since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. - Reuters
Toni Pimble “is that rare dancemaker whose visual sense and musical sense are equally acute; moreover, her interests are wide-ranging. Over the years she has made ballets of varying length inspired by literature, music, folk tales, Native American legends, visual arts, film, current events, and politics." - Oregon ArtsWatch
Jiří Kylián is "the Czech choreographer-cum-renaissance man, who in one pre-show discussion declares himself ‘the happiest boy in the world’: There has never been such a celebration of his work and, he suggests with wry self-effacement, there will probably never be another.” - The Guardian (UK)
“It’s never been about me. It should never have been about me. It should have been about a broader understanding that people from Black and brown communities are interested and want to be in these spaces. They just need to see themselves.” - The New York Times
For decades she has been Taylor's star dancer, muse, buddy, rehearsal director, and choreographic reconstructor. (He was never particularly interested in the details of reviving his older works.) Even now, she speaks lucidly and clearly, with her signature blunt forcefulness, about her work both over the decades and today. - The Brooklyn Rail
“Compounding recent major cuts to arts funding, the footwear the ballet world relies on could be just one more unanticipated casualty of the current president’s economic policy. Pointe shoes, it turns out, are political objects as much as they are aesthetic.” - Cascade PBS
