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DANCE

At New York City’s Public School For Dance

"Ballet Tech … isn’t just a dance school; it’s an academic one, too. A collaboration between the New York City Department of Education and the Ballet Tech Foundation (created by choreographer Eliot Feld), the school — on Broadway and 19th Street — is for students in fourth grade through eighth." - The New York Times

Study: Audiences Rate Male Dancers’ “Coalition Quality” Higher

Researchers found that groups of male dancers were perceived as having higher coalition quality compared to groups of female dancers, regardless of the synchronization level of their movements. - Psypost

Former Office Manager Of Florida’s Naples Ballet Charged With Stealing Over $100,000

"Nicole Christine Saunders, 54, faces charges of scheme to defraud, grand theft over $100,000 and criminal use of personal identification information. … Police said the business fell victim to a complex fraud scheme, allegedly orchestrated by Saunders, their office manager over four years." - Naples Daily News

Meet The Only Breakdancing Competitor At This Summer’s Olympics With A PhD In The Subject

"Dr. Rachael Gunn, … the 36-year-old B-girl known as 'Raygun', a portmanteau of her name, completed a thesis in 2017 on the intersection of gender in Sydney's breaking scene while training to become one of (Australia's) top dancers." - Reuters

In Britain, A Dance Star Says He Wants To Clear His Name

Giovanni Pernice, a professional dancer on BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, said “he is ‘surprised’ by media reports about his teaching methods and rejects ‘any suggestion of abusive or threatening behaviour.’” - BBC

A Dance Style Invented In Rio 20 Years Ago Has Been Declared “Intangible Cultural Heritage”

"It all started with nifty leg movements, strong steps backwards and forwards, paced to Brazilian funk music. Then it adopted moves from break dancing, samba, capoeira, frevo — whatever was around." The passinho, invented by favela kids in the '00s, has been given heritage status by the Rio de Janeiro state legislature. - AP

The Dancer As Athlete

A 2016 retrospective study that tracked injuries in a professional ballet dance company over a 10-year period found that most dancers experience a new injury every year. Researchers are paying increasing attention to the injury rate at companies, and companies are working to reduce their rates. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Is The Australian Ballet Fighting Back Against Body-Shaming? Or Just Being Pissy About A Very Negative Review?

Artistic director David Hallberg and others are indignantly rebuking The Sydney Morning Herald, saying that "critique of dancers' bodies" is "not acceptable." The sentence in question: "The dancers are fabulous, although – and perhaps this was the lighting – (they) seem unusually thin this season." The assessment of the choreography, however, is blistering. - The Guardian

You’re In College Getting A BFA In Dance. How Much Do Good Grades Matter?

"Rather than exams and essays, the studio classes that make up the bulk of BFA programs evaluate students on less tangible benchmarks like artistry, technique, and performance. How much weight are BFA programs really putting on grading — and how much do students’ grades matter during, and after, their time in college?" - Dance Magazine

When Benjamin Millepied Choreographed A Gender-Neutral “Romeo And Juliet”

You'd expect any controversy to be over his decision to have dancers leave the auditorium and perform around the building while cameras transmit their movement to an onstage screen. But no, discussion in France (in 2022!) centered on the variable-gender casting. Millepied says, "They were talking about it on gameshows." - The Guardian

New Visions For Broadway Choreography

This broader vision of theatrical choreography is worth noticing and applauding. - The New York Times

When Real Estate Developers Actually Help Dance Companies (Yes, It Can Happen!)

"It's true that developers’ motives are rarely altruistic: Many have found tax and other benefits to pairing up with dance companies. And not all of these unusual developer–company marriages have been entirely happy. Still, participants in four recent partnerships say their deals have offered remarkably good solutions to longstanding problems." - Dance Magazine

The Choreographer Of Bridgerton

"I’d rather take people to a place where they have to be very brave through a terminology that they’re used to, rather than a terminology that scares the pants off them. I would ask them what would they like to nonverbally portray to the audience." - Dance Magazine

Why Gregory Dolbashian Up And Moved His Dance Company To Dallas

"In the four years since making the seemingly counterintuitive decision to leave his native New York for Dallas — moving his DASH Ensemble dance company along with him — the former child actor, born risk-taker and master networker has become a go-to collaborator on the Dallas dance scene." - The Dallas Morning News (MSN)

She’s Been Lighting Contemporary Dance In Downtown Manhattan For 46 Years

Carol Mullins, now 85, has been designing and operating the lighting for Danspace Project since 1978. "When people ask her why she has stayed there so long, she replies that she’s still learning, 'and there’s a new set of problems every couple weeks.'" - The New York Times

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