Dance Data Project's research on this past season found that 32% of ballets presented by the largest 150 classically trained companies were by women, up from 29% in 2021-22. But for the 50 largest of those companies, the figure fell from 27% to 23%. - Dance Data Project
“We are such a siloed city. We’re each in our little parts of Chicago trying to get funding, we all have our heads down. We know of each other and we love each other and we share dancers, but there was never an intentional moment when we came up for air.” - The New York Times
Ratmansky, "the most significant classical choreographer of the current era," was born in Ukraine and trained in Moscow. He left the Bolshoi when Russia invaded his homeland, and now he feels guilty for staying so long. - The Guardian (UK)
The whole idea is "that choreographers use their considerable creative powers to help imagine structures better suited to their needs." - The New York Times
Marco Goecke, who was director of the ballet at the Hannover State Opera in Germany before the February incident, was invited to lead rehearsals of his older work as a freelancer, and he told Hannover's newspaper he'd been rehired. The state culture minister declared that "unacceptable." (in German) - NDR (Germany)
"The glittering scene seemed like a dream. Surveying the shoreline of Rockaway Beach on a recent morning, Patricia Lent, from the Merce Cunningham Trust, was elated. 'This is a dream come true,' she said, adding: 'It's someone else's dream — but it is a dream come true.'" - The New York Times
The 1965 declaration was absolutist: "No to spectacle. No to virtuosity. No to transformations and magic and make-believe ... no to moving or being moved." Today she says, "Oh no. That was a certain point in art history. ... I never meant it as a doctrine to govern my decisions." - The Guardian
Different layers of soil, ash and guano created a floor that absorbed shocks while emitting resonant sounds when people stomped on it. This ceremonial surface worked like a large drum that groups of 20 to 25 people could have played with their feet. - Science News
In an Austen novel, when the main characters and their love interests dance, they "move to a subtle sensuality that pulses below the surface, creating an irresistible tension." - LitHub
"Oleksandr Budko, 27, has been touring the US with the United Ukrainian Ballet, dancing before audiences of up to 3,000 people with, and without, his prosthetic legs. “This choreography is about the consequences of the war, about how indomitable we are, despite the pain and losses,” he said." - MSN (The Telegraph, UK)
"In general we get in trouble if we don't do it. I've heard that even Alvin himself at some point asked if we could take Revelations out. But they told him what the box office numbers looked like with Revelations and without, and that was a sobering moment." - The Guardian
Julie Wilson's home-based business in suburban northern Virginia is "considered the ballroom dance industry's leading consignment and consignment-rental dress company. Competitive dancers come here from far and wide, as do the frocks. The abiding aesthetic is more is more: feathers, sequins, fringe, crystals." - MSN (The Washington Post)
"Now Morris, long a poked-fun-of example of British eccentricity, is opening up to younger dancers who approach it as a living tradition. For some, this means exploring ways to pull apart and reinterpret the form. And for traditionalists, it means perfecting ancient technique." - The New York Times
"Sunny Choi is now one of the 10 best B-girls in the world, and won silver at the 2022 World Games. Her ascendence comes at a time when break dancing's platform has never been bigger and the stakes have never been higher." - ESPN
The first full fiscal year of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a drop in aggregate spending by the largest 150 classically-based companies of 31.62% from FY 2020 and 39% from FY2019. - Dance Data Project
