"The Dayton Performing Arts Alliance named Brandon Ragland as artistic director of the second-oldest regional ballet company in the country. With more than 15 years as a ballet professional, Ragland, 38, comes to Dayton from the Louisville Ballet, where he was a principal dancer ... (and) resident choreographer." - Dayton Daily News
Involve college students. "Unlike music, ballet lacks a script or a widely accepted form of notation. ... Ballet is passed down one performer or choreography to the next. If that chain is severed, ballet’s tradition will be lost forever." - Inside Higher Ed
Audience numbers had dropped off well before the pandemic, leaving some in the administration to question if they could continue to support a home season at the 1,500-seat Harris Theater for Music and Dance. - Dance Magazine
Generally speaking, dancers are on break during the summer — but also at the end of December after “The Nutcracker” and during the first few weeks in January. Off-season jobs are competitive and usually involve travel. - San Diego Union-Tribune
"Found at the site of Viejo Sangayaico, 200km southeast of Lima, the floor was built into an open-air platform sometime between AD1000 and AD1400. It then continued in use under Inca rule, from 1400 to 1532, and perhaps during the early years of the Spanish conquest." - The Art Newspaper
The Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet was founded in Carlisle, a college town in the south-central part of the state, in 1955. The school has produced so many good performers that people joke that there's something in the water. - MSN (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
"I was playing with doing the balcony pas de deux of Romeo and Juliet but that would have been way too much. I have to do it in a way that I can still walk off, and you don't have to call an ambulance." - The Observer (UK)
When it comes to the classics, one of the biggest hurdles to bringing new audience members to the ballet is that people are initially intimidated by the art form. They think they’re supposed to know what’s happening, but they come and witness an entirely foreign vocabulary where dancers use their bodies to express a story. - Playbill
"Dancer Sarah Michelson has inked representation with David Zwirner, which has plans to show new work by her at its new Los Angeles location in 2024. … Yet much of Michelson's work for David Zwirner will take the less conventional form of a residency program for the gallery." - ARTnews
Critical dialogue in dance today takes many forms, none in short supply. But reviews of live dance performances, in print or online, in publications with at least a few thousand readers, do not exist in most media markets. - Dance Magazine
For their US debut, Seoul Metropolitan Dance Theater and stage director Kuho Jung have adapted the "il mu" dance from the royal Jongmyo Shrine, combining it and other ritual movement with contemporary dance to create the stage work One Dance. - The New York Times
Named after the one lightbulb that stays on in unoccupied theaters, the Ghost Light Residency gave a single dance artist (to maintain social distancing) 20 hours over five days to work on any project, using the stage, lights, sound or anything in a shuttered performance space. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)
"Since its inception in the early 1980s, the Laura Quinkan Indigenous Dance Festival has brought together Indigenous communities from across Cape York, the Torres Strait and beyond. … Many non-Indigenous Australians and international tourists also (come) for the opportunity to engage with living Aboriginal culture." - The Guardian
Two recent novels put romantic longing and steamy couplings alongside discussion of body politics, feminism and #MeToo in ballet. First Position, written by ex-American Ballet Theatre (ABT) dancer Melanie Hamrick and published by Mills & Boon, is being billed as Black Swan meets 50 Shades. - The Guardian
