An Afro-Caribbean repertoire of quadrille square dances (accompanied by drumming and singing) that combines a complicated vocabulary of symbolic movements with improvisation, bèlè is seeing a revival on the island after long years of discouragement by a central government in Paris keen to promote continental French culture. - The Conversation
“Dancing is a form of escapism for some of us,” Diamond Hardiman, a 28-year-old dancer from Chicago, tells me. “So it’s about being real and honest, yes. But at the end of the day it’s also about being tough. You know, like, solid. And being free.” - Mic
"Four years ago, Alicia Graf Mack — a former star of Dance Theatre of Harlem and Alvin Ailey — took the reins of the dance division, with plans to usher in an altogether more diverse experience. The pandemic, alongside changing conversations around race and gender, shifted that evolution into high gear." - Vanity Fair
"Susan Jaffe, who recently turned 60, has in mind such steps as opening up artistic processes to the public and soliciting views from balletgoers and other stakeholders on the delicate task of updating thorny works from the classical canon. It's an audience-first approach." - MSN (The Washington Post)
Everybody Dance LA! is "an almost-too-good-to-be-true program founded more than 20 years ago by a grieving mother who believed that things should not remain unequal — and that you can’t be scared when you’re dancing." - Los Angeles Times
"Even at the height of the Cold War, ballet tours were seen as a bridge between the USSR and the West. But after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, its foreign tours were cancelled, its stars are no longer invited abroad and choreographers ... have disavowed the company." - Euronews (AFP)
The crusading lefty investigative magazine profiles Royal, a principal dancer at ABT and one of the still-all-too-few Black stars of classical ballet. The marquee pull quote: "We have to break ballet out of the 18th century." - Mother Jones
Igor Zelensky, 52, former principal of the Mariinsky and New York City Ballets, resigned last month as artistic director of the Bavarian State Ballet after refusing to denounce the invasion of Ukraine. He's reportedly the partner of Putin's second daughter, Katerina Tikhonova, and they have a five-year-old daughter. - The Moscow Times
With rumors flying of Vladimir Putin's deteriorating health, it could happen: going back to the earliest days of Soviet television, the unscheduled appearance of the Tchaikovsky ballet on the airwaves meant something extremely serious, like the death of the leader (or, in 1991, an attempted coup). - Newsweek
That summer, dozens of Strasbourgeois found themselves dancing and hopping uncontrollably for days on end, and more than a few died of exhaustion and hunger. And that wasn't the only instance of such a phenomenon in medieval Europe, a mystery still unsolved. - BBC
The recent appointments of the women and the recent commissions of choreography by women too numerous to mention, are good news for feminism. But only relatively speaking. - Alastair Macaulay
Star David Motta, 25, "had called Russia home for 13 years. The Bolshoi Academy had taken him in as a boy and turned him into an international star." But he knew he had to leave when Russia invaded Ukraine. - France 24 (AFP)
The Twitterverse had a high old time when news and photos hit of the final session of the Conference on the Future of Europe at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, wherein members were treated, apparently without warning, to Angelin Preljocaj's Danse l'Europe. - The Independent (UK)
Some have taken up arms in their country’s defense or have been working to get medical supplies to the frontline. (One died after being injured when Russian shells hit Kyiv.) And many have fled the country, fanning out across Europe — both for safety and to keep dancing. - The New York Times
The lack of support manifests in a dearth of affordable studio space, limited funding and fewer platforms for emerging artists to perform. It’s an about-face for a city that has nurtured Western dance traditions for more than 100 years. - Crosscut
