ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

DANCE

Using Dance To Teach Girls Of Color To Code

The idea behind DanceLogic is that "both coding and dance use repetition and combination, so using dance as a hook to attract girls to the program could lead to an interest in coding." Saturday classes feature 80 minutes of dance class followed by an hour of programming lessons. - Chalkbeat Philadelphia

America’s 150 Largest Ballet Companies And Where They Stood Financially In FY2020

DDP's latest report reflects the first part of the toll the pandemic shutdown took on the troupes — and it shows, yet again, just how skewed expenditures on ballet in the US are toward the 25 largest companies. - Dance Data Project

Refugee Ukrainian Dancers Have Formed A New Ballet Company In Europe, And They Have Big Stars In Their Corner

United Ukrainian Ballet, as the company is called, have set up a headquarters in the former Royal Conservatory building in The Hague.  Their next touring program is a Giselle choreographed by no less than Alexei Ratmansky, with Alina Cojocaru as guest star. - Culture Whisper (London)

Behind The Ailey Company’s Contract Dispute With Its Dancers

Most audience members – and most aspiring and local dancers – would be shocked to realize how little some of the best and most successful concert dancers in the United States earn. - ArtsFuse

TV Takes TikTok To Create A Dance Show

… a TikTok-style dance challenge. The kind that creators on the app are known for filming in their bedrooms, pajamas optional. - The New York Times

Jacob’s Pillow Rebuilds And Recreates

The Ted Shawn Theater is now open again for business, half of its exterior wood weathered and historical-looking, the other half clean and new. (The second theater has not yet been rebuilt.) - The New York Times

Is There About To Be A Labor Dispute At The Alvin Ailey Company?

The contract between Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and its dancers' union expires this week, and there's no new agreement in sight.  The union is asking for an increase from 35 to 42 paid weeks per year and to bring salaries up to those at comparable companies. - The Arts Fuse

Queering Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes

Yes, Serge Diaghilev was what we might call today queer, but he certainly couldn't be open about it — and neither could the pathbreaking dance-theater works he produced.  Today, choreographer Christopher Williams has no such restrictions, and he's reimagined some Ballets Russes classics with queer elements brought forward. - Pointe Magazine

The Dark E.T.A. Hoffmann Stories At The Heart Of Two Of The World’s Favorite Ballets

The Nutcracker and Coppélia were not originally the gentle, nervous-parent-friendly tales you might expect from the ballets.  Indeed, Hoffman's original Coppélia story gets downright grisly. - Bachtrack

Tony Award-Winner Myles Frost Got To MJ From YT

The star accidentally found his way into the musical. "As a high schooler at Thomas Wootton in Rockville, he sang and danced to Jackson’s 'Billie Jean,' a recorded performance that would end up on YouTube and later garner the attention of a producer from MJ: The Musical." - Baltimore Sun

Want To See How Exactly Broadway Bares? Like This.

In 1992, in a Manhattan gay club, eight hunky dancers did stripteases on the bar to raise money for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Thus was born the annual benefit Broadway Bares.  Here's how Broadway babes rip off their clothes for charity. The big question: Velcro or snaps? - The New York Times

Salsa In Syria: Social Dancing Classes Offer Damascans A Brief Escape From The Stresses Of Civil War

"For (the) students, ballroom dancing is a form of release, finding rhythm in music away from their country's many social and economic pressures. For that one hour, they push Syria's 11-year war from their minds: the politics, the anxiety over the economic crisis and the country's constantly depreciating currency." - AP

Turns Out The Inability To Dance To A Steady Beat Is Genetic, Say Researchers

"A new study by Vanderbilt Genetics Institute researchers ... found a genetic link to our ability — and inability — to move to musical rhythm in time. Using data from more than 600,000 participants, the study identified 69 genetic variants related to the ability to move in synchrony with music." - Mel Magazine

Reclaiming The Lindy Hop’s African-American Roots

It's named after pioneering pilot Charles Lindbergh, it was a staple of social dancing in the 1930s, and it regained popularity in the swing revival of the 1980s and '90s, but — as Black Americans today are reminding us — the Lindy Hop was born in the Harlem Renaissance. - KQED (San Francisco)

The Ukrainian Dancers Dancing In Paris

“Before the war started we danced for our company and each dancer felt like they danced for themselves,” he says, “But now we are motivated to dance for our country. Before we were dancing for Kyiv City Ballet, now we have become something bigger.” - Globe & Mail (Canada)

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