As one commenter put it, "It looks like you've been living under a rock for the past year, but at least try to read the room. Russia has blood of innocent people on its hands." Tolstoy, of course, was a famous pacifist; the choreographer, Yuri Possokhov, is Ukrainian. - Chicago Sun-Times
"Oregon Ballet Theatre has announced that Dani Rowe will become its next artistic director, effective February 27, after an 18-month search. The company has been led by interim artistic director Peter Franc since June 2021, following the (firing) of previous director Kevin Irving." - Pointe Magazine
"Paper became a backbone for the project, and therefore a large part of the soundscore for Data. As dancers move throughout the piece, the sound of crushing paper and whispered numbers of COVID-19 cases in California prisons fills the space." - Los Angeles Times
On Saturday, enraged at her harsh review of his new piece In the Dutch Mountains (get it?), Hannover State Opera ballet director Marco Goecke yelled at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung critic Wiebke Hüster and smeared her face with feces. The theater has barred him from the premises. - The Daily Beast
Of course Tony Award-winning Garth Fagan, now 82, did a lot more in his career than The Lion King. He's "a Jamaican-born choreographer known for threading ballet training and discipline into his Afro-Caribbean movement." - The New York Times
"She is one of a growing, but small, community of female artistic directors, a title typically reserved for men, and she’s jumping in at a time when many of ballet’s social and racial norms are being challenged by a quickly evolving society." - Washington Post
Call Me Dancer represents the strongest slice of the films on offer: works that engage the politics and economics of the dance world. These films often include talking as well as moving; they stretch the genre, the performers, even the audience. - Village Voice
Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell, the company's new artistic director: "I could have said, 'Oh, I'm throwing everything out,' but I don't think that's smart. ... (Yet) it's like everybody has their Ohad (Naharin), everybody has their (Crystal) Pite. What about the other folks that have been out there creating?" - The New York Times
The song was performed on a giant rotating turntable. "After a week of rehearsing this piece perfectly going one way," explained a dancer, "the moment it's time to perform, it starts going the other way, and in real time we have to troubleshoot and do a complete piece in reverse." - BBC
The brainchild of Birmingham Royal Ballet director Carlos Acosta and the band's Tony Iommi, the ballet will premiere in Birmingham in September. It will feature eight Black Sabbath tracks plus new music inspired by them. - BBC
The as-yet untitled three-act piece, the brainchild of Birmingham Royal Ballet artistic director Carlos Acosta, will include eight songs by Black Sabbath (including "Paranoid" and "War Pigs") as well as newly-composed music in the band's style. The dramaturg will be Richard Thomas, who wrote Jerry Springer: The Opera. - The Guardian
"For a moment there I think I lost what my goal was in being choreographer. ... What I realized, after getting fired from that job, is that I wanted to be in the room but I didn't necessarily want to be a dancer in the room." - National Endowment for the Arts
My point is, we’re moving away from Eurocentric to multiracial, so art needs to reflect that. And we need stories. Stories are a structure or a vessel for us to understand ourselves. We love narrative. The question is, do the stories always have to center around Europeans’ way of seeing the world? - Fjord Review
Some 60 dancers who fled the war make up The United Ukrainian Ballet. With help from local dance professionals and city officials, the company is based in The Hague. - NPR
Probably. Earlier this week, members of the Ballet Folklórico Nacional Argentino and Compañía Nacional de Danza Contemporánea traveled from Buenos Aires down to Argentina's Base Marambio and performed in snowsuits as the temperature hit 19°F. (It's summer there.) - Buenos Aires Herald
