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DANCE

Space Choreography: Redefining Movement For Extremely Low Gravity

Dancer and planetary science PhD student C. Adeene Denton: "Getting to set the first site-specific work on the International Space Station (was) a big pipe dream of mine … before I studied enough astronauts to realize that most of them beat me to it." - Dance Magazine

Well, The Super Bowl “Volunteer” Halftime Dancers Won’t Be Working For Free This Year …

"Four hundred volunteers working for up to 72 hours as 'field cast participants' during this weekend's Super Bowl LVI halftime show will be paid $15 per hour" — minimum wage, for one of the most lucrative annual sports events in the world. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)

The Kirov Academy Ballet School Is Closing (Note: This Is Not In Russia)

Don't panic: this school isn't connected with the St. Petersburg company now known as the Mariinsky, although its first directors came from there and aimed to reproduce its teaching methods. This Kirov Academy, in DC, was founded by none other than Rev. Sun Myung Moon. - The New York Times

The Most Dancerly Skater At The 2022 Winter Olympics

Jason Brown, a 27-year-old American, probably won't get an individual medal at these games because he doesn't have a consistent quadruple jump. Yet, writes Laura Cappelle, the quality of his movement is extraordinary: "Every step is three-dimensional, … perfectly timed to either the melody or the bass line." - Dance Magazine

North Korea Arrests Dance Instructor And Students For ‘Capitalist’ Dance Moves

Teenager dance students and their teacher will likely be sentenced to hard labor, and their parents may be expelled from the ruling party after "the Anti-Socialism Inspection Group caught a dance instructor in her 30s who was teaching foreign-style disco dances." - Radio Free Asia

Remembering Post Modernist Choreographer David Gordon

He combined movement and words in ways that could be stimulating or jolting, focusing on family or fantasy, or delving into Ionesco, Shakespeare, or Aristophanes. - Dance Magazine

In The Face Of Black Lives Matter And Ongoing Violence, Is Creating Dance A Sufficient Response?

Choreographer David Roussève has always situated his work at "the intersection of choreography and social activism," finding that he can help create empathy with the characters the audience is watching. But after a policeman in South Carolina shot Walter Scott, Roussève wondered if even that was enough. - Dance Magazine

It’s Taken Six Years For Miami City Ballet To Get Its Full-Length “Swan Lake” Onstage

The company, always oriented more toward the abstract works of Balanchine and his artistic successors than toward story ballets, has performed only an abridged one-act version of the Tchaikovsky classic before now. And this version, by Alexei Ratmansky, is based on notation of the 1895 Petipa/Ivanov original. - The New York Times

Making A Ballet Out Of “The Graduate” (?!)

That's the challenge choreographer Cathy Marston took on for San Francisco Ballet, where her new work, Mrs. Robinson, is now premiering. In a Q&A, she talks about why and how she did it. - Pointe Magazine

How Ailey Director Robert Battle Got His Creative Chops Back

The pandemic smothered everything, wiping Battle’s calendar clean, and crazy as it sounds, it helped him. The shutdown provided space, and the racial reckoning, a spark. Battle dusted off some of his older works. And for the first time in years, he created a new one. - Washington Post

Federico Bonelli, Star Of London’s Royal Ballet, Named Artistic Director Of England’s Ballet North

Bonelli succeeds David Nixon, who ran the company — based in Leeds but touring more than any other ballet troupe in the UK — for 21 years. - SeeingDance

Lion Dancers In Houston Have 90 Performances During The Days Around Lunar New Year

Here's how they practice, and how they deal with being away from their families during one of the biggest holidays of the year. - Houston Chronicle

The Super Bowl Dance Kerfuffle

Much more than a kerfuffle - it's about skill, rehearsal, and money. The half-time dancers "frame the action. And in a space as vast as a football stadium, that’s paramount. They bring structure to the stage; like a corps de ballet, they complete the picture." - The New York Times

Data: Who Gets To Be A Resident Choreographer

The position of resident choreographer, while it does not exist at every company and varies between organizations, represents job stability, resources, and artistic opportunity for choreographers, who otherwise tend to operate as freelancers or gig-workers. - Dance Data Project

An Alvin Ailey Star Choreographs His First Piece For A Big Ballet Company (New York City Ballet, No Less)

Jamar Roberts, who only stopped dancing for the Ailey company last month and who remains its resident choreographer, says that the new work is very different than he thought it would be in the spring of 2020, when it was supposed to have premiered. - The New York Times

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