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DANCE

Chloé Lopes Gomes, Fired From And Reinstated At Berlin State Ballet, Talks About The Effects Of Her Case

"I've realized that my case isn't just about calling out racism; it's about confronting all forms of injustice in the dance world. … It's also been really great to receive messages from dancers of color, and to feel like we're calling out stereotypes — that our bodies, feet and work ethics aren't suited for ballet." - Pointe Magazine

A Sci-Fi ‘Rite Of Spring’ Set In The Arctic

Choreographer Andrea Schermoly, who created this wintry take on Stravinsky's modernist classic for Louisville Ballet's online "Season of Illumination": "I'd seen a short film … about a stray albino penguin that ad been ousted by its tribe. I remember thinking it was such a strange parallel to Rite, and I liked the starkness of the terrain. … The music...

What James Whiteside Has Been Doing With (Or To?) Dance Through The Lockdown

"As theaters went dark during the pandemic, the New York-based Whiteside" — best known as a prinmcipal at ABT — "began putting out a flood of original content on Instagram and YouTube: going behind the scenes of his workouts and rehearsals, offering live dance classes, creating comedic skits, and debuting inventive music videos … bombastic online alter egos,...

The New Joys Of Experiencing Performance Three Different Ways

If you could see a dance performance inside the theatre (with other masked, socially distanced audience members), outside (same, but less distance), or via your Wi-Fi at home, which would you choose? And how would they stack up? (Hint: The outdoors might be the way to go, at least in the summer.) - The New York Times

A Dancer Who Connects A History Of Dance Through Her Body

"To watch her dance, especially to jazz music, is to watch historical distance collapse. Steps and attitudes separated by eras flow through her improvising body not as some premeditated fusion but as a single language she appears to have always known and yet is creating on the spot. The links are self-evident, unforced, authentic without a hint of the...

Dancer StuartHodes @96 – How To Dance Through Life

"I think anything that you do with every particle of yourself can be wonderful, and it can make you forget the world. It’s magic. How the heck am I supposed to describe it? Something happens. It takes everything you have got. And, for that — for those brief moments that you’re dancing, you’re transported." - The News Hour (PBS)

Ex-English National Ballet Principal Convicted Of Sexually Assaulting Students

"Yat-Sen Chang attacked girls and women at the English National Ballet and Young Dancers Academy in London between December 2009 and March 2016. The 49-year-old was convicted of 12 counts of sexual assault and one count of assault by penetration. He was cleared of one offence." - BBC

Dance With Prosthetic Limbs Is Getting More And More Creative

"Consider Belgian hip-hop artist Angelina Bruno. A star of the European dance circuit whose right arm was amputated at the forearm as a teenager, Bruno dances to The Weeknd's "Blinding Lights" with a 3-D–printed arm in the video game Just Dance 2021. The arm (designed in collaboration with Anouk Wipprecht) is a gorgeously faceted spire that glows iridescently within...

I Have A Prosthetic Leg. Dancing Has Transformed My Relationship With It.

Mickaella Dantas: "It took me a while to consider working with my prosthesis, since it has a limited range of flexibility. I struggled with resistance and balance, and was frustrated by the way the leg could fall off when I sweat. It causes daily soreness. I didn't have the self-discipline at first to develop dance movement with it. But...

World Dance? Seriously?

Typically, it's an intermediary—a manager, a producer, a critic—who labels something as "world dance." The term denotes exoticness, authenticity—and it sells. It's also problematic and limiting. - Dance Magazine

Former Dance School Comptroller Pleads Guilty In Million Dollar Fraud Case

Sophia Kim, former comptroller for the Kirov Academy in Washington, D.C., "gambled with funds she was overseeing as the academy’s comptroller. Over nine months in 2018, investigators say, Ms. Kim wrote checks to herself and used her academy bank card 120 times to withdraw cash and pay off losses at the MGM Grand Casino near her home in Temple...

Where Tap Dance Came From, And Where It’s Going

It's a long history, and a new generation is reviving the art even during the pandemic. - CBS News

Matthew Bourne Starts New School To Prepare Minority Dancers For Professional-Level Work

Cygnet School, based in Canterbury, "is designed to bridge a gap that Bourne had noticed between young people who excel in dance at a grassroots level and those who are able to proceed with vocational training. 'A lot of the young people who were coming to us for auditions were quite raw – the talent was there but they...

A New York City Ballet Principal Writes About Returning To The Studio

Russell Janzen: "This is the longest I have danced with someone else in quite some time, and after running it in this first rehearsal I am winded. … happy we're back but disappointed by how impersonal it feels to dance masked. I had been anticipating that the return to this work would be emotional, precious, but with...

New York Times Dance Critic On Writing About People’s Bodies

Gia Kourlas: "Generally, it doesn't feel fraught, but at the same time I am aware of the sensitivity it takes to write about the body and how easily something could be misconstrued. I don't want to hurt someone — and that's not to say that I haven't — but I try my best not to be cruel. And while...

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