Foot in Mouth

After posting Foot contributor Paul Parish's eloquent and provocative outcry on the YouTube crackdown on user Ketinoa's large video collection, I received some illuminating information on copyright law from Marc Kirshner, of the newly formed Tendu TV. Here it is, filtered through the law-ignorant mind of moi: --In order to maintain their right to certain dances, organizations such as the … [Read more...]

So, in writing about this month's ridiculous, my big dilemma was whether to allot it one star or two in the Financial Times galaxy. The dancing might have warranted two, but the story the dancing was telling was so benighted.... I finally went with one. Here's the first few paragraphs of the FT review, which came out today: Another worldwide tango show has arrived in New York, in the sixth year … [Read more...]

To continue Paul Parish's incredibly smart discussion of why we--potential live-dance audiences, actual live-dance audiences, committed dance enthusiasts, dance scholars--all need video libraries like the Ketinoa collection on YouTube, here are two useful sources I dug up: --Novelist Jonathan Lethem's fantastic 2007 Harper's article, "The Ecstasy of Influence," on how artmaking necessarily … [Read more...]

While we're waiting for the New York Times to do some investigating on the Balanchine Trust's role in the shutting down of a 1300-video ballet archive on YouTube (nudge, nudge), here's Foot contributor Paul Parish, from the Bay Area: Hey Apollinaire -- I don't know how upsetting you find this action, but it's really big if you ask me. I went to that archive all the time and studied there for … [Read more...]

I think it's really exciting that American Ballet Theatre chose to do three premieres for their fall season: Bravo! And they even picked choreographers with solid--or better--track records: besides their new and cherished resident choreographer, Alexei Ratmansky, prolific 30something choreographers Benjamin Millepied and Aszure Barton. I've admired works by Barton and Millepied before, but these … [Read more...]