Dance

I was really inspired by all the young people I saw demanding change, whether in how they were taught dance history, the shoes they were given the option to wear in class, who got hired or admitted into ballet schools and the teachers they would be learning from. – Pointe Magazine

Ari Honarvar, who as a teen danced secretly to get herself through life in post-revolution Iran, writes about how she now leads communal dancing as therapy for Central American asylum-seekers marooned in Tijuana. – Slate

Kevin McKenzie has been with American Ballet Theatre since 1979. “If you do only the classics, you are a museum, so we tried to find choreographers who stretched the limits of the rules. The contemporary works needed to break all the rules.” – Seven Days

Dionne Figgins, a former Dance Theater of Harlem lead and Broadway performer, will be the new artistic director of the free-of-charge ballet education program, which grew out of Feld’s professional ballet company in the 1970s. – The New York Times

Looking beyond the National Ballet, unless one imagines someone like choreographer Crystal Pite wanting to run a big company, there are no obvious standout candidates in Canada. – Toronto Star

“Nine years ago, Del Mak decided he was done performing for artists like Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and One Direction. ‘I’d done everything I wanted to, and I was tired of the rat race,’ he says. ‘My body was starting to hurt.’ The next obvious step? Choreography.” – Dance Magazine

“While Spot’s smooth dance moves might bring a frisson of worry to any K-pop fans thinking that K-pop boy-bands might be the next industry that Boston Dynamics is targeting for its robots to replace human workers in, right now it seems that BTS isn’t too worried about the competition. – The Verge

“[They] are pioneering a new style: masculinized lesbian stripping that appeals both to the LGBTQ community and to a straight female crowd — the type who generally show up to more mainstream and much whiter male strip shows like those by the Chippendales.” – Slate

“She’s most associated with the Judson Dance Theater and New York’s downtown arts scene of the ’60s and ’70s, a hub of radical musicians, artists, performers, cheap loft studios and experimental happenings. But Childs has worked steadily since, particularly in Europe, and latterly as an opera director, too.” – The Guardian

“Kelly Tweeddale, the former symphony and opera executive who was hired in 2019 as executive director of the San Francisco Ballet, stepped down from the post on Monday, June 28, after less than two years on the job. An announcement from the company gave no reason for the decision.” – San Francisco Chronicle

A visit to Freed of London, where 24 skilled craftspeople make ballet shoes, many custom-fitted for dancers at the likes of Britain’s Royal Ballet and ABT, where they go through about 3,600 pairs a year. – Business Insider

Serious allegations made by current and former dancers in his Antwerp company, Troubleyn, became public in 2018. After a lengthy investigation, that city’s labor tribunal has referred Fabre’s case to criminal court. – The Bulletin (Belgium)

The dance festival in the Berkshires is coming back from last summer’s cancellation, the first in its 89-year history, and the destruction of its Doris Duke Theater by fire last November, while its other theater, the Ted Shawn, is under renovation. – MSN (Washington Post)

“I was informed on Wednesday of this week that the board has decided to go a different direction in the AD role and that my resignation was required by [the end of the day]. This was an unexpected development.” – Oregon Arts Watch

MacKenzie Scott, ex-spouse of Jeff Bezos who was heavily involved in launching Amazon in the 1990s, gave generously to many pandemic (and perenially) cash-strapped dance companies in her latest philanthropic efforts. “This round of gifts promises to have an especially large impact on New York dance, with generous aid to some of the city’s most diverse companies. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater got $20 million, which it plans to use to commission new work, perform Ailey’s dances in new productions, train teachers and offer scholarships to its school. Ballet Hispánico received $10 million, the largest gift in its history. And Urban Bush Women received $3 million.” – The New York Times

At least, the Black choreographers and dancers do – following the lead of dancer Erick Lewis, who posted a massively viral video saying, “This app would be nothing without Black people.” And yes, the loosely organized “strike” is having a pretty big impact on TikTok’s numbers. – Washington Post

“Today, artists like [Northern California girl Manpreet]Toor, 31, are changing the way that bhangra and other Indian dance genres are seen, creating dances meant to be consumed online in productions that resemble professional music videos. … [This] reflects a new wave of Indian diaspora dance, a wave that has been enabled by platforms like YouTube and TikTok, and intensified during the pandemic with live performance on pause.” – The New York Times

Alice Topp and Jon Buswell, resident choreographer and technical director at the Australian Ballet, have just launched a Melbourne-based troupe called Project Animo, whose roster will be made up of performers in their 30s and up who have retired from the country’s major established companies. “They’ve learned their craft,” says Topp, “they’ve experimented, and now they’re in a place where they know who they are and they know how they want to sound and feel.” – The Age (Melbourne)

To right the organization’s financial ship she had to make tough choices early on—the first task the company’s executive committee gave her was to release a third of the company’s dancers. – Pointe Magazine

“I by no means want anyone to think we’re abandoning Pennsylvania,” said executive director Shelly Power. “but it’s about our identity as one of the most important cities in America.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer

Since 2015, the Moroccan-Belgian choreographer, one of Europe’s most prominent contemporary dancemakers, has been artistic director of Ballet Vlaanderen in his hometown, Antwerp. At the end of next season, he will step down from that job to move to the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève. (in French; for a Google Translate version, click here) – Le Monde (Paris)

“Ballet Teresa Carreño in Caracas … is the last ballet company remaining in the country, a hallowed institution that was already on its last legs due to politicization, lack of resources, absence of artistic direction, and now the COVID-19 pandemic. The absence of an artistic director sits at the core of BTC’s challenges. … After being a leader in contemporary practices and innovation during the 1980s and 1990s in Latin America, it now faces an uncertain future.” – Pulitzer Center

“It can take a long time to work out what your voice is, particularly in ballet. After 100 Nutcrackers, 100 Cinderellas, to get to a point where you can make decisions yourself is incredibly empowering.” –Sydney Morning Herald

One NFT has been minted for each of the three holograms. The creators will receive a majority percentage of the auction sale, along with a percentage of any secondary sales. – dot LA

Life as a pioneer, life in a pandemic: They have been friends for over half a century, and have held each other up through far harder times than this last disorienting year. – The New York Times