At the ENO, there's a new ballet of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring ( read about it in The Times ) Stravinsky's music was revolutionary in 1913, and so was Nijinsky's choreography. It almost caused a riot, as innovation often does. Everything about it seemed "wrong", heresy against all that was sacred in music, dance and design. Only seven performances were held. The following year the First...
"In Asian culture, you don't have a voice. You just accept what everybody says." The star Bangladeshi-British choreographer, dubbed a "great new hope" of dance, still lives around the corner from his parents and claims he never stood up to anyone in his community: "No, because it's a form of disrespect. I disagreed all the time, but it was in my head."...
reviewed in The Brooklyn Rail: http://www.brooklynrail.org/2009/11/dance/william-forsythes-decreation-at-bam "Reading Simone Weil this past week before reviewing Decreation, it became clear to me just how unidimensional Forsythe’s rendering of Weil’s idea of decreation is. At times I want to cry reading Weil, whose pages offer metaphysical insights hard-won from her life of pain, deprivation,...
In “Itutu” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Wednesday, Ms. Armitage drags dance a few decades into the past, with her combination of ballet and African dance.
The Paris Opera Ballet is one of the world's great ballet companies. LA DANSE shows how a ballet company functions from administration, technical support, and classes, to the rehearsal and/or performance of seven ballets— Paquita by Pierre Lacotte, The Nutcracker by Rudolf Noureev, Genus by Wayne McGregor, Medea by Angelin Preljocaj, The House of Bernarda Alba by Mats Ek, Romeo and Juliet by...
Tacita Dean's Craneway Event "records three days of rehearsals by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Craneway Pavilion," a converted automobile factory near San Francisco, about a year before Cunningham's death. Alastair Macaulay compares the documentary film to Degas's backstage-at-the-ballet paintings....
Tacita Dean’s film “Craneway Event” records three days of rehearsals by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in Richmond, Calif., before the choreographer’s death.
I’ve just realised that this is my hundredth blog post on this website. I am a centenarian! To celebrate, here’s a sweet story I heard from Mark Morris when I attended his question-and-answer session the other night at Sadler’s Wells. He was complaining about someone sitting in the balcony at one of his shows last week who [...] Sensitivity is a post from the Susan Tomes: Pianist...
Robert Gottlieb A scene from La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet (Zipporah Films) Your take on Frederick Wiseman’s La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet — a two-and-a-half hour documentary opening on November 4th at New York’s Film Forum—will depend on your feelings about ballet, about Wiseman, and about the Paris Opera Ballet itself. I start at a disadvantage. The more I see of the...
Nikola Tesla was a notoriously obsessive scientist who pioneered the advent of Alternating Current (Edison gets all the props with his DC current, but all the electricity you see is AC), as well as wireless electricity, the remote control, basic radar, the generator (basically a motor), cellular technology, the remote control, X-Rays, neon lighting, tesla coil (transformer) and a myriad of others....
Carlos Acosta in Agon. Photo by Bill Cooper If you're not heading out to a fireworks display in London this week, there are still plenty of whizzes and bangs coming from other forms of entertainment in the capital. Here's some recommendations. Let us know if we've missed anything too... Be There First: London Shows Opening The Royal Ballet is staging Agon / Spinx / Limen at the Royal Opera House from...
The latest film from the esteemed documentary director Frederick Wiseman ( Titicut Follies , High School , Domestic Violence ) is set to open in New York City this Wednesday November 4th at Film Forum. The film is entitled La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet and it, in typical Wiseman fashion, is a dedicated look at the subject of its title, The Paris Opera Ballet. From the description from Film Forum’s...
Even in the dark and without his lipstick-pink pashmina, I recognised choreographer Mark Morris standing chatting with two friends outside Sadler’s Wells Theatre an hour before his show last night. It wasn’t like bumping into Diaghilev: Morris was dressed in old corduroys and a shapeless black t-shirt. I thought it might be his “please don’t recognise [...] Meeting one of my...
(March 10, 2009, Denver, CO) Choreographer Kristin McQuaid has a resume that includes work with stars such as Britney Spears, Prince, and Mandy Moore, as well as national commercials for Dr. Pepper, Jack in the Box, and Pepsi, as well as countless hours logged working in film and television. In her interview with JigTV.com, Kristen tells host Chelsea Latimer what it has taken to develop her impressive...
(March 5, 2009—Denver, CO) Taking some time from his busy schedule of working with professional musicians and dancers, choreographer Tony Testa sat down to talk with JigTV.com about his career, which started at the young age of 14. Since then he has performed with the likes of Aaron Carter, Janet Jackson, and Britney Spears. As part of JigTV's professional dancer interviews , Tony talked about how...
Master dance choreographer, Nick Lazzarini speaks with JigTV.com about his life as a professional dancer and offers pointers to aspiring dancers. As part of it's series of interviews with dancers, the social dance site JigTV.com spoke with choreographer Nick Lazzarini in New York City, where he's been teaching for Jump The Alternative Dance Convention. You may remember Nick as the winner of the very...