The Leap of Dance academy has brought ballet to children in a poor district in Africa’s largest megacity
Continue reading...Category Archives: Ballet
Carlos Acosta: ‘My mother roasted my pet rabbits. I was sad, but I ate them’
The Cuban dancer talks about food rationing, what he ate at ballet school and his father’s terrible cooking
I always lived with rationing in Cuba – I was born in 1973. We used the term “the three musketeers” to mean rice, chicharos [split peas] and eggs, although at one point eggs disappeared completely.
I had two rabbits as pets and I arrived home from school one day and there was that smell I’d almost forgotten, of meat. Then I realised that Mamá had roasted my pets and I cried a lot. My mother pressed us to eat them and we all did. The rabbits tasted very good, obviously – I was a kid and I sort of got distracted. I was very sad, but I ate.
Continue reading...The Kenyan Nutcracker – in pictures
Dance Centre Kenya’s Christmas production of The Nutcracker, performed at the National Theatre in Nairobi with the Nairobi Philharmonic Orchestra and guest musicians from overseas, is a highlight of the capital’s cultural and social calendar
Continue reading...Vienna State Opera’s ballet academy hit by abuse scandal
Austrian magazine alleges pupils were subjected to physical, mental and sexual abuse
The Vienna State Opera has launched an investigation and promised far-reaching reforms after allegations that students at its prestigious ballet academy were subjected to physical, mental and sexual abuse by two teachers.
“Things have happened that are unacceptable,” the State Opera’s director, Dominique Meyer, said on Wednesday after the Austrian magazine Falter published a detailed exposé of the alleged abuse based on interviews with students and staff.
Continue reading...Yuli: this portrait of Carlos Acosta and Cuba is a dance film like no other
Ballet and film complement each other perfectly in a biopic of the superstar dancer that captures life under Castro’s rule
Dance on film can have many functions. It might act as a showstopping decoration to the drama (most movie musicals), a shorthand for its protagonist’s obsession or madness (Black Swan, The Red Shoes) or a blunt tool for illustrating cultural difference (Step Up, Save the Last Dance and every other ballet-girl-meets-hip-hop-boy movie). But, aside from Jerome Robbins’ masterpiece West Side Story, it doesn’t often work as a narrative device – an alternative script. That’s how it functions in Yuli, a new biopic of Cuban ballet star Carlos Acosta, by Spanish director Icíar Bollaín and writer Paul Laverty (I, Daniel Blake).
In Yuli (the title is Acosta’s father’s nickname for him), the concept sounds overcomplicated: a biopic played in flashbacks, mixed with real footage of the dancer on stage, framed by the conceit that “current” Carlos is creating an autobiographical dance piece in which he also performs as his own father. But it works. It really works.
Misty Copeland, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and More Come Together for the DVF Awards
If you went looking for a group of passionate changemakers on Friday night, they were probably at the United Nations. Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg turned the fourth floor of the U.N. into a powerfully casual celebration for the 9th annual DVF Awards, complete with small chocolate dessert towers and white lounge couches in lieu of traditional seats.
Rockettes reveal secrets of the Christmas Spectacular
Male former aide to John Conyers says that 'Most of us have seen him in his underwear' and that it's not a 'big deal' after woman accuses the Rep. of partially stripping in his office Ice baths, a secret M&Ms stash and microphones hidden in their SHOES: Rockettes reveal what really goes on behind the scenes of their much-loved Christmas Spectacular One of the most iconic shows in New York City, the Rockettes' 84-year-old Christmas Spectacular, is right around the corner Astonishingly, the Rockettes do not actually hold each other during high kicks, but lightly brush the performers beside them with outstretched arms Their quickest costume change comes between the 'Parade of the Wooden Soldiers' and 'New York at Christmas', when the Rockettes have just 78 seconds The famous tapping sounds are not recorded, but there is a trick to make sure the audience hears them loud and clear One of the ... (more)
Houston arts groups working to recover from Hurricane Harvey
In a Friday, Nov. 17, 2017 photo, members of the Houston Ballet rehearse the Nutcracker at their studio, in Houston. The company will have to hold their performance at Smart Financial Centre and the Hobby Center this year, and giving 10 less performances than usual, because its home stage at the Wortham Theater Center was destroyed by Hurricane Harvey.
Mark Morris’s Azerbaijani Epic
Mark Morris, as a teen-ager, in the seventies, did his longest and most serious dance training as a member of a Balkan folk-dance troupe, the Koleda Balkan Dance Ensemble, a semi-pro group of Seattle hippies and music geeks who got together on weekends, went to the woods, drank slivovitz, and danced till they dropped. When you see the sheer danciness of his work-the twirling, the leaping, the falling, the floor-smacking-Koleda, in large measure, is what you're seeing.
“The Red Shoes” Becomes a Ballet
The English choreographer Matthew Bourne is known for ballets that are based on popular tales or movies; that pulsate with crime and passion; that transpire on shifting planes of reality; that incorporate big, crazy dance parties and small, nastily observed manners; and that generally end with the boy's not getting the girl, or the boy. Now Bourne has done it again, God bless him! His new ballet is "The Red Shoes" , and the story, basically, is that of the famous 1948 movie by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.