Category: Dance News

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INDIANAPOLIS CITY BALLET TESTS THE WATERS

 

“You have guests from all over the world to do their forte; it inspires the audience there to keep going and to commit to it. You are going to see a broad range of things. If you’re not into tutus and tiaras, you’ll see something more contemporary. You’ll be exposed to something you didn’t know existed. Your humanity will be opened to something very moving and very memorable.”

— Julie Kent on Indianapolis City Ballet’s upcoming all-star gala performance, in which she is a participant. And wow, look at this lineup: David Hallberg, Tiler Peck, Joaquin De Luz, Miguel Quinones, Sarah Lane, Jason Reilly (from Stuttgart) etc. etc. — dancers from all over the world are participating next Saturday night.

Apparently, Indianapolis City Ballet, which doesn’t yet have its own set of dancers, is testing the waters to see how much local interest there is in ballet. The company hopes to have its inaugural season during 2010-11.

 

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PASHA & ANYA IN BROADWAY ON BROADWAY

 

I know, this is starting to seem like the Pasha & Anya blog… but I just wanted to let people know that they are dancing in the Broadway on Broadway festival on Sunday, September 13th. Broadway on Broadway takes place every year and is basically a day-long series of free outdoor performances meant to highlight the various Broadway shows of the upcoming season. This year’s event is hosted by Michael McKean, who’s starring in the upcoming Superior Donuts, and will include performances by stars of Shrek the Musical, Next to Normal, Chicago, Memphis (Danny Tidwell is not performing though), Mamma Mia, Hair, Finian’s Rainbow, Ragtime, Billy Elliot the Musical, The Phantom of the Opera, West Side Story, South Pacific, etc. etc. — basically practically everything that’s on Broadway right now. Pasha and Anya are dancing a number from Burn the Floor, obviously.

Performances begin at 11:30 a.m. and take place from 43rd to 47th Streets.

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MARTINA HINGIS AND MATTHEW CUTLER ON STRICTLY COME DANCING

 

Apropos of the currently underway U.S. Open, which is captivating the attentions of many New Yorkers right now, I thought I’d mention that Martina Hingis, former tennis champ, is a contestant on this upcoming season of Strictly Come Dancing, the British (and original) version of our Dancing With the Stars.

She’ll be partnered by Matthew Cutler, that show’s last season pro winner and a former Blackpool champ. Here are a couple of videos of Cutler, in the first demonstrating a samba with his former pro partner Nicole Cutler, and the second some vintage clips (or at least they seem vintage now) of the Latin Blackpool championship from about 7 years ago. At various points you can spy 10-year-long reigning champs Bryan Watson and Carmen, as well as DWTS’s Karina Smirnoff and my love Slavik Kryklyvyy. At about the 2:40 mark, the camera focuses on them.

Kind of fun to watch these older comps. You can see how much Latin competition dancing has really changed just in the past several years (seems so much faster now, and costumes skimpier…)

Strictly Come Dancing airs on BBC beginning on September 18th.

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FILM OF NEW YORK EXPORT OPUS JAZZ COMING TO PBS

 

Remember the film version of Jerome Robbins’s New York Export: Opus Jazz that NYCBallet dancers Ellen Bar and Sean Suozzi had planned — and begun — to make in 2007? If not, I wrote about it here and here when a completed scene (pictured above) that was filmed in Manhattan’s High Line starring Rachel Rutherford and Craig Hall had been shown at NYCB and the Guggenheim.

Well, as of August 24, 2009, filming has resumed thanks to WNET (New York’s PBS station), who has acquired the film for its excellent Great Performances: Dance in America series.

The team — which consists of Bar, Suozzi, and filmmakers Henry Joost, Jody Lee Lipes, Matt Wolf and Anna Farrell — is currently scouting locations to shoot the remaining four movements of the 28-minute ballet (the film will consist of the ballet, interspersed with documentary coverage and narratives of the dance’s characters and their background stories). Each danced movement is to be filmed in a different part of the city (to capture NY’s different moods) and will be danced by NYCB dancers.

WNET plans on a broadcast sometime in the Spring of 2010. I’m really hoping it shows on other local PBS stations outside of New York as well, please please PBS — so everyone else can see it! This is the first Robbins ballet to be filmed since West Side Story. I will keep you updated on times and stations, and you can check the project’s Website and Facebook page as well.

In the meantime, here’s a trailer:

 

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BARYSHNIKOV AND ANA LAGUNA ON TOUR

 

Mikhail Baryshnikov and Ana Laguna are in Santa Monica where they’re beginning a U.S. tour. Program includes choreography by Mats Ek (Laguna’s husband), Alexei Ratmansky, and Benjamin Millepied’s Years Later, which consists of a solo for Barysh juxtaposed with movie clips of his younger self dancing. Critics say it “should bring a new respect to middle-age dance performances.”

I’m excited to see the Millepied as well as the Ek piece. Here are some clips from another of Ek’s dances for the pair. Baryshnikov still looks like Baryshnikov — the way he moved in White Nights, the way he danced Tharp’s Push Comes to Shove…

 

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PASHA KOVALEV TEACHING AT NY HUSTLE CONGRESS AND ON NY TV THIS WEEKEND

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If you’re in New York, I just received word that Pasha Kovalev (Broadway and TV star 🙂 ) will be teaching a workshop at the New York Hustle Congress. The workshop is on  Sunday, September 6th at 6:30 p.m. and lasts one hour. He’ll also be participating in the Congress’s “Hustle with the Hounds” event — to benefit animal rescue organizations — the prior Saturday night (Sept. 5).

Most fun! I’ve been to this Congress before, a few years ago, and it’s pretty happening. There are workshops, performances by pros, pro/am competitions, and lots and lots of social dancing. It coincides with the New York Salsa Congress down the hall in the same hotel, which has the same. Go here for more info.

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Also — this just in — Pasha and Anya are going to be on television several times this weekend with Burn the Floor‘s creator Jason Gilkison. They’ll be on NY-1’s “On Stage” program, which airs four times throughout the weekend: Saturday, August 29th (today) at 9:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m., and Sunday Aug. 30th at the same times — 9:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Finally, Pasha and Anya will appear on Channel 11’s Morning News Show this Monday, August 31st. The show airs 7-9 a.m.  They’ll perform a number from Burn the Floor.

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JULIETTE BINOCHE IS COMING TO NEW YORK

 

Very excited. One of my favorite actresses will be dancing at BAM’s Harvey Theater from September 15-21 with Akram Khan in their collaborative work, in-i (post-show talk with her and Khan is on Sept.17). I’d actually blogged about this a while back after seeing it reviewed in the English papers, so I’m very glad they are finally bringing this show to the US. Here’s a sampling of how it was received in the UK.

And, to coincide with the dance tour, BAM Cinematek is having a downright mouthwatering retrospective of her films. It begins with her latest movie, Paris, on September 11th. Following that 7pm screening, she’s to give an audience Q&A with the film’s director Cedric Klapisch. (Only prob with the retrospective: BAM doesn’t appear ever to be screening The Unbearable Lightness of Being…)

Also on September 11th, earlier that evening, at 6pm (I honestly don’t know how she’s going to fit all of this in…), she’s scheduled to be in uptown Manhattan at the Barnes & Noble Lincoln Square to talk about and sign copies of her new book, Portraits – In Eyes. (Binoche is currently taking a year-long hiatus from her acting career to fulfill other artistic passions — dance, poetry, and painting). This time B&N is making clear up front seating inside the little glass-encased area is primarily for book buyers.

All of this is exceedingly cool for Binoche fans, like me 🙂

 

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CARLOS ACOSTA IN SPARTACUS VIA CLASSICALTV

 

I haven’t yet used ClassicalTV.com — it just launched in July — but apparently it’s a website where you can order videos and live performances streamed to your computer. On September 17th, you’ll be able to see The Bolshoi’s production of Spartacus starring Carlos Acosta (in photo above, from Comono) for $9.99. They have opera and jazz and pop music concerts as well, and from August 20-23, in honor of their launch, they have some free jazz streams. Go here for more info on the free and other programs; explore their dance archive here.

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WHEELDON IN WONDERLAND

 

So London is abuzz about the Royal’s official announcement that Christopher Wheeldon will make a full-length ballet based on Alice in Wonderland, set to premiere in 2011.

I’m excited, especially since some of my favorites of his have been his more dramatic ballets, like The Nightingale and the Rose. Thankfully, he doesn’t plan to make a children’s ballet: “A lot can be read into Alice in Wonderland. One could take the more Freudian route…” he says.

Critics expect Wheeldon to “bring a sophistication and an understanding of the darker sides of the text.”

Music will be by Joby Talbot, whose work he also used for the mysterious, poetic Fool’s Paradise, which makes me all the more intrigued.

 

 

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MARCELO GOMES TO DANCE WITH MORPHOSES THIS WEEKEND

 

Breaking news! SLSG absolute favorite will perform with Christopher Wheeldon’s Morphoses this weekend on Central Park’s SummerStage. I blogged about the performances earlier today but this of course makes attendance ALL THE MORE COMPELLING. So to repeat: Friday and Saturday evenings, Rumsey Playfield (69th and 5th Ave.), 8 pm. But get there early; collaborator Martha Wainwright’s expected to bring a slew of fans with her, which, when combined with Wheeldon fans, are going to completely overflow the house, or field.

See Oberon for a review of today’s rehearsal.

😀

 

P.S.: who’s watching David Parsons’s Remember Me right now (8:15 p.m., as I’m writing) on channel 21? Coming across pretty well on TV.