Dance and Ballet News Feed Directing you to all the top stories. Check back weekly for updates

08/03/2010
From the Limón Company, an Old-School Affirmation
Throughout the 2009-10 season, the 92nd Street Y has been celebrating 75 years of showcasing dance. Those 75 years have made it the oldest institution in the United States to be presenting dance in the same location, and they are years in which the choreographers Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Hanya Holm, Jose Limon, Pearl Lang, Katherine Dunham, Agnes de Mille, Erick Hawkins, Jerome Robbins, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey and Anna Sokolow have worked there.
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07/03/2010
Marianela Nuñez and Thiago Soares: a classic Latin love affair
The Argentinian ballerina and her handsome Brazilian fiance lead busy lives as the Royal Ballet's golden couple. If only they had enough time to get married...
Read interview here

07/03/2010
Celebrating the Genius of Balanchine by Viewing It With Fresh Eyes
The dancing of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet in works by George Balanchine (and, occasionally, other choreographers) is not spectacular. If you go to this company expecting the iridescence that Ms. Farrell had as a supreme interpreter, you leave disappointed.
Read review here

06/03/2010
Double bill of dance premieres is ‘Taylor’ made for company
As clean-cut and as handsome as ever, the Paul Taylor Dance Company is midway through its annual engagement at New York City Center. The repertory sparkles, and the dancers have reached a peak of artistry. Michael Trusnovec’s dancing has become as soft as a whisper, while some of the women — especially Amy Young and Annmaria Mazzini — shine with an inner fortitude.
Read review here

06/03/2010
Dance review: Pilobolus troupe's theatrics dazzle but don't quite satisfy at Richardson's Eisemann Center
An accomplished group of tumblers, illusionists and mimes, Pilobolus spent a great deal of time rolling around the floor of the Eisemann Center stage this weekend, half-hiding in shadows of strikingly dramatic lighting. But the occasionally witty and breathtaking theatrics didn't add up to a satisfying modern-dance experience.
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28/02/2010
Mixed blessings of Royal Ballet debut
In contrast to the long runs of the classics and full-length repertory stalwarts, the Royal Ballet’s mixed programmes have far fewer performances, but these are where we see new work.
Read review here

28/02/2010
Royal Ballet Triple Bill, Royal Opera House, London
All the urgency and humour of youth shines through the scintillating main-house debut of a 25-year-old choreographer.
Read review here

26/02/2010
Wheeldon departs ballet company
Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon has stepped away from the ballet company he founded three years ago.
Read article here

14/02/2010
Interpreting Balanchine Connections
Review of the San Francisco Ballet.
Read review here

11/02/2010
NY City Ballet Offers Rep Gems from Balanchine and Robbins
On the February schedule at New York City Ballet are full programmes dedicated to the works of two of the company's most iconic choreographers. Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Chopin and Bernstein will all be centre stage.
Full article here

11/02/2010
Wheeldon’s Ghosts, Haunted by Dead Choreographers Society
Very few ballet makers today create movement that is as completely dancy as Christopher Wheeldon does. Ghosts, his new creation for San Francisco Ballet, abounds in the felicities that for nine years have placed this still young choreographer in high national and international demand.
Read review here

10/02/2010
Dance Review: Akram Khan Company's first Southern California stop
Change the 'M' in 'home' to a 'P' and you've got 'hope'. That simple but effective bit of word play was flashed two times, for emphasis, on the electronic departure sign that served as a setting in Akram Khan Company’s latest dance piece, Bahok.
Read review here

08/02/2010
Inside Cuba's dance factory
Cuba has produced some of the world's most explosive dancers – but its cultural isolation comes at a cost. On the eve of two major UK tours, Judith Mackrell visits Havana
Click here to read

06/02/2010
Wayne McGregor’s Random Dance company's Entity experiments with total theatre
British choreographer Wayne McGregor stops and thinks before he makes a move. A rigorously analytical artist, McGregor resists the idea that dancing results from some vague and atavistic process. He is also a techno-geek, in love with digital imagery.
Read full article here

05/02/2010
Bolshoi Ballet to perform in Cuba
Members of Russia's Bolshoi Ballet will perform in Havana's Karl Marx Theatre in their first appearance on the island in 30 years.
Read full article here

05/02/2010
Margaret Dale, Director of Dance for the BBC, has died
Margaret Dale, an illustrious dancer who went on to become an important producer and director of dance for British television, died in London on Jan. 28. She was 87.
Read Obituary here

04/02/2010
Alvin Ailey enjoying a swinging renaissance with Uptown
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at the Kennedy Center Opera House.
Read review here

04/02/2010
Theatricality elevates the dance for Mark Morris
On Tuesday, February 2, the Mark Morris Dance Group treated audiences at the University of Massachusetts Fine Arts Center to an impressive display of Modern Dance.
Read review here

03/02/2010
Superficial Seductions in a Rock Opera’s Return
The choreographer David Parsons creates modern-dance works that are apparently designed to be accessible, appealing, inoffensive and - often enough - both sexy and athletically exciting. Certainly he has an audience that finds them so. Review by Alastair Macaulay.
Read review here

03/02/2010
Dance craze sweeps UK after TV shows
A dance revival is sweeping the UK thanks to TV talent shows.
Click here to read article

01/02/2010
It's a great day in Switzerland for Houston Ballet
Houston Ballet student Christian-Emanuel Amuchastegui wins the Prix du Lausanne, marking the first time in Houston Ballet's history a student has taken home the top honours in the prestigious international competition.
Click here to read

01/02/2010
The Possibilities and Perils of Retelling a Masterpiece
Alastair Macaulay reviews San Franciso Ballet.
Read review here

31/01/2010
Mark Morris taking dance works into the music world
Mark Morris is not content simply to tour the standard dance venues with his Mark Morris Dance Group, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this fall. He also takes his works beyond dance boundaries... into the music world.
Read article here

28/01/2010
Last dance for Cunningham troupe
The Merce Cunningham Dance Company will return in fall 2011 to the Dance Center of Columbia College, part of its "Legacy Tour" and final outings before disbanding forever.
Read preview here

26/01/2010
Dance review: Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company
If there was ever any doubt that plotless dances are a myth, that every gesture can abound in meaning and unveil a universe of associations, they were eradicated by the exceptional pas de deux at the heart of Christopher Wheeldon's "Rhapsody Fantaisie, the concluding work on the West Coast debut program of Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company at Stanford University's Memorial Auditorium.

21/01/2010
Christopher Wheeldon goes out on a limb
Interview with Christopher Wheeldon.

18/01/2010
The Royal Ballet's Romeo and Juliet at Covent Garden
Two performances of the magnificent Prokofiev/MacMillan ballet are dominated by two world-class Juliets.
Click to read review

13/01/2010
Richard Alston Dance Company at Joyce Theater in New York City
British choreographer Richard Alston is a master of understatement. Arriving in a season of dance that's been marked by binges, madness and excess, his Richard Alston Dance Company offers tasteful, finely crafted dances, and its programme, which opened Tuesday at the Joyce Theater, goes down very smoothly until the end.
Read review here

12/01/2010
New York City Ballet spring season.
Preview of the New York City Ballet spring season.
Click here to read

12/01/2010
A Christmas Carol by Northern Ballet Theatre
Billed as "a Christmas treat for everyone" combining "traditional ballet and captivating theatre", this is certainly be a different experience from traditional Royal Ballet productions.
Read review here

11/01/2010
With its mixed bag, City Ballet spirals downward
New York City Ballet's 2010 winter season may prove memorable, but not, alas, for artistic achievement. Robert Johnson reviews.
Read article here

10/01/2010
The Snow Queen
Michael Corder's Snow Queen was premiered in 2007 but already it looks set to become an English National Ballet company staple. Judith Mackrell reviews.
Read review here

09/01/2010
Russia celebrates
Various commemorative activities were held to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of legendary Russian ballerina Galina Ulanova.
Click here to read

07/01/2010
A Conversation with Christopher Wheeldon about the new Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera
Marina Harss interviews Christopher Wheeldon about the new production of Carmen.
Click here for interview

06/01/2010
The Light Alston Touch: 40 Years of Casual Grace
Richard Alston, 61, is the doyen of Britain’s contemporary dance creators, and his pieces possess the kind of lyricism and grace that are unfashionably easy on the eye. Though his work appears blithely and uninhibitedly dancey, it is constructed from an intricate assemblage of phrasing and detail.
Read full article here

06/01/2010
Cuba's National Ballet celebrates anniversary of Cuban Revolution
Year 2010 will be a very special year for the most important ballet company in Cuba - Cuba's National Ballet
Full article here

04/01/2010
Off Kilter at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
After these ten different and wildly contrasting numbers, nothing in Scottish dance will be the same again.
Read article here

04/01/2010
Anniversary gala for Tomasson
America's Oldest Professional Ballet Company Honors Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson's 25th Anniversary
Click here to read

04/01/2010
A City Ballet Star's Reinventions
When Peter Boal retired from New York City Ballet in 2005, he left a gap at the dance barre. As it happens, there just aren't enough well-proportioned, innately elegant men with scrupulous line and demeanor to go around.
Full article here

04/01/2010
Alvin Ailey Troup Celebrates Longtime Choreographer's Last Dance
After more than 20 years at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, director Judith Jamison is preparing to step down. In a profile by Jeffrey Brown, Jamison discusses how a mantra of "pray, prepare, and proceed" had guided her both on and off the dance floor.
Click here to read

01/01/2010
Newest Stars Try Cracking Holiday 'Nut'
In October New York City Ballet announced the promotion of six dancers, five of them to principal - Tyler Angle, Robert Fairchild, Tiler Peck, Amar Ramasar and Teresa Reichlen - and one, Kathryn Morgan, to soloist. On Christmas Eve it also announced the promotion of Erica Pereira to soloist. The company now has no fewer than 30 principals, though it is expected to announce some retirements during its remaining winter season.
Read article here

01/01/2010
Choreographic Climate Change
How do we judge a decade's worth of dance? Alastair Macaulay muses.
Click here for article

31/12/2009
Looking Ahead: Dance
Alastair Macaulay looks forward to Dance in 2010.
Read article here

30/12/2009
Review: La Danse immerses audience in Paris Opera Ballet
Sean Means reviews Frederick Wiseman's documentary about the Paris Opera Ballet.
Read review here

28/12/2009
Memorable moments of bliss and brilliance
The top of the tree is uncontested. Paris Opera Ballet's La Bayadere, which was seen only in Brisbane but attracted a large percentage of its audience from other states, set a fresh benchmark for classical ballet in Australia.
Review here

27/12/2009
Interview with Nikolaj Hubbe
Jane Simpson interviews the Artistic Director of the Royal Danish Ballet.
Click here to read interview

27/12/2009
Swan Lake and Royal Ballet's Ashton bill
This season sees Les Patiners and The Tales of Beatrix Potter and the latest return of Matthew Bourne's famous production. David Dougill looks forward.
Click here to read

27/12/2009
Dance in 2009: Diaghilev would have been proud - and then mortified
Some years, the good, the bad and the ugly separate neatly into different nooks in the memory. The last twelvemonth in dance, though, has been a real old mishmash of marvels and mire, sometimes in the same evening. Jenny Gilbert sums up.
Overview up here

25/12/2009
For Mark Morris, a Ballet Three-Peat
The annual "Battle of the Nutcrackers" held by Ovation TV is hardly looking like a contest anymore. For the third consecutive year, that cable channel's holiday competition, in which viewers are asked to vote for their favorite among five different productions of the ballet, was won by The Hard Nut, choreographed by Mark Morris and performed by the Mark Morris Dance Group.
Click here to read

24/12/2009
City Ballet Promotes a Sugarplum Fairy
New York City Ballet has given an early Christmas gift to its dancer Erica Pereira.
Full story here

23/12/2009
The male talents of the Royal Ballet
"Ballet is woman!" said George Balanchine. Not surprisingly, Maurice Bejart countered with "Dance is man!" And Lincoln Kirstein identified the moment when a boy told his father that he wanted to be a dancer with, "Son, this news will kill your mother!" Clement Crisp discusses.
Click here to read

20/12/2009
2009: Review of the Year in Dance
The dance world lost precious resources this year, as the recession and mortality took a toll.
Read round up here

20/12/2009
Paris Opera Dancers at Works and Process
Why do we love? Two dancers from the Paris Opera Ballet will try to tackle that complex question as part of the spring 2010 Works & Process season. The event, on February 14 and 15, is among the highlights of the performing arts series at the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan.
Read preview here

18/12/2009
Georgina Parkinson, former star of Royal Ballet, dies aged 71
Obituary: Georgina Parkinson, a ballet mistress and coach at American Ballet Theater whose compelling stage presence and brooding mystery had made her a bright young star of Britain's Royal Ballet in the 1960s, died in December. She was 71.
Read obituary here

15/12/2009
Birth of a Christmas ballet: Northern Ballet Theatre
Dancing is said to be a young person's art, but the self-possession and expressive richness of mature ballerinas turned the second program of the New York City Ballet's Kennedy Center engagement into an event.
Click here to read

15/12/2009
N.Y.C. Ballet at Kennedy Center: Seasoned beauty
What does it take to put on a Christmas dance spectacular? Jonathan Brown goes behind the scenes at Leeds Grand Theatre to witness the organised chaos
Click here to read

14/12/2009
A Cavalcade of Excerpts in Honor of Judith Jamison
During the two decades that Judith Jamison has run the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, it has grown into possibly the most successful modern-dance company on the planet. It has a new building of its own in Midtown Manhattan, a junior company, a large school and remarkable outreach programs in 10 cities in the United States.
Click here to read

14/12/2009
A Cavalcade of Excerpts in Honor of Judith Jamison
During the two decades that Judith Jamison has run the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, it has grown into possibly the most successful modern-dance company on the planet. It has a new building of its own in Midtown Manhattan, a junior company, a large school and remarkable outreach programs in 10 cities in the United States.
Click here to read

30/11/2009
Margot Fonteyn: In her footsteps
As a BBC drama explores the life of Margot Fonteyn, former ballerina Deborah Bull asks whether British ballet can keep pace with the modern world.
Full article here

29/11/2009
The Next Great Leap
Judith Jamison on her twentieth (and last) year as the empress of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
Click here to read

29/11/2009
Anne-Marie Duff: why playing Margot Fonteyn hurt
No ballet virgin could star as Margot Fonteyn without going through the pain barrier. Just ask Anne-Marie Duff, writes Luke Jennings
Read article here

27/11/2009
Graphic ballet scenes cut by BBC
The BBC has pulled scenes from a ballet after their graphic sexual nature was deemed unsuitable for broadcast in a pre-watershed time slot.
Click here to read

27/11/2009
Paris celebrates Ballets Russes, still young at 100
When Serge Diaghilev brought his Ballets Russes to Paris in 1909, they were an overnight sensation and changed the course of ballet history. The Opera Garnier exhibition celebrates.
Read here

25/11/2009
Scene Stealers at City Ballet’s Gala Night
Every principal dancer with New York City Ballet performed in Tuesday evening’s gala, save for Albert Evans and Sébastien Marcovici, who are out with injuries. In a high-wattage cameo the Paris Opera Ballet étoiles Aurélie Dupont and Mathias Heymann did their darndest to Frenchify Balanchine’s Rubies. There were films, a Peter Martins premiere and a speech by David H. Koch, whose $100 million helped remake the theater that now bears his name.
Click here to read article

22/11/2009
Au Revoir to the Old, Bonjour to the New
Brigitte Lefèvre, director of the Paris Opera Ballet, didn’t let the grass grow under her feet when Wayne McGregor was appointed resident choreographer of the Royal Ballet in 2006. The next year Mr. McGregor created Genus for the French company, and the piece has been performed this month on a triple bill that ran at almost the same time as a Covent Garden program featuring Mr. McGregor’s new Limen.
Click here to read

20/11/2009
Royal Ballet Bends Itself Into Contemporary Shapes
Britain’s Royal Ballet, an august repository of tradition — the grand hierarchical company, the full-length narrative ballet, a pure English style — seems like an unlikely incubator for the new. But Wayne McGregor’s appointment as resident choreographer in 2006 has placed the company firmly at the forefront of balletic change.
Read review here

17/11/2009
The Royal Ballet is a living memorial to its founders
A performance by The Royal Ballet in Westminster Abbey celebrated the work of its founders.
Click here to read

17/11/2009
Diaghilev's Ballet Russes Revolution on Display
The revolutionary Ballets Russes, which in 1909 brought together the best of Russian and European artists, choreographers, dancers and composers, won over the world and made Diaghilev truly famous. Vision of Dance is running at the Tretyakov Gallery.
More details here

16/11/2009
City Ballet Names Chief to Oversee Business
In a reflection of the challenges many arts companies are facing, including a need to develop new audiences and balance the books, New York City Ballet on Monday announced that it was creating an executive director position to oversee all nonartistic matters and named Katherine E. Brown, chief operating officer of the public radio station WNYC, to the job.
Full story here

15/11/2009
George Zoritch dies at 92; ballet star and teacher
Obituary: George Zoritch, best known for his work with the Ballet Russe companies in the 1930s, has died aged 92.
Read obituary here

15/11/2009
Birmingham Royal Ballet: Quantum Leaps, National Dance Company Wales
Birmingham's David Bintley thrills to Einstein while Cardiff's Ann Sholem channels glam-rock and Glenn Miller
Full review here

15/11/2009
Birmingham Ballets, Sadler’s Wells, London
Birmingham Royal Ballet paid its autumn visit to Sadler’s Wells last week with a triple bill and a revival of the jolly Cyrano de Bergerac by BRB artistic director David Bintley.
Read review here

15/11/2009
Dance and Art Play Off Each Other
For the past two years the Merce Cunningham Dance Company graced the galleries of Dia:Beacon here, where the site-specific Beacon Events series was born. Now the torch has been passed to the Trisha Brown Dance Company, which, over the weekend, presented a sharply edited program of Ms. Brown’s early works (pieces created between 1968 and 1975) that took audiences on a fast-paced trip through seven galleries.
Full review here

12/11/2009
Birmingham Royal Ballet at Sadler's Wells
The title of Birmingham Royal Ballet's latest triple bill, Quantum Leaps, isn't an empty boast, at least not when it comes to David Bintley's new ballet E=mc2. Inspired by David Bodanis's Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation, Bintley has impressively digested his swotty source material and, using Matthew Hindson's specially commissioned score, has created a work that not only looks as urgent and brainy as the physics it evokes but is unlike anything he has choreographed before.
Read review here

10/11/2009
Royal Ballet Triple Bill
Judith Mackrell reviews Wayne McGregor's latest work, Limen, Balanchine's Agon and Glen Tetley's Sphinx.
Read review here

09/11/2009
Out of the Nursery, Movements of Desire and Narcissism
Nothing about dance is more mysterious than the diversity of ways in which it can connect with music. Paul Taylor's latest work is set to Debussy's Children's Corner. But its characters aren't children, and its stage incidents have nothing to do with the nursery exercises and lessons that Debussy had in mind...
Read review here

09/11/2009
Royal Ballet Triple Bill: Mark Morris Dance Group, Royal Opera House/Sadler's Wells, London
Zoe Anderson finds the Royal Ballet's latest triple bill keeps falling short of its ambitions.
Read review here

06/11/2009
Royal Ballet Mixed Bill at the Royal Opera House
The Royal Ballet serves up a strong evening's entertainment with one Covent Garden permiere, one world premiere and a tried-and-tested masterpiece.
Read review here

06/11/2009
Can Modern Dance be preserved?
In light of the deaths of two luminaries of modern dance this year, Merce Cunningham and Pina Bausch, Arthur Lubow considers how modern dance might be conserved without the dance company for which they were created.
In-depth article here

06/11/2009
Royal Ballet at Covent Garden
Limen, the latest premiere for the choreographer Wayne McGregor, is full of unsettling dark emotion and sexual energy.
Read review here

05/11/2009
Ballet and African Moves
Karole Armitage's reputation rests, in large part, upon the seismic shocks she caused in the early 1980s by putting ballet alongside screeching rock music. But through a peripatetic career in Europe and since her return to New York in 2004, Ms. Armitage has done little to shore up that reputation for cutting-edge innovation.
Click here to read

04/11/2009
Light, Birds, Action! Cunningham and Company in Rehearsal
Alastair Macaulay discusses a film documenting three days of rehearsals by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
Click here to read

04/11/2009
Dance review: American Ballet Theater's Giselle.
American Ballet Theatre has presented Giselle since its debut season in 1940. ABT's current production, staged by artistic director Kevin McKenzie after the Coralli-Perrot-Petipa standard, is certainly picturesque, but the opening night performance fell far short of perfect.
Read review here

02/11/2009
A Chat With the Artistic Director of the Paris Opera Ballet
Interview with Brigitte Lefevre, artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet.
Read interview here

02/11/2009
Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company tackles an ambitious agenda with mixed results
Making a brief but important stop at New York City Center last week, the ambitious young ballet group Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company tried to gain traction on the perilous slope of today's arts scene. It isn't easy.
Click here to read

31/10/2009
A Master’s Magic, Irretrievable Yet Recreated
It is three months since the choreographer Merce Cunningham died. On Wednesday at 4 p.m. the Park Avenue Armory opened its doors for a five-hour program of dance and music to commemorate his work.
Read review here

31/10/2009
Cuban Ballet Dazzles Spain Again
The current tour of the National Ballet of Cuba, led by Alicia Alonso, seduces the Spanish local media in packed theaters.
Read review here

26/10/2009
The Sleeping Beauty
To dance Aurora after a year away is a tough call for any ballerina, given that this is one of ballet's most technically exposing roles. It was hardly surprising that Sarah Lamb, recently recovered from injury, was visibly wired as she stepped out in act one. But if Lamb's phrasing was abrupt, and her opening balances rocked fractionally off centre, she still smiled at the court: maintaining sweetly virginal eye contact with her suitors, Lamb managed to act her way out of her nerves. This production of Beauty is one that makes such a recovery possible. A reconstruction of the company's iconic 1946 staging, it may have felt too much the museum piece when it premiered in 2006, but the dancers have since made it their own.
Read Judith Mackrell's review here

25/10/2009
The Wheeldon Company in Morphoses
Christopher Wheeldon launched his ballet company Morphoses in 2007, when he was resident choreographer with New York City Ballet. It was a calculated shake-up of his safe, comfortable life. Two years later, Morphoses is a venture to be reckoned with.
Read review here

19/10/2009
In the Spirit of Diaghilev, Sadler's Wells
Sadler's Wells salutes Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, the most innovative ballet troupe of the 20th century
Review by Zoe Anderson

06/10/2009
Rubies aren't the only gems
Zoe Anderson reviews Scottish Ballet and Bonachela Dance Company
Click here to read review