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/0 Comments/in #YesThisIsAnArtsStory/by dancedataDance Magazine: Kyle Abraham Is Dance Magazine’s Guest Editor This Week
/0 Comments/in Ballet Programming, Awards, and Season Announcements/by dancedataBy Jennifer Stahl
16 November 2020
During my first year at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, there was a grad student in my ballet class who mystified me. At the end of almost every across-the-floor combination, he’d drop the classical positions and improvise for an additional count of eight, mixing hip-hop swagger with contemporary abandon. In ballet class! As a sheltered bunhead who’d always strictly followed the teacher’s combinations like they were The Law, watching him find his own groove in the corner blew my mind. Partly because it felt so rebellious, but also because his movement was simply mesmerizing to watch.
That guy was Kyle Abraham. And even back then in 2003, he was already making his own rules.
He would go on to win a MacArthur “genius” grant 10 years later for his bold, haunting works about police brutality and violence, intimacy and vulnerability. And he endeared himself to the dance community by using that money to help fund his A.I.M dancers’ 52-week contracts (with health insurance and vacation days—even through a pandemic). Then he became even more beloved by refusing to be presented on any rep program that didn’t also include a work by a female choreographer.
I’m thrilled to announce that this week, he’s Dance Magazine‘s first-ever guest editor for our website, taking over starting today with stories that were all his ideas. Stay tuned for pieces about what it’s like to join a new company during the pandemic, what goes into titling a dance work, how directors choose rep, what happens to a choreographer after they “emerge” into mid-career and more. It’s an exciting lineup with lots of insight for anyone in the dance field.
Read the full story here.
The Guardian: Royal Ballet Live: Within the Golden Hour review – sheer, ravishing class from top to pointed toe
/0 Comments/in Ballet Programming, Awards, and Season Announcements/by dancedata15 November 2020
Planned for a live audience then switched to a streamed show, the Royal Ballet’s latest gala is pretty much an all-killer no-filler programme with a company of dancers who, if anything, seem to have benefited from their hiatus away from the stage.
Valentino Zucchetti gets the honour of opening the show with a world premiere, Scherzo. Zucchetti has been choreographing for some time without making huge waves, but this confident piece of neoclassicism shows he knows what he’s doing. It’s set to Rachmaninov, as, coincidentally, is the evening’s other new-ish piece, Cathy Marston’s In Our Wishes. Extracted from her ballet Three Sisters, this pas de deux was debuted at the Royal’s first post-lockdown performance last month. I found it more compelling this time round, perhaps thanks to the dancers (Romany Pajdak and Calvin Richardson), perhaps because the camera’s lens brought us closer to Pajdak’s haunted expressions. In a short duet they find gravitas, stoicism, desperation and great love between two people who just can’t melt the barrier between them.
Elsewhere, we get to explore the company’s history, with three Frederick Ashton works, including Dance of the Blessed Spirits, originally made for the opera Orpheus in 1953. William Bracewell dances the solo as if it’s a stream of consciousness. Full of feeling but never OTT, his dancing has an honesty about it that’s very moreish. Ashton’s divine Monotones II from 1965 is a trio that depends on absolute control and synchrony, plus Melissa Hamilton’s ability to do vertical splits – toe pointed to ceiling, head clasped to knee – while Reece Clarke and Nicol Edmonds rotate her on pointe. It’s extremely exposed, and skilfully pulled off. Staying in the 60s, Yasmine Naghdi and Edmonds bring seriousness and a scrupulous precision to the stark beauty of Kenneth MacMillan’s Concerto, the combination of choreography, Shostakovich’s music and glowing sunset backdrop quite ravishing.
Read the full story here.
The Free Lance- Star: Fredericksburg-area dance studios struggle during pandemic
/0 Comments/in Ballet Programming, Awards, and Season Announcements/by dancedataBy Adele Uphaus
15 November 2020
Khalia Harris said dance saved her life.
Growing up as a military child, she moved often and her father was frequently deployed. She struggled with sadness and a sense of not belonging anywhere—except for at the studio where she took dance lessons.
“Dance was really a healing thing for me, and it changed the trajectory of my life,” Harris said.
Her own experience with the therapeutic and community-building power of a local dance studio inspired Harris to open Umbiance Center for the Performing Arts in Stafford County five years ago.
“I wanted to bring that healing opportunity to other children, especially those who are at-risk, have special needs and that sort of thing,” Harris said.
Umbiance students have performed at many community events, such as the annual Martin Luther King Day celebration at James Monroe High School and the first-ever Black History Month celebration at Brock Road Elementary School last year.
In 2019, the studio received a Best of Fredericksburg award for best area dance school.
Harris also established a nonprofit—Leading Education Arts Program, or LEAP—which has provided scholarships to Umbiance for economically disadvantaged children.
Read the full story here.