JULY 15 BALLET CHANGES ITS TUNE WITH MICHAEL WILSON
If you are hankering after some music that isn't the same old ballet music, well known ballet teacher and judge, Michael Wilson, will be running a Wednesday afternoon contemporary ballet workshop at The Studio in Narransett for the next 6 weeks. [details]
MAY 17 DANCE STUDIO STATS
Dance Studio Life recently did a survey of 753 dance school owners. The majority of studios had no downswing in enrollment in their 2007/2008 year in fact slightly more than 40% saw an increased enrollment. In addition, now almost 80% of the studios are doing competition. The number of non-competition dance schools continues to drop. [dance studio statistics]
APRIL 3 FESTIVAL BALLET REVIEWED IN DANCE MAGAZINE
The April edition of Dance Magazine has a generally positive review of Festival Ballets's February concert which featured performances of Coma, Leaves are Fading and Rodeo. Dance Magazine pg 80 April 2008
APRIL 3 PC'S DANCE DIRECTOR WINS NDA'S SCHOLAR AWARD
Wendy Oliver, Providence College's Director of dance, has won the National Dance Association Scholar/Artist Award for 2008. She will accept the award as well as give a presentation entitled Body Image in the Dance Class at the AAHPERD National Convention (April 8 through 12 Fort Worth Texas). Dance Magazine has profiled her in the April Studio Talk supplement. Dance Magazine, Studio Talk pg 4 & 6, April 2008
MARCH 17 BOSTON BALLET LAYING OFF DANCERS & EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR GIVES NOTICE
In two apparently unrelated moves, Boston Ballet plans to lay off a total of 9 dancers taking the main company down from 50 dancers to 41 and Valerie Wilder, its executive director, will leave at the end of this season. In 2004, the Wang Theatre gave Boston Ballet's Nutcracker performance slots to a touring Rockette show. Since then, BB has performed in smaller theatres with a resulting loss in revenue. These layoffs along with others done in the past year will save the company $500,000 a year.
Boston's loss could be Rhode Island's gain as well-trained technically accomplished ballet dancers hit the New England job market. Festival Ballet (see below) has a relationship with with many Boston Ballet dancers through current dancers, guest artist positions and choreographer Viktor Plotnikov, who was once a BB principal and now choreographs for them.
[Several dancers among layoffs at Boston Ballet by Geoff Edgars Boston Globe 3/15/08]
FB has, however, parted ways with lead dancers Gleb Lyamenkoff. Gleb had turned into a wonderfully evocative dancer and his departure is sad news for RI balletomanes.
In February, company members Heather O'Halloran and Eivar Martinez became first time parents to a baby boy. Heather has been out most of this season, but is in talks for an acting role in the upcoming FB performance Swan Lake (April 25 to 27). Only time will tell whether this important asset to Festival Ballet stays in the fold or finds the combination of parenting and dance too daunting.
FEBRUARY 9 VMA RAISES RENTAL RATES, STATE THREATENS TAKEOVER
Performance groups have been hit with a hugh increase in rental fees from the Veteran's Memorial Auditorium and they apparently didn't take it lying down. Goveror Carcieri's office and RISCA head, Randall Rosenbaum fielded many complaints. Now the state is condidering turning the facility over to the Convention Center Authority instead of to the VMA Foundation, which has been running VMA and was scheduled to take possession of the building this summer. [State Takeover? by Benjamin N. Gedan ProJo 2/9/08]
JANUARY 18 OFF THE CURB CLOSES ITS DOORS
For most of us, just the idea of creating and maintaining a dance company is daunting. The work required is prodigious; there is no money; you are consumed by the job. Why does anyone do it? Jackie Henderson called it quits last week. She ran Off The Curb for sixteen years and after much soul searching decided the time had come. [Details]
NOVEMBER 29 THE PERFORMING ARTS NEED TO THINK GREEN "EVERY theatre has a green room, but few are green in the modern sense. With their banks of dazzling stage lights and foyers ablaze nightly, theatres are energy-hungry beasts. Add to that the costs and waste associated with sets and props and the mountains of paper generated with every production and the world of make-believe begins to look grim..."
Down in Australia, they are already working to lessen the performing arts environmental impact. Andrew Upton, who will be co-artistic director (along with Cate Blanchett) of the Sydney Theatre Company, issued the following statement at a forum about the arts and pollution, "Theatre's role in any society is to be in engaged dialogue with the fundamental questions of the day...A person cannot simply talk about climate change, write plays about climate change and have forums about climate change; it's an issue that demands active engagement."
[Enter a greener limelight by Fiona Gruber The Australian 11/29/07]
NOVEMBER 29 WHY THE YOUNG DON'T DANCE This from an article about the slow demise of polka in the rural west - "It's our generation's fault...When we were growing up, our parents would take us to the dances. We'd fall asleep on the side of the stage, or in the booths. But then when our generation grew up, we got baby sitters."
It does seem as though now social dancing is for adults unencumbered of child for an evening. The Hispanic culture has a tradition of bringing even the babies to dances with the result that by the time their children hit puberty, they are passable to good dancers. Maybe it's time for all dancing parents to start bringing the young ones so they can learn early rather than too late. Spread the wealth! [A rural dance tradition in twilight by Ben Ratliff Herald Tribune 11/29/07]
NOVEMBER 12 DANCE TEACHERS - DON'T BE FOOLED
This month has seen a dramatic increase in the number of dance teacher scam emails.
If you have received a letter anything like the following....
Good day to you over there, I need a Private dancing Teacher for my wife (Reta) and my son (Jenny) for 3 months. I got your advert while surfing through the internet and I really want them to be taught by you. Reta is 37 year old and and Jenny is 15 years old. Although, I understand you are in U.S.A, but I am working on the arrangement for their accommodation since they are coming on 3 months Vacation Holiday. The both of them are beginners, I just want to fix this to make them busy at times. We are based in London, UK and they will be arriving on 28th of Desamber. Kindly get back to me with.
1.YOUR PRIVATE CLASS CHARGE FOR AN HOUR?
2.TOTAL CHARGES FOR 3 MONTH THAT THEY WILL BE TAUGHT 3 TIMES PER WEEK?
3.FULL NAME AND ADDRESS?
4.YOUR PHONE NUMBER?
Don't hesitate to e-mail with your total charges for the 3 months Private lesson.
Just delete it.
If you have already corresponded with the con artists, do NOT under any circumstances send out a check to them or anyone else. The certified check they will send you is a fraud. [Internet Dance Scammers
Improve Their Techniques]
OCTOBER 17 YOGA INJURIES ON THE RISE
"...more than 14 million people practicing yoga or tai chi nationwide, up 136% since 2000, orthopedic surgeons, physical therapists and chiropractors across the country are dealing with the increasing fallout from yoga gone awry. Over the past three years, 13,000 Americans were treated in an emergency room or a doctor's office for yoga-related injuries, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission...Edward Toriello, an orthopedic surgeon and spokesman for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, says most of the injuries he sees are sustained by 'weekend warrior' baby boomers who begin yoga without realizing that their bodies are no longer what they used to be." [When Yoga Hurts
by Pamela Paul Time 10/4/07]
OCTOBER 12 THE INCREDIBLE LIGHTNESS OF DANCE
Live dance and other performing arts are ephemeral and mutable by nature. The performance you saw one night is not the same one your friend sees on another. In fact, if you are close to the stage and your friend is in the back, the performance is wildly different for both of you even on the same night. An audience itself can affect a performance. A high energy engaged audience often produces a different performance from a restive low energy audience. Your very personality, your background and how the performance was marketed to you may not directly affect a performance, but they
affect how you receive the performance, and there is no real way to separate the performance from its response. [Art in Which Reputations Rest on Ephemeral Memory and Fragile Faith by Claudia La Rocco NYT 10/2/07 free signin required]
OCTOBER 2
NUREYEV BIOGRAPHY CHRONICLES THE DANCER AND HIS FOIBLES Nureyev: The Life, the latest biography about the most exciting male ballet dancer to hit the stage, has just been released and includes never before published information on his personal and artistic life. "Nureyev...did things that are 'absolutely out of our habits'. He dropped ballerinas on the floor, threw dinner plates at people, and blew his nose on hotel towels. He repaid his greatest benefactor by going to bed with the man's wife." - Joan Acocella. And yet, the world forgave Nureyev his shocking behavior because of what he could bring to the stage. Brittany and wannabes take note, artistry trumps impropriety. [Wild Thing Rudolf Nureyev, onstage and off by Joan Acocella New Yorker 10/8/07]
AUGUST 17
ELVIS' DANCE PARSED Pia Catton, the arts and culture reporter for the New York Sun has written an excellent article on how Elvis was able to use an unusual balance style to move the way he did.
"The inherent eroticism of dance - with all its sweaty bodies in any sort of motion — can shift from discreet to overt with even the subtlest of movements. But there was nothing subtle about Elvis Presley...Those loose, jutting hips gave America in the mid-1950s enough eroticism via dance to stop and stare. With a combination of flexibility, control, and balance, Elvis presented movement in a way that gave audiences something new to watch - and gave later performers, Michael Jackson in particular, a starting point." [Pop & Lock, Elvis Style by Pia Catton New York Sun 8/16/07]
JUNE 8 THE BIG APPLE'S ARCHAIC DANCE LAW If you had to name a city in the U.S. that has banned most social dancing, your answer would probably not be New York City - that bastion of cosmopolitan liberality and civil rights. But, in fact, New York has an eighty year old prohibition against social dancing in any business without a dance license, and that license is hard to get. Once ignored, the law is now enforced much to the dismay of swing, salsa and tango dancers (among many others). Last February, New York's appeals court ruled that the law was valid and on May 19, several thousand irate dancers took to the streets in protest and they protested by dancing.
According to the state Appellate Division, "Recreational dancing is not a form of expression protected by the federal or state constitutions." However Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, makes a case for dance as a communal bonding tool of the highest importance as well as a sop for depression (maybe the main reason for depression is an individual's disconnected-ness from society). In last Sunday's New York Times, she makes an impassioned call to arms (or legs in the case of dance) and advises dancers to continue to protest by dancing through the streets. [Dance, Dance, Revolution by Barbara Ehrenreich NYT 6/3/07 free signin required]
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, the latest biography about the most exciting male ballet dancer to hit the stage, has just been released and includes never before published information on his personal and artistic life. "Nureyev...did things that are 'absolutely out of our habits'. He dropped ballerinas on the floor, threw dinner plates at people, and blew his nose on hotel towels. He repaid his greatest benefactor by going to bed with the man's wife." - Joan Acocella. And yet, the world forgave Nureyev his shocking behavior because of what he could bring to the stage. Brittany and wannabes take note, artistry trumps impropriety. 
, makes a case for dance as a communal bonding tool of the highest importance as well as a sop for depression (maybe the main reason for depression is an individual's disconnected-ness from society). In last Sunday's New York Times, she makes an impassioned call to arms (or legs in the case of dance) and advises dancers to continue to protest by dancing through the streets. [
