Search results for: older dancers

“Without her, I would not have had a career,” Boston Ballet soloist John Lam muses about his teacher, Sorella Englund. Known widely as a shaper of the whole dancer, Englund, who was born in Finland, was the first non-Dane to enter the Royal Danish Ballet. Her performing career ended abruptly and scarily when she suffered […]

      As a former dancer with the Merce Cunningham Company, I have had wonderful opportunities to teach technique and other courses in many schools, companies, and institutes. During the last few years, I have spoken with colleagues across the country about the changing roles for those of us who emerged from the dance […]

      The history goes like this. African Americans in dance have had to gather on their own to celebrate the black tradition in American dance. Modern dance pioneers Edna Guy and Hemsley Winfield held the “First Negro Dance Recital in America” in 1931, and Guy and Alison Burroughs organized a second one, called […]

      The sun circles westward, backlighting lithe figures moving against a background of midtown Atlanta rooftops. At Atlanta Ballet’s studio, about 10 dancers swirl, coil, and unfurl through off-balance, angular shapes, rehearsing artistic director John McFall’s The Firebird, a passionate tribute to the Diaghilev era. Dancers are quietly breathless by its end, and […]

Wally Cardona/WC4+ Next Wave Festival BAM Harvey Theater, NYC November 17–21, 2009 Reviewed by Eva Yaa Asantewaa   Wally Cardona in Really Real. Photo by Stephanie Berger, Courtesy BAM.   In Really Real, an ambitious collaboration with composer Phil Kline, Wally Cardona intends to explore a spectrum of human experience and relationships. The massive work—launched […]

Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre takes on the heavy stuff.   A far cry from fluffy fairytales, Stephen Mills’ Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project challenges ballet to take on big issues. Ballet Austin’s 2005 production is performed this month by Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre as the centerpiece of PBT’s 40th anniversary season.   […]

Pyotr Pestov is one of ballet’s greatest men’s teachers. His illustrious alumni include dancers and artistic directors like Vladimir Malakhov, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, and Alexei Ratmansky. From 1963 until the mid-1990s, Pestov was a pillar of the faculty at Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet Academy. In 1996, he moved to Stuttgart Ballet’s John Cranko School, where he teaches […]

        When Christine Caimares came to me in tears about her weight, she was a student of mine in The Ailey School’s Junior Division. At 4’11” her Latina genes dealt her a healthy dose of breast and booty. The toxic cocktail of teen hormones and yo-yo dieting had caused her body to […]