December 31st: Jacob's Pillow: Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellows Program, December 31st: New England Presenter Travel Fund, December 31st: Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet Scholarship, December 31st: 24 Seven Dance Convention, December 31st: National Theater Project Presenter Travel Grant, December 31st: Breck Creek Artist-in-Residence Program, December 31st: Indigo Arts Alliance Mentorship Residency Program, March 31st: SIA Foundation Grants
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"The Devil Ties My Tongue" by Amy Seiwert performed for the SKETCH Series, 2013. Photo by David DeSilva. Courtesy of Amy Seiwert's Imagery
Instead of streaming the same old Nutcrackers this year, we’d recommend exploring something outside the usual male-choreographed, big city productions…
By Chandra Thomas Whitfield, For the AJC
Karla Tyson, 32, remembers well the early days of her ballet training when she and fellow young dance students performed in the ensemble cast of Atlanta-based Ballethnic Dance Company’s “The Urban Nutcracker.”
Her favorite part of each performance of the African American-inspired and Atlanta-focused adaptation of the classic Tchaikovsky ballet was when prima ballerina Nena Gilreath would take to the stage as Brown Sugar, with her husband and fellow lead, Waverly Lucas, as the handsome Chocolatier at her side.
The sight of Gilreath twirling gracefully across the stage in a rust, marigold and chocolate-colored tutu ensemble, her mahogany-colored skin glistening under the stage lights, would literally take her breath away. The standing ovations and encores audience members gifted Gilreath afterward, Tyson remembers, were “definitely inspiring.” She says it was validating and made her believe as an African American, I can be a ballerina too.
“Watching her, I definitely knew I wanted to do ballet,” recalls Tyson, a Henry County resident. “I wanted to be just like Ms. Nena.”
This month in her fifth reprisal in the lead role, Tyson, a Ballethnic graduate, hopes to recapture some of that same “Black ballerina magic” that Gilreath so effortlessly commanded during her 13-year tenure. For the first time, the signature production was recorded at the Legacy Theatre in Alpharetta without a live audience and streamed virtuallySaturday, Dec. 19 at 7:30 p.m. It’s yet another COVID-19 casualty that forced the cancellation of all previously planned festivities in celebration of Ballethnic, metro Atlanta’s first and only African American-founded “classically trained, culturally diverse” school. It’s the professional dance company’s 30th anniversary year, which officially wraps up Jan. 15.
Read the full story here.
By Juan Ignacio Vallejos
27 November 2020
On the Intolerable in Dance
I recently saw Angelin Preljocaj’s Rite of Spring (2001) on film. This was the latest of many ballets staged by the French choreographer from the repertoire of the Ballets Russes. Earlier Preljocaj had offered the world his Le Spectre de la Rose, L’Oiseau de Feu, and Les Noces. Though considered a choreographer of contemporary dance, most dance critics agree that Preljocaj’s works are indebted to the tradition of classical ballet and to neoclassical techniques. In his inventive version of Rite of Spring, the choreography is structured in particular around the idea of a primitive energy related to sex and violence.
This is not an irrational reading of the theme of the ballet. Maurice Bejart’s version was in the same vein. However, Preljocaj includes scenes of rape which are cruel. In addition, the central rape scene, which involves all female and male dancers, is followed by a “reconciliation” scene between the aggressors and the victims; both scenes are prelude to the final rape and sacrifice of the Chosen One. I have to admit that watching all this was disturbing—at least for me. Not because the scenes contained explicit violence, but because the neoclassical technique employed somehow transformed a horrible act into “beautiful” choreography. The male bodies subjugated women through formal movements that harmoniously followed the cadence of the music with perfect technique. The beauty of the movements felt like an invitation to “enjoy” the dance, which was truly unpleasant.
It surprised me that this work—originally premiered in 2001—didn’t arouse any criticism at the time. I’ve found only one text, from 2013, which analyzes versions of the ballet by Maurice Béjart and Angelin Preljocaj; it is published in the feminist blog “Laios & Terpsichore,” and its title is “La culture du viol dans la danse – Le Sacre du printemps” [The culture of rape in dance – The Rite of Spring]. The author writes, “I have nothing against erotic scenes in contemporary dance, [but] to talk about sex through a history of violence shows that these choreographers did not understand what rape is. Rape is a relation of domination, not unbridled sex.”[1] The author’s statement seems well founded, yet it is surprising to find that it was published more than a decade after the premiere. One hopes this essay demonstrates that something has changed in the last ten years. I, for one, would like to think that, thanks to the global feminist movement, some artistic practices related to violence against women have become intolerable for a significant part of the audience and for the artists themselves.
The concept of the intolerable refers to a specific moral configuration that emerges when the transgression of a limit becomes impossible to assimilate[2]. In dance, this impossibility is understood and felt as part of the sphere of perception itself involving both body and mind. When something becomes intolerable, we can feel it in our bodies, even if the impression is not already clear to our minds. Given that all human affect is the product of historical and social conditions, the content of what is considered intolerable varies accordingly. What is found intolerable today may not be in the future and, vice versa, what was tolerated in the past today may not be. As such, the concept ultimately designates a terrain of dispute, an arena in which different factions struggle to impose their limits.
Read the full article here.
Dance Data Project® (DDP) today announced the addition of two new categories of data to DDP’s 2020-2021 Season Status Updates resource: 2020 Festivals (U.S. and international) and Venues. This online resource lists the most recent available information concerning domestic and international programming changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dayton Ballet The Nutcracker - Paul Gilliam as Cavalier - photo credit Scott Robbins.