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Birmingham Royal Ballet's Robert Parker in Balanchine's "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue." Bill Cooper photo courtesy Birmingham Royal Ballet.

Of Birmingham, Balanchine, the Bolshoi, Balanchine, and Balanchine and notation

LONDON -- Like many urbanites residing in one of the world's great capitals of culture, I get so absorbed in the events and activities of London that I sometimes forget there might be high quality dance elsewhere in the regions. One Friday earlier this summer I sought to rectify this oversight, and took the train to Birmingham, England's second largest city, to watch Birmingham Royal Ballet's "On Their Toes!," a mixed bill comprising George Balanchine's masterpiece of abstract imperial classicism "Theme and Variations," Hans Van Manen's erotically modernist "Grosse Fuge," and "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue," which shows Balanchine's gift for comedy, theatricality, and vaudevillian japes. Subscribers click here to read the full Letter and see more photography. (Not yet a subscriber? To subscribe today for just $29.95/year, just click on the PayPal button above.)

Alina Cojocaru and Jose Manuel Carreno in American Ballet Theatre's production of "The Sleeping Beauty." Gene Schiavone photo courtesy ABT.

Spring Met season: From eternity to here

NEW YORK -- American Ballet Theatre celebrated its 70th anniversary by offering few novelties during its spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House (May 17-July 10). Its opening-night gala would have benefited no end from, say, a sneak preview of the pas de deux from Alexei Ratmansky's forthcoming "Nutcracker" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Instead, ABT used the evening mostly for fond backward looks at its repertory and superstars. Glamorous ballerinas Lupe Serrano, Martine Van Hamel, Natalia Makarova, Alessandra Ferri and Nina Ananiashvili, all smashingly gowned, followed by the markedly less glamorous Mikhail Baryshnikov and Frederic Franklin, were summoned from the wings to waves of applause. Notable by their absence: Cynthia Gregory and Susan Jaffe. Alicia Alonso would receive a tumultuous 90th birthday tribute of her own weeks later -- but I'm getting ahead of myself. Subscribers click here to read the full Letter and see more photography. (Not yet a subscriber? To subscribe today for just $29.95/year, just click on the PayPal button above.

Anton Bruehl's 1943 "Harlem Number at the Versailles Cafe" (carbro print). Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas. Purchased with funds provided by Stephen L. Tatum in honor of Nenetta C. Tatum, ©Anton Bruehl.

Frederick Remington's 1895 "Fall of the Cowboy.". ©Amon Carter Museum of American Art.

Culture and Cowboys: It's easy to access and to create access for culture in places like New York City. But some, be they artists, curators, or philanthropists, prefer to make art and make art accessible where they've found themselves. While Fort Worth, Texas prides itself on its cowboy heritage -- a weekly 'cattle run' even trots out 20 tired-looking longhorns daily to promenade for tourists in the city's historic stockyards -- it's also been a place where individuals can carve out cultural niches to lure the wider public. These include noted tap dancer Gracey Tune (Tommy's sister), who 20 years ago founded Arts Fifth Avenue, which offers everything from tap for kids to Argentine tango milongas for adults to "Shakespeare in the parking lot"; and Amon G. Carter, a newspaper man whose biggest legacy today is the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, which is both a repository for Carter's substantial collection of chroniclers of the West Frederick Remington (bottom image above) and Charles M. Russell and a leading national exhibitor of modern art, with a rich permanent collection of photography (top image), as well as temporary exhibitons like Ansel Adams, Eloquent Light, on view through November 7. Dance is present, too; as a complement to Constructive Spirit: Abstract Art in South and North America, 1920s - '50s, running through September 5, on August 26 at 6 p.m., the museum presents a free screening, Abstraction, Avant-Garde, and the Silver Screen, with Busby Berkeley's 1934 "Dames," known for its abstract choreography (and a great cast including Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler and Zasu Pitts). For reservations, e-mail here. -- PBI

The Johnston Letter, Volume 5, Number 1
Red Alert
By Jill Johnston
Copyright 2010 Jill Johnston

Won si eht retniw fo ruo tentnocsid, as we wait for it to be over. Will Obama survive the Tea Party people, or his own presidency, and bipartisan aspirations? Does anyone really believe that two warring political parties are enough for 300 million people? Does it matter, when we are dying anyway? Do we hope for utopia before we go? Can we create our own, even as we know we're on a sinking ship called America? Can't we get off this thing? It's going down with a ton of money, never shared with us, but taking us with it. Atlantis here we come, with tons of useless money. While we chunter on about our lives and interests, the immortal Nero is flying in from Rome with his fiddle. Meantime, I've become hooked on the really low-brow Bachelor show. I want to know how it turns out. Click here to read the full Letter.

Find Tulsa Ballet on the Dance Insider Directory. Sign-up by August 31 and list for 12 whole months for just $109. (New listees only.) E-mail us to sign-up. Above: Tulsa Ballet's Hanae Seki and Alfonso Martin in Stanton Welch's "Maninyas." Photo by Sharen Bradford, the Dancing Image, and courtesy Tulsa Ballet.

The Metropolitan Classical Ballet in Paul Mejia's "Brahms Waltzes" Photo by, copyright, and courtesy Metropolitan Classical Ballet.

What gives Marty Sohl's photos the edge, making for photography of dancers that both captures their stage magic and, using an alchemy of lighting, flare for timing, and experience on both sides of the footlights, adds a still-motion allure that both honors the dance creation and creates something new? Perhaps Richard Philp, the long-time editor of Dance Magazine, put it best: "Marty's early experience as a dancer gives her work a distinctly personal point of view.... Her photos convey a strong instinct for timing and line. Knowing dance from the inside, she captures on film that exact moment at the peak of an arc of movement. She is a master of tone and texture and atmosphere, often working with great success in the darker hues, with a rich palette of contrasting bright colors that gives her work dramatic depth and intensity." Click here to see the full Photo Album.

Scott Heron (prostrate on floor) with Hijack's Arwen Wilder (left) and Kristin Van Loon (right) in "Smithsoniansmith." William P. Starr photo courtesy Scott Heron.

Some art defies explanation and some doesn't require any.

Scott Heron, a notable New York performance artist, who now calls New Orleans home, and Hijack (Kristin Van Loon and Arwen Wilder), a couple of post-modern movers and shakers from Minneapolis, met in Russia in 2002 and made a short dance, titled "3 minutes of Pork and Shoving." Subscribers click here to read the full review. (Not yet a subscriber? To subscribe today for just $29.95/year, just click on the PayPal button above.)

Scott Heron (center) with Hijack's Kristin Van Loon (left) and Arwen Wilder (right) in "Smithsoniansmith." William P. Starr photo courtesy Scott Heron.

Truth and Inconsequence at the New York Times

"During Friday's performance the sky had become cloudless, and on my way home I kept looking up through the pine trees to see perhaps a thousand stars, all astonishingly large and seemingly near."

-- Alastair Macaulay, New York Times, August 8

Alastair Macaulay was content. A week earlier, his editors had sent him downtown. Way downtown. Way, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY downtown, to Chrystie Street, to see Scott Heron and Hijack (the duo of Kristin Van Loon and Arwen Wilder) perform "Smithsoniansmith." "It's part of the Dixon Place Hot! Festival, which celebrates queer performance and culture," Alastair explained, "and everything about the performance was also queer in the old-fashioned sense." Then, like the proverbial kettle calling the pot black, Alastair continued, "What was strangest, and most disappointing, was the tone of inconsequentiality and triviality that marked it all." Make a dance where neither truth nor consequences are apparent, dear post-modern choreographer, and you risk befuddling a reviewer whose critiques (even about performances he likes. *Especially* about performances he likes.) so often seem so... inconsequential. "It seemed that one person alone watched the proceedings in unbroken bafflement," Alastair had observed, before admitting, "and I take no pride in that." (Neither should his employer.) Click here to read the full article.

Metropolitan Classical Ballet guest artists Vilia Putruis and Mindaugas Bauzys in Paul Mejia's "Cafe Victoria." Photo by, copyright, and courtesy Marty Sohl.

How Metropolitan Classical Ballet lives up to Balanchine tradition

The text of this article was originally commissioned and published in slightly different form by ExploreDance.com, and is reprinted with permission.

ARLINGTON, Texas -- Three ballets into the one-night only season of Metropolitan Classical Ballet July 17 at Texas Hall, I approached Paul Mejia, the company's co-director and the author of all three dances, and posed the rhetorical question: "What I don't understand, purely from an artistic standpoint, is what Peter Martins is doing in New York and you're doing here." "Well, my family's here," Mejia answered, but the question persists: After seeing Mejia succeed brilliantly in three different formats -- a group piece and a duet to classical music, then a spicey contemporary work to Astor Piazzolla -- in which New York City Ballet chief Martins has consistently failed, one has to ask: How has it come to pass that the house that Balanchine built continues to be maintained by an incompetent architect when there is clearly other Balanchine-bred talent out there that actually understands and is able to perpetuate the Balanchine aesthetic in a way that lives up to his legacy? Subscribers click here to read the full Review. (Not yet a subscriber? To subscribe today for just $29.95/year, just click on the PayPal button above.)

Texas rangers: The sensational Maiko Abe, above with Andrey Prikhodko in Paul Mejia's "Brahms Waltzes," is just one reason Fort Worth-based Metropolitan Classical Ballet is fast becoming one of the hottest ballet companies in the United States. Watch for more on the company later this week on the Dance Insider -- and more sensational photos from Marty Sohl like the one above.

LONDON -- The Royal Albert Hall is a grand venue in scale and heritage. Since it hosted Arthur Sullivan's "On Shore And Sea" when it first opened in 1871 it has been home to culture high, low, and, above all, middlebrow. The English National Ballet's performance of Derek Deane's in-the-round production of "Swan Lake" hits this mark squarely. That is not a criticism. I see the merits for the company in presenting an unpretentious evening of dance with high production values and an astute awareness of what its audience might want. The ladies next to me when I saw the show on opening night, June 9, were quite transported. Certainly, there is a market for a ballet production that combines the dazzling spectacle and uncomplicated dynamic force of mass culture with the cachet of old-school elitism. The now-deceased French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu would have a lot to say about this in terms of the intersections of class and 'taste.' And if I were in the mood for a bigger debate about value systems and the role of 'Culture' therein, I'd have a lot to say about it too. Instead, when I found my own mind wandering that way during the performance I diverted myself by imagining the Police's Stuart Copeland on horseback narrating the story of "Swan Lake," as he had the amazingly pompous "Ben Hur: the Spectacle" at London's 02 Arena late last year. Click here to read the full Review.

The Royal Ballet's Tamara Rojo and Steven McRae (top) and Eric Underwood (bottom) in Wayne McGregor's "Chroma." Johan Persson photos courtesy Royal Ballet.

Letter from London, 7-19: Voyagers

LONDON -- I applaud the Royal Ballet for putting together several mixed bills of work this season, including the ones I saw May 5 and June 10 at the Royal Opera House, that have acknowledged the company's heritage (much as I mostly loathe Kenneth MacMillan, I respect that he made an important contribution to ballet in the UK and as such should be honored), supported the creation of new works (the lifeblood for any arts company) and provided challenges to keep both audience and dancers metaphorically on their toes. So what if Jonathan Watkins's work "As One" (reviewed previously) struggled to balance ambitious intent with meaningful execution? It did at least try to say something distinctive. It did register as a piece of art of its time and demonstrated that Watkins is alert to the world outside the ballet studio. He surely still has some very interesting work inside him and I hope he gets the opportunity to make it. Subscribers click here to read the full Letter and see more photography. (Not yet a subscriber? To subscribe today for just $29.95/year, e-mail us.)

Fungus no longer amongus: "Jonathan, in large doses, you altered my path, lead me, pushed me, shoved me, pulled me, into who I am and what I do. How I think. Thanks. Peace. I loved you. Say hi to Zappa for me. I miss you." -- Matt Kent, Pilobolus dancer, remembering company co-founder Jonathan Wolken, who passed away June 13 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York following complications from stem cell surgery. For more comments on Wolken click here.

New York City Ballet's Abi Stafford, Daniel Ulbricht, and Megan Fairchild in Alexei Ratmansky's "Namouna." Paul Kolnik photo courtesy NYCB.

Arcs & Textures at City Ballet

NEW YORK -- After a winter season built around five evening-length works, New York City Ballet returned to trailblazing this spring with "Architecture of Dance -- New Choreography and Music Festival," running through June 27. The statistics are impressive: a $1.9 million budget was apportioned among seven choreographers and four composers (not a record; the 1988 American Music Festival commisioned five) and renowned architect Santiago Calatrava was entrusted with the "scenic designs." The theater itself looks unusually festive for the occasion. A couple of the posters or, as they say in show business, fronts displayed in the arcade have been given over to photos of the 34 repertory works scheduled this season. (If you're keeping score, George Balanchine is credited with 22, Jerome Robbins seven, ballet master in chief Peter Martins three and Christopher Wheeldon and Alexey Miroshnichenko one apiece.) Otherwise, the arcade has been given over to portraits of the septet of festival choreographers: Melissa Barak, Mauro Bigonzetti, Wayne McGregor, Benjamin Millepied, Alexei Ratmansky, Martins and Wheeldon. Free-standing duplications of the fronts are on display in the promenade and lobby. Balanchine and Robbins were never granted such prominence on the exterior of the old New York State Theater. Subscribers click here to read the full Letter. (Not yet a subscriber? To subscribe today for just $29.95/year, e-mail us.)

Find Donna Scro / Freespace Dance on the Dance Insider Directory. Sign-up for a group subscription to the Dance Insider for $99 and receive a free one-year listing on the Directory. Above: Donna Scro. Photo ©Lois Greenfield.

Sponsors for Paris coverage on Dance Insider include Pro Danza Italia/USA Summer Dance Workshop in Italy. To find out about becoming a sponsor, for as little as $49, contact DI publisher Paul Ben-Itzak.

In memorium, 6-2: Kazuo Ohno
Last dance
By Marisa C. Hayes
Copyright 2010 Marisa C. Hayes

LE BREUIL (Saone et Loire), France -- This past year has seen the deaths of many great choreographers for whom the dance world is still grieving. Yesterday yet another giant in the field, Kazuo Ohno, passed away. Given he was 103 years old, no one can argue that Ohno's long rich life was cut short, but his creative achievements are more than worth recognizing. Having seen few articles or obituaries about Ohno in the major newspapers (aside from a generic obit in the New York Times that looks pre-prepared), my concern is that this great artist's death will go unnoticed. As he was the co-founder (alongside Tatsumi Hijikata, 1929 - 1986) of butoh, a post-war expressionist dance form that gradually influenced international dancers and choreographers across the globe, I'd just like to take a moment to share my experiences of Kazuo Ohno, with whom I studied sporadically from 1999 to 2003 at his home studio in Yokohama. Subscribers click here to read the full Article. (Not yet a subscriber? To subscribe today for just $29.95/year, e-mail us.)

For more Flash Reviews, News, Commentary and more, see below the photo.

Find the Sierra Summer Dance Intensive on the Dance Insider Directory and Summer Study Guide. To list on the Directory and Summer Study Guide for $99, e-mail us. Above: Prima ballerina Maia Wilkins and principal danseur Michael Levine, teaching this summer at the Sierra Summer Dance Intensive.

PARIS -- If the past couple of weeks have taught me anything, it's that, as has often been the case here, art is being advanced not by the established venues and gatekeepers, but in the ateliers, the squats, the docks, the banks of the Seine, even the eccentric personalities of individual Parisians who, often against great odds, give the city its colors and its dynamism, try to satiate its thirst for the relief and elevation art can provide with, if not a joie de vivre -- it's too much of a struggle to find the means these days to say that -- at least a joie to engage, be it with the elusive muse, the thread that connects a contemporary artistic scene in flux with the phantoms of the past, themselves often barred by the gatekeepers of their time...and most of all with their fellow Parisians and even tourists. So if I was disappointed by a lackluster season-announcing press conference by the Theatre de la Ville in which its director, Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota, was averse to taking questions from the press (and no wonder: the 2010-11 dance season offers little surprises), I was inspired and invigorated by a photo on the wall of a tiny atelier in Belleville capturing a darkened forest fleeting by outside a train window and the enchanting smile of its simply dressed proud author, Agata Rybarczyk -- "It was taken in Poland! I'm Polish!" -- who also invited visitors to create their own art out of small cubes. Subscribers click here to read the full Dispatch. (Not yet a subscriber? To subscribe today for just $29.95/year, e-mail us.)

Flash News, 5-28 (updated 5/31): Martha Graham Dance Company refuses Dance Insider reviewer comps: The Martha Graham Dance Company, currently run by Janet Eilber and LaRue Allen, and its publicist, Jonathan Marder, have refused the Dance Insider comps to review the company's upcoming New York season. "Evidently," said Dance Insider publisher Paul Ben-Itzak, "Ms. Eilber and Ms. Allen are afraid to put what they are doing to the most important legacy in modern dance up to independent scrutiny. And no wonder: Only three of the 11 works they are presenting under the name the Martha Graham Dance Company are by Martha Graham. What they are doing to this legacy is a tragedy, and simply trying to stop an independent dance journal -- one that has fought to preserve this legacy for 10 years -- from witnessing how the Graham legacy continues to erode under their stewardship is not going to hide that fact from the dance community. I find the unprofessionalism of the company's publicist, Jonathan Marder, in trying to dictate who a publication can and can't send to review a concert, astounding. Ms. Eilber appears to live in her own castle, where she thinks she can re-write the rules if they don't please her, even to dangerously corrupting the traditional relationship between critics and artists. It is not for a company to dictate who can and can't review it. Martha Graham understood that. Ms. Eilber misapprehends this basic tenet, as she misapprehends the inherent value of work of Martha Graham and the best way to protect it. It is time for her and Ms. Allen to go."

Julie Beres's "Sous les visages." Alain Monot photo courtesy Theatre de la Ville.

Beres burrows beneath the visage

PARIS -- One problem with a lot of the modern dance I see is that, in these times of crisis, with so many facing the very real challenges of keeping a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, it often seems frivolous and self-absorbed, as if beamed down from a planet where people don't have to worry about making ends meet and basic daily survival. A second problem is choreographers who think they don't need to be talented and trained dramatists to add text to their creations, with the result that the words they come up with are often... self-absorbed. Et voila Julie Beres, whose "Sous les visages" (under or behind the visages), which opened last night at the Theatre de la Ville aux Abbesses in Montmartre where it plays through June 5, takes a real problem, massive impersonal lay-offs or firings, and treats it with luminous movement and lucid, if not always original, dialogue. Subscribers click here to read the full Review. (Not yet a subscriber? To subscribe today for just $29.95/year, e-mail us.)

PARIS -- While I've only seen three shows, what's pulled me so far on my return to Paris, as far as dance goes anyway, is the internationalism and the fresh approach to collaborative creation brought by two artists, Akram Khan and Gregory Maqoma, both seen at the Theatre des Abbesses of the Theatre de la Ville in Montmartre.

You can read on ExploreDance.com my review of Khan's "Gnosis," the big news of which wasn't actually the Bangladeshi - English choreographer but Yoshi Sunahata, a triple-threat drummer, dancer, and singer lent to Khan by Kodo. As for Khan, he shows up again this week as a collaborator in Maqoma's "Beautiful Me," along with Vincent Mansoe and Faustin Linyekula. Subscribers click here to read the full Review. (Not yet a subscriber? To subscribe today for just $29.95/year, e-mail us.)

PARIS -- When I first lived in Paris, I used to collect things. My most prized possession was Sarah Bernhardt's personal mirror. (La Sarah gave it to her personal make-up assistant, who gave it to a photographer taking photos at her retirement home, who left it to his wife, who left it to her son, who sold it to me one Saturday in Montmartre.) After the mirror would be my Leonor Fini art books, including a numbered copy of a limited edition "Story of O" the late surrealist painter illustrated, and two other books, also numbered. Then probably the #2 edition of Paris Match, which was actually the first to devote the cover to just one person, and she was...Katherine Dunham. Click here to read the full Dispatch.

LONDON -- Playing to an unexpectedly rowdy audience (English audiences are usually so restrained and quiet), Danza Contemporanea de Cuba brought a delicious taste of Cuban vivacity to the stage at Sadler's Wells on March 19. Enjoying its first visit to Sadler's Wells, on the final leg of its European tour, the 21-strong company of dancers presented two Sadler's Wells commissions, Mats Ek's "Casi Casa" and George Cespedes's "Mambo 3XX1." Subscribers click here to read the full Letter. (Not yet a subscriber? To subscribe today for just $29.95/year, e-mail us.)

PARIS -- After almost three years in the country, I am back in Paris, dealing with the smog and happy to be back among my people, the outcasts -- my tribe.

It took me a while to realize just how much I am chez moi here. In "Journey to the East," Herman Hesse follows a sojourner whose expedition falls apart in disarray -- apparently. Years later, the sojourner runs into a fellow traveler and asks him whatever happened to the expedition. "It didn't fall apart," his former companion reports. "It was your vision that did." Click here to read the full Dispatch.

PARIS -- If I thought about it, I'd be depressed. Three years after I left Paris, dancers are still talking and saying nothing, and fine dancers diluting articulate, precisely crafted movement with text that barely skims the surface. And not just any dancers. Dancers who have thrilled me with their originality, magnetism, and charisma. Thus even Carlotta Sagna, one of the most charismatic dancers around, started putting me to sleep last night when she began talking about depression, her "Ad Vitam" at the Theatre de la Bastille becoming a litany of ad nauseum cliches about the state of mind of someone who's so concerned with the way others perceive her she's withered into a state of droopy inaction. Subscribers click here to read the full Review. (Not yet a subscriber? To subscribe today for just $29.95/year, e-mail us.)

Sarah Lamb and Ryoichi Hirano in Kenneth MacMillan's "Concerto." Johan Persson photo courtesy Royal Ballet.

By Victoria Watts
Copyright 2010 Victoria Watts

LONDON -- It will be of no small consequence to me when MacMillan year comes to an end. It's not that I dislike the whole of Kenneth MacMillan's oeuvre; it is just that there are so many other interesting choreographers whose work I am not seeing while the Royal Ballet pushes this celebration of what would have been the man's 80th birthday and I am tiring of the supposed dark psychological depths of his dances. Yet if "The Judas Tree," seen on the MacMillan triple bill of April 14 at the Royal Opera House, strikes me as one of the worst ballets ever crafted due to the incoherence of its plot and character development, the heavy-handed yet somehow ill-placed Christian allegory, and its almost comic sexual imagery. I was happy to be introduced to an earlier neo-classical work, "Concerto," and to see a live performance of crowd-pleasing "Elite Syncopations" which I had previously only encountered through the Benesh Movement Notation score. Subscribers click here to read the full Review and see more photos. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription, including full access to archives: $29.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

Find the School at Jacob's Pillow on the Dance Insider Directory and Summer Study Guide. To list on the Directory and Summer Study Guide for $99, e-mail us. Above: The school's Jazz / Musical Theatre Dance Program, photographed by Karli Cadel.

Christopher Vo (foreground) and the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in Lubovitch's "Coltrane's Favorite Things." Chris Callis photo courtesy Lar Lubovitch Dance Company.

By Harris Green
Copyright 2010 Harris Green

NEW YORK -- Angel Corella's two-year-old Corella Ballet Castilla y Leon, Spain's only classical troupe apart from the flamenco-oriented National Ballet of Spain, made its local debut at City Center (March 17-20) a few weeks after the spectacular collapse of Morphoses / the Christopher Wheeldon Company. Both started up around the same time but had little else in common. Corella's company dances to tape recordings; Wheeldon's had performed to live music. Corella remained on American Ballet Theatre's principal roster while regularly returning to Spain to audition an international array of hopefuls. Wheeldon relinquished his title as resident choreographer at New York City Ballet but accepted free-lance commissions around the world, leaving NYCB colleague Lourdes Lopez to manage what was never a fully staffed, salaried ensemble. Morphoses dissolved this year in a firestorm of recriminations and counter charges concerning his availability and her scheduling. Subscribers click here to read the full Letter and see more photos. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription, including full access to archives: $29.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

"I often go to Paris to live yesterday tomorrow."

--Malcolm McLaren, "Paris."

LES EYZIES (Dordogne), France -- I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that none of the obseques to music and fashion impresario Malcolm McLaren on French radio earlier this month mentioned his landmark ode to Paris -- and everything it has represented for romantics around the world for centuries -- in the 1997 concept album of the same name. Thanks to Malcolm, I was already dreaming of Paris for years before I'd ever seen it, having made a nightly ritual of taking my apero in my W. 8th Street Greenwich (Hint to Frenchies: Don't pronounce the 'w') Village flat accompanied by his "landscapes of love." Click here to read the full Dispatch.

April 23, 2004, Montmartre Cemetary, Paris: Pointe shoes from around the world collected by the Dance Insider and placed on what the city of Paris claimed to be the grave of Marie Taglioni on the bicentennial of the mother of pointe on April 23, 1804. Photo courtesy and copyright Dick Turner.

By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2004, 2010 Paul Ben-Itzak

First posted on October 6, 2004.

PARIS -- Officials at the Montmartre Cemetery this morning agreed to take Marie (also known as Maria) Taglioni's name off cemetery maps after an Italian Institute-Dance Insider conference revealed Taglioni is not buried in the cemetery tomb which bears her name, but in the Pere Lachaise cemetery under the name of the ex-husband she divorced after he turned her away from their home because she wouldn't stop dancing. Subscribers click here to read the full Article. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription, including full access to archives: $29.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

Paris Opera Ballet dancer Sophia Parcen places pointe shoes signed by the women of the Australian Ballet and a pair of her own signed shoes on Marie Taglioni's grave at the Montmartre Cemetery, April 23, 2004. Photo courtesy and copyright 2004 Dick Turner.

By Paul Ben-Itzak
Copyright 2004, 2010 Paul Ben-Itzak
Photography copyright Dick Turner

First posted on June 4, 2004.

PARIS -- On April 23, the Dance Insider, assisted by Paris Opera Ballet dancer Sophia Parcen, celebrated Marie Taglioni's bicentennial with a ceremony at her Montmartre Cemetery grave. Parcen and Dance Insider publisher Paul Ben-Itzak laid 38 pointe shoes on the grave, from the women of the Australian Ballet, Bloch, Parcen, and a POB colleague; the shoes from the Australian Ballet were signed by the dancers. They also read a special proclamation from Italian Institute cultural attache Paolo Grossi. Today we share photographs of the event taken by Dick Turner. Subscribers click here to read the full Article and see more photos. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription, including full access to archives: $29.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

Jody Sperling / Time Lapse Dance. Photo ©Julie Lemberger and courtesy Tribeca Performing Arts Center.

By Philip W. Sandstrom
Copyright 2010 Philip W. Sandstrom

NEW YORK -- The pre-show screening of comedic black and white silent movies, of the art house variety, befittingly accompanied by canned piano music, set a near perfect tone for the bifurcated tenth anniversary season of Time Lapse Dance at the Tribeca Arts Center. Subscribers click here to read the full Letter and see more photos. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription, including full access to archives: $29.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

Born to dance: American Repertory Ballet's Dance Power program, a collaboration with the New Brunswick, New Jersey board of education which provides dance education to all third grade students in the New Brunswick public school district, celebrates its 25th anniversary April 26 with a free performance at New Brunswick High School. Mary Dunbar photo courtesy ARB.

Subscribers click here to read the full Interview. (Not yet a subscriber? To subscribe today for just $29.95/year, e-mail us.)

Angel Corella and Carmen Corella of the Corella Ballet Castilla y Leon. John Anderson photo courtesy Corella Ballet.

By Gus Solomons jr
Copyright 2010 Gus Solomons jr

Subscribers click here to read the full Letter and see more photos. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription, including full access to archives: $29.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

Ballet Black's Chantelle Gotobad in Henri Oguike's Da Gamba. Bill Cooper photo courtesy Ballet Black.

By Victoria Watts
Copyright 2010 Victoria Watts

Subscribers click here to read the full Review and see more photos. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription, including full access to archives: $29.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

News item: Of the 11 works to be presented by the Martha Graham Dance Company for its next New York season, three are by Martha Graham, the rest including "American Document" -- not the Graham classic, but a new work... by non-dancers.

Subscribers click here to read the Fool Story. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription, including full access to archives: $29.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

New York City Ballet's Sterling Hyltin and Gonzalo Garcia in Balanchine's 'Rubies' from "Jewels." Photo ©Paul Kolnik.

By Harris Green
Copyright 2010 Harris Green

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Coming soon on The Dance Insider: Watch for Harris Green's new Letter from New York on New York City Ballet's winter season, including Daniel Ulbricht (above) in Balanchine's "Prodigal Son." Photo: Paul Kolnik.

(To learn how to submit work to Danse Elargie, the new concourse organized by the Theatre de la Ville in Paris and the Musée de la Danse in Rennes for June 26 & 27 at the Theatre de la Ville - Sarah Bernhardt, go here, where you'll also find the full version of Boris Charmatz's edited statement below. Deadline: April 18.)

PARIS -- You have always wanted to dance in the Theatre de la Ville without ever daring to ask? You think that the doors of the theaters are too closed? That new, wider ones should be invented? That new generations don't have enough space? That older generations don't have enough space? You think having 10 minutes to present something on stage is neither more nor less absurd than absolutely having to fill a whole hour? You know that the "Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune" lasts only nine minutes? And that therefore you would have one minute extra to add a few gestures? You still believe that dance composition can be spelt with a captital D and a capital C? You are in an acting, dance, or art school, you practice sociology or design, and you think you have a good idea to intelligently occupy the space and time of the Theatre de la Ville? You have been creating choreography for 20 years? 30? Two? Two days? You think that the Theatre de la Ville has gone mad? You are welcome, and we will be pleased to have you with us.

San Francisco Ballet's Yuan Yuan Tan in John Neumeier's modern interpretation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid." Photo ©Erik Tomasson.

By Aimée Ts'ao
Copyright 2010 Aimée Ts'ao

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San Francisco Ballet in George Balanchine's "Serenade." Photo ©Erik Tomasson and courtesy San Francisco Ballet.

By Aimée Ts'ao
Copyright 2010 Aimée Ts'ao

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Spring is here: Leonid Jacobson's rarely seen "Rodin" (above) part of his series of miniatures, along with his tribute to Marc Chagall, will be performed Saturday March 20 at 7 p.m. and Sunday March 21 at 2 and 7 p.m. when the company Jacobson founded, the St. Petersburg State Ballet Theatre, comes to the Tribeca Performing Arts Center on the Borough of Manhattan Community College campus, 199 Chambers Street. Making its first visit to New York, the company will also perform Yuri Petukhov's "Passions a la Carmen," Friday, March 19 at 7 p.m. and Saturday March 20 at 2. Photo courtesy St. Petersburg State Ballet Theatre.

The Royal Ballet's Laura Morera and Carlos Acosta in Kim Brandstrup's "Rushes -- Fragments of a Lost Story." Photo by Bill Cooper and courtesy the Royal Ballet.

By Victoria Watts
Copyright 2010 Victoria Watts

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Tulsa Ballet's Ricardo Graziano in Ma Cong's "Luscious." Photo by Julie Shelton and courtesy Tulsa Ballet.

By Alicia Chesser
Copyright 2010 Alicia Chesser

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Mermaids and angels by the Bay: With Richard C. Barker and the E.L. Wiegand Foundation as lead sponsors, San Francisco Ballet presents the U.S. premiere of John Neumeier's 2005 modern interpretation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Mermaid," March 20 - 28 at the War Memorial Opera House. Photo of Yuan Yuan Tan ©Erik Tomasson.

I'm slow, but I just caught onto the obvious, that extremist Islam is the new Communism, i.e. the new enemy of the United States. Has there been one that I missed? After all, there must be an enemy. We can't just get along together. We can't get along with ourselves, much less together. Later on, when there's nothing left, we'll head out looking for a sunset and hope for clouds for a nice one. Speaking in the pleasant tense, we'll have poetry. Politics will be a bad memory. Subscribers Click here to read the full Letter. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription: $29.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

Mugen Kazama and Tulsa Ballet in Ben Stevenson's "Dracula." Photo by Sharen Bradford, the Dancing Image and courtesy Tulsa Ballet.

By Alicia Chesser
Copyright 2010 Alicia Chesser

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Tamara Rojo as Juliet in the Royal Ballet's production of Kenneth MacMillan's "Romeo and Juliet." Photo by Dee Conway and courtesy the Royal Ballet.

By Victoria Watts
Copyright 2010 Victoria Watts

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SEVILLE -- Samples from the collections of, respectively, Margarita Freire (top) and Carmen Jaren (bottom), as revealed in January at the International Flamenco Fashion Salon or SIMOF. Photography copyright and courtesy Justine Bayod Espoz .

Urban Bush Women in Jawole Willa Jo Zollar's "Zollar: Uncensored." Yi-Chun Wu photo courtesy Dance Theater Workshop.

By Gus Solomons jr
Copyright 2010 Gus Solomons jr

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A real prince: Lance Chantiles-Wertz and the New York City Ballet in George Balanchine's "The Nutcracker" to the Tchaikovsky score. Photo ©Paul Kolnik and courtesy NYCB.

By Harris Green
Copyright 2010 Harris Green

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Steven McRae in Frederick Ashton's "Les Patineurs." Tristram Kenton photo courtesy the Royal Ballet.

By Victoria Watts
Copyright 2010 Victoria Watts

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Ice ice baby: Ben Agosto and Tanith Belbin, silver medalists in ice skating in the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, are competing in the Vancouver Olympics and captaining the U.S. figure skating team. Photo courtesy Audrey Ross Publicity.

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Coup de coeur: American choreographer Daniel Linehan's "Montage for Three" (above) and *Not about Everything" are performed through February 13 at the Theatre de la Bastille in the heart of Paris. Photo © Vincent Jeannot and courtesy Theatre de la Bastille.

Part of the multi-genre Russian Imprints season of the Centre National de la Danse in the Paris suburb of Pantin, the exhibition "In the Wake of the Ballets Russes (1929-1959)" runs through April 10 at the CND. Above: Tatiana Riabouchinska as the Ballerina in Michel Fokine's "Petrouchka" to the Stravinsky score. Photo Studio Iris, Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo, s.l., 1935. Mediatheque du CND, DR.

Find Belvoir Terrace on the Dance Insider Directory and Summer Study Guide. Sign-up for a group subscription to the Dance Insider for $99 and receive a free one-year listing on the Directory.

"Often he who has chosen the fate of the artist because he felt himself to be different soon realizes that he can maintain neither his art nor his difference unless he admits that he is like the others."

-- Albert Camus, Nobel Prize in Literature, 1957, Banquet Speech.. © 1957 the Nobel Foundation.

Kettly Noel in Kettly Noel and Nelisiwe Xaba's "Correspondences." Eric Boudet photo courtesy the Place.

By Josephine Leask
Copyright 2010 Josephine Leask

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LES EYZIES (Dordogne), France -- 50 years ago today, Albert Camus, 46, journalist, novelist, playwright, and Resistance hero, died -- or, as the French say, 'disappeared' -- in what Paris Match called "a banal highway accident." And yet Camus, a bi-cultural symbol of hope and unity in fractious times that pitted the country of his birth, Algeria, against that of his blood, France, is more present than ever in today's France and Europe. Subscribers click here to read the full Dispatch. (Not yet a subscriber? Yearly subscription: $19.95. Yearly subscription with access to archives: $34.95. To subscribe, e-mail us.)

Moira Shearer in Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger's 1948 "The Red Shoes." (1948). Courtesy MGM.

Isabelle Ciaravola, foreground, and the Paris Opéra Ballet in Rudolf Nureyev's version of Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker," a scene from Frederick Wiseman's "La Danse: The Paris Opéra Ballet." Courtesy Zipporah Films.

By Harris Green
Copyright 2009 Harris Green

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