Around The Web

Season Two finalist Ryan Rankine is favorably reviewed by the New York Times' Alastair MacAuley for a recent performance:

Entering the stage alone as the words “They took away our drums” are spoken, the young dancer Ryan Rankine has only to walk, stretch an arm forward, then twist his torso one way and another, to fill the space with rich, pliant, physical texture. As his solo builds, the impulse behind the gestures grows into jumps and bends, and that texture, both sculptural and juicy, keeps growing. Sensuously, it works densely against the supporting rhythm like the act of protest implicit in the words.

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Here's Ryan soloing at the FIERCE! Dance Convention.

_{Thanks to cait♥.}



Singer and actress Natalie Bassingthwaighte has been chosen as the host for Australia's So You Think You Can Dance.

"Traditionally dancers don't get a chance to shine, they are not in the spotlight. With this show they will get the recognition they deserve," she said.

Here's her Wikipedia entry, her official site, and a fan site.

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Hundreds waited in line in Adelaide for the show's first auditions.

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Around The Web

Apparently the ballet world is upset with Danny Tidwell. How dare he dance for the great unwashed! The New York Times writes about the debate and about Revolution, a dance-based show opening next week at the Joyce Theater. The cast includes our girl Allison Holker from season 2.

As “ZB1” wrote on the Ballet Talk Web site (ballettalk.com), “I don’t want to accuse Danny of selling out, but in my view that’s essentially what he’s doing, in the name of money, exposure and popularity.”

But Mr. Tidwell said: “The ‘Romeo and Juliet’ story, we’re so past that. I have a very deep respect for art, but I also think we have a lot to learn from pop culture. And that is the future. Either you can ignore it and be stuck in the past, or you can learn from it.”

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The Scranton Times-Tribune previews the tour and talks to Danny:

Although there may have been competition from the other dancers, Mr. Tidwell didn't feel any added pressure from trying to outdo his brother. Mr. Tidwell was adopted by Travis' mother, dance instructor Denise Wall, at a young age. Mr. Wall was often seen in the studio audience on competition night, cheering his brother on. "Travis did give me advice,'' he said. "He told me to just go on and do my dancing and not worry about anyone else.''

Asked if there could possibly be another Wall/Tidwell vs. Schwimmer showdown on a future season of "So You Think You Can Dance,'' Mr. Tidwell laughed: "Well, I do have five other brothers who can dance.''

This story only talks about 3 alternate dancers for the tour, leaving out Shauna Noland. I wonder if there's been a change in plans.

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Newsday has more on Revolution, a mashup of dance and rock & roll:

"Revolution" is rough and rockin'. But rough, rockin', tapping and stepping all at once?

Schulster laughs. "Everybody has that reaction."

Explains Hanna, "We don't want to bring the rock down to the level of tap, but the tap up to the level of rock." He's talking volume: Schulster and he are heavily miked. He also makes the point that "tap becomes the first instrument here."

Schulster puts this rock-tap encounter in historical perspective: "Fred Astaire danced to the popular songs of his day, and this is the same thing. It's organic."

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Here's even more about Revolution, from the Westport News:

"The show features eight dancers, a live rock 'n' roll band, plus video projections," he added. "Unlike most theatrical video productions, the video works as content that directly relates to and interacts with what is happening live on stage. What Revolution presents is very much like a rock concert set up."
...
Frank estimates that he has shot about 98 percent of the video used in Revolution. "I have directed the footage of dancers, the cast members with the band and shot them in rehearsal," he explained. "We also have two cameramen on stage who shoot the show and then we mix that in with the video. The cameramen are actually choreographed into the show."

Ok, somebody needs to send me to New York.

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From The Denver Post:

Revolutionary ideas beg for suitably bracing verbiage, but the best way to grasp them is often the simplest.

"We dance. You vote."

That's the essence of Ballet Nouveau Colorado's 21st Century Choreography Competition, a YouTube-driven, "American Idol"-style contest that has the potential to make modern dance relevant to vast new audiences.

We'll be watching and reporting on that story.

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The debate about celebrities and dance on TV, started last week by the Washington Post, continues. This time from a UK perspective.

Britain, of course, hasn't needed America's lead to drive its own TV coverage in the same direction. While producers can't wait to push the next series of Strictly Come Dancing on to the schedules, opportunities for the rest of the art form in mainstream television have pretty much dwindled to the occasional documentary or the annual Christmas screening of a 19th-century tutu ballet.

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Scene Interactive Blog

If you aren't reading the great blog at Scene Interactive, you're missing out. Recent posts there include:

A video of So You Think You Can Dance season 1 choreographer Marty Kudelka teaching at the Broadway Dance Center.

A link to this New York Times article examining Intellectual Property issues and choreography.

A pointer to this remixed video from 1959, Lindyhoppers Al and Leon on Playboy TV.

Dance Reading

Salt Lake City dance instructor Janet Gray is profiled in this Ellen Fagg article in The Salt Lake Tribune:

Against the backdrop of a black T-shirt, Janet Gray's motto is spelled out in rhinestones: "I yell because I care."
The legendary Salt Lake dance instructor, whose ambition and business sense have kept her studio thriving for 30 years, knows she has a reputation. There's the spirit revealed on that T-shirt, after all, plus what's known around the studio as the "Janet Gray voice."
The shirt is just one of Gray's most obvious psychological teaching tools, drawn from her undergraduate training at the University of Utah, where she later returned to teach dance for 16 years. "When I have that on, and I'm giving it to them, students think I care," Gray says. "If I take that prop away and just have a plain shirt on and I yell, sometimes a little tear will come out."

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New York tango culture is explored in this Beckylooo-recommended Times article by Glenn Collins:

It was a sultry 6 p.m. in Central Park, and over by the 1872 Shakespeare statue at Literary Walk, melancholy rhythms spilled from two speakers propped up on park benches.

Courtenay Nugent rose. He asked Fran Beaumont to dance. There they were: the two it took to tango.

They moved sensually across the asphalt pavers, counterclockwise around the monument, under a coquettish breeze and what was to become a limitless starry sky and an oblong moon. As dozens of onlookers watched over the next three hours, about 50 couples swayed to the steps of the dance that has been called a three-minute love affair.

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Ballet partnering is the subject of this post at Neo-Neocon:

You might say that ballet is feminist, in a way, because it gives a prominent—perhaps even a more-than-equal—role to women. You might say it’s retro, in a way, in that the role it gives tends to revolve around traditional ideas of beauty, grace, and supposed fragility masking strength.

But men and women are different, and ballet not only doesn’t ignore that difference, it celebrates it. Partnering in ballet usually involves emphasizing the difference, and as the French say (French, after all, is the language of ballet), “Vive la différence!”

Thanks NTADKaylin!

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Ballroom Rock 'N' Roll

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, in it's Art To Go blog, takes on Gia Kourlas' article in the New York Times, which we blogged here. They'll take Benji over Danny.

Schwimmer, on the other hand, is perfectly suited to his material and confident enough to take it anywhere he wants it to go. He can ballroom with the best of them, but when James Brown sets the tune, Mr. Brown himself would have appreciated the way Schwimmer can get up off of that thing. It's about time: ballroom rock 'n' roll.

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Danny = Leroy?

In a somewhat annoying and uninformed article, the New York Times' Gia Kourlas compares Danny Tidwell to Leroy from Fame, and takes Nigel Lythgoe to task for some of his opinions:

Even more disturbing is the idea that “So You Think You Can Dance” has emerged as a viable option for real dancers, including Mr. Tidwell, who don’t have to look far to see that career options have been greatly depleted. At its best, the show provides a kind of kicky fun, the good side of cheesy. But it’s also outdated and perpetuates many stereotypes about what constitutes good dance (speed is in, subtlety is out), what language is used to describe it and how training makes boring dancers.

The biggest culprit is the show’s executive producer and judge, Nigel Lythgoe, from his implied homophobic comments (he approves of the way the show’s male performers dance like “dudes”) to his misguided criticism and declarations about what a dancer should be. His obsession with discovering and promoting the show’s “unique dancers” — conceivably someone like Leroy (played in “Fame” by Gene Anthony Ray) — must be driving hard-working dance teachers mad.

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Here's a link to our friend Beckylooo's response.