As Ballet Rethinks Its Racial Homogeneity, One ‘Swan Lake’ Ditches Tights

So Kain asked the design team: Why not bare legs? When the dancers tried it in rehearsal, she decided it not only looked striking, but it also emphasized the humanity she was going for. “It evolved into a design choice to show the dancers’ vulnerability and individuality,” Kain said. The choice wasn’t unanimously popular. While … Read more

Review: Tango Passion as Muscular Feats

The dancers in “Tango After Dark,” an Argentine production that opened a two-week run at the Joyce Theater on Tuesday, are skilled, seasoned professionals. Their biographies list the many competitions they have won and the many shows in which they have performed, most with “tango” in the title. What distinguishes “Tango After Dark” from these … Read more

In Zoe Saldaña, a Choreographer Finds His Dream Dancer

Jalet, who choreographed Luca Guadagnino’s horror movie “Suspiria,” knew Saldaña only from the movie “Avatar.” When he discovered “Center Stage,” he grasped that she would take movement seriously. “It was such an amazing relief to feel that, “Oh, she’s a dancer,” he said. In the original conception, Saldaña had just one dance scene: Rita walks … Read more

Douglas Dunn’s Dance Idyll, With Undertows of Darkness

“L’ Embarquement pour Cythère,” a 1717 painting by Jean-Antoine Watteau, depicts lovers having a party on an island. They are paired off near a statue of Venus, with encouraging Cupids flying about. Douglas Dunn’s new dance shares a title with the painting, along with some of its pastoral charm and idealization of the past. But … Read more

Lourdes Lopez, Miami City Ballet’s Artistic Leader, Stepping Down

Lourdes Lopez, the longtime artistic director of Miami City Ballet, who championed new ballets and helped to elevate the company’s artistic profile, will step down from her post at the end of this season, two years before her contract expires, the company announced on Wednesday. Lopez, 66, who joined the company in 2012, was originally … Read more

Hundreds of Artists Call on N.E.A. to Roll Back Trump’s Restrictions

  In one of the first signs of collective pushback to the Trump administration’s arts initiatives, several hundred American artists are calling on the National Endowment for the Arts to roll back restrictions on grants to institutions with programming that promotes diversity or “gender ideology.” Among the 463 writers, poets, dancers, visual artists and others … Read more