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Emily Behrmann, Executive Director for the Midwest Trust Center Series, today announced the collaborative partners for the eighth annual New Dance Partners, featuring four world premieres of new commissioned works by four local dance companies and world-renowned choreographers.
The Best And Worst Of The Local Arts Scene In 1997. By Margaret Regan ONE OF THE best moments in the whole art year took place in its earliest weeks. Liz Lerman's Dance Exchange had come to town in January, and worked intensively with local groups to incorporate them into a professional performance at Centennial Hall. After weeks of rehearsals, old Mexican-American women from El Rio Neighborhood Center, Jewish mothers and children from the Hebrew Academy, gay activists and even Ken Foster, head of UApresents, joined Lerman's troupe onstage for "Still Crossing," a dance about immigration an...
Arizona Opera, Ballet Arizona And The Phoenix Symphony Collaborate On "La Gioconda." By Margaret Regan THE SEAMSTRESSES for Arizona Opera were hard at work one day last week, crafting glittering 17th-century Venetian costumes for this weekend's La GiocoRev2: ing machines, the soprano of leading lady Janine Bogardus drifted in from the neighboring practice space, where the bundled-up leads were deep into their first week of chilly rehearsals. At least some of the costumes under construction, though, like the dainty dress with jeweled bodice pinned onto a slimmer-than-slim mannequin, didn't...
Ballet Arizona Stretches A Bit To Find A Common Theme -- But It's Worth It. By Margaret Regan WHEN A BALLET company puts together a contemporary program, it's tricky to find a common theme for dances that don't necessarily tell stories. Geography is not the first thing that comes to mind, but Ballet Arizona settled on the title Earth Dances for its concert this weekend. The pieces are not environmental or New Age works, though. The name comes from "the three choreographers using music specific to three geographic areas," explains artistic director Michael Uthoff. Uthoff's own work, 1984'...
Ballet Arizona Pays Homage To The Russian/American Master By Margaret Regan THERE'S ONE moment in Michael Uthoff's life he'd change now if he could. "I was offered a position in New York City Ballet with George Balanchine," says Uthoff, the artistic director of Ballet Arizona, whose dancers this weekend will perform an all-Balanchine concert in Tucson. "If I had my life to live over again, I would take it." Married and the father of a small child at the time, Uthoff turned Balanchine down so that he could dance in another troupe with his wife. But Uthoff did get several chances to work wit...