Spring dance preview: Ballet Preljocaj, Savion Glover

The dance season picks up steam with some tantalizing "firsts": Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève makes its debut appearance and introduces Los Angeles to works by Benjamin Millepied of "Black Swan" fame, who is artistic director at L.A. Dance Project. In addition, American Ballet Theatre premieres a new production of "The Firebird" by one of the world's most exciting choreographers, Alexei Ratmansky. 

Here's a look ahead at these and other notable dance engagements this spring:

Ballet Preljocaj

 French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj answers to an eclectic -- some might even say fickle -- muse. Since establishing Ballet Preljocaj in 1984, he has given audiences a dystopian “Romeo and Juliet” on the one hand, and an abstract “Helikopter,” with Karlheinz Stockhausen’s noisy quartet for helicopters as a score, on the other hand. The company’s upcoming Los Angeles performances highlight a well-known story in “Snow White” (2008). But this being Preljocaj, and with costumes by Jean Paul Gaultier and a score culled from Mahler, don’t expect Disney. (For ages 12 and older.)

Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. 7:30 p.m. March 23-24, 2 p.m. March 25. $28-$110. www.musiccenter.org

Savion Glover

The boy wonder of Broadway’s “The Tap Dance Kid” and “Black and Blue” has matured into Savion the inscrutable artist, often dancing with head bowed. His unquenchable thirst to explore tap dancing as percussive sound goes on. In “Bare Soundz,” he explores flamenco rhythms. Glover is always mindful of tap dancing’s roots and the hoofers who came before him, and he pays tribute in this show to the late Gregory Hines.

Valley Performing Arts Center, California State University, Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge. 8 p.m. March 24. $25-$70. www.valleyperformingartscenter.org

Mikhail Baryshnikov snaps his camera for 'Dance This Way'

Mikhail Baryshnikov has turned his focus to fellow dancers. The ballet legend’s solo photography exhibition, “Dance This Way,” opening Friday at the Gary Nader Art Centre in Miami, serves up shots of hip-hop, ballet and modern dances from around the world.

The Latvian-born dancer, now artistic director of the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York, is also the subject in several images.

Baryshnikov’s career with the New York City Ballet among other major ballet companies offered an understanding and access that surpasses most photographers.

Instead of static images of dancers seemingly frozen in time, the 64-year-old creates layers of movements mid-dance in a single frame, blurring his images so they appear more like a live performance.

Not all dancers in the exhibit photos are professionals -– the Miami show has barely dressed women in nightclubs alongside Hawaiian hula dancers, plus a handful of images from Baryshnikov’s previous collections “Dominican Moves,” shot in Dominican Republic cafes, and “Merce My Way,” his collaboration with the late American choreographer Merce Cunningham.

But one theme remains throughout: The dancers are far from holding still.

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-- Jamie Wetherbe

Photo: Mikhail Baryshnikov with two of the photographs he will be exhibiting at the Gary Nader Art Centre in Miami. Credit: Wilfredo Lee / Associated Press

 

Dancer and actress Zina Bethune, 66, dies; founded TheaterDanse

Zina Bethune, the dancer, actress and advocate for disabled children, was an L.A. artist with a long resume and a long list of admirers. On early Sunday, she was killed in a road accident when she got out of her car near Forest Lawn Memorial Park and was struck by an oncoming vehicle.

The L.A. Now blog reported that she was struck by two vehicles after she apparently stopped to help an injured animal on the side of the street.

Bethune, whose real name was Zina Feeley, was 66. In L.A., she was perhaps best known for founding Bethune TheaterDanse in 1980. The organization, located at the L.A. Theatre Center downtown, brought together multimedia visual art and dance in innovative ways.

In addition to her dance career, Bethune had the distinction of acting in Martin Scorsese's first feature film, "Who's That Knocking at My Door?" in 1967.

Dance review: Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo's 'Cinderella' in O.C.

Jean-Christophe Maillot’s three-act “Cinderella” for Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo, seen Thursday at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, just might be the only ballet of Charles Perrault’s fairy tale with a barefoot heroine. 

Who needs a glass slipper when you’ve got lovely high arches that sparkle like gold, as did the evening’s gracious and warm Cinderella, Anja Behrend? Maillot has no use for a fireplace or ashes, either (though he makes fun of all that in a ballet-within-the-ballet). While other “Cinderellas” exist as an excuse to open the trapdoor and rev up the theatrical machinery, Maillot focuses on underlying allegories. Take notice of the Sisters’ rotted black toes. 

This is not a children’s ballet, though the little princesses seated near me grinned contentedly. Maillot crafts steps with cold precision, using a contemporary dance language of whip-fast classicism, scooped torsos, oversized gestures and exaggerated pantomime. He saves the flowing, exultant pas de deux for Behrend and her quite charming Prince, Asier Uriagereka, for the ball, in the night’s most rewarding apotheosis. 

PHOTOS: "Cinderella" in O.C.

Watch dancer Guillaume Cote kick it up in his film [Video]

If you’ve never watched the National Ballet of Canada, or the most recent "Kings of the Dance" tour, you may not yet be familiar with Guillaume Côté, a four-star principal with the stellar Canadian company since 2004.

But he’s recently sent out a fast-spreading international calling card in the form of an impeccable two-minute film called “Lost in Motion” that is the greatest evocation of a dancer’s springy ballon yet on record.

La Scala fires ballerina over frank talk of anorexia

An act of whistle blowing has landed a ballerina at La Scala in Milan, Italy, in big trouble. The famed company has reportedly told her to hand in her pink tutu in exchange for a pink slip.

Mariafrancesca Garritano, who has danced with the company for about 17 years, has  been fired following an interview with a British weekly in which she said that one in five dancers at La Scala Theatre Ballet suffers from anorexia. The interview, which ran in Britain's Observer, contains an unflattering account of how the company pressures its dancers to lose weight.

"Some dancers were rushed to hospital to be fed through tubes, others were hit by depression and still need counselling today," Garritano was quoted as saying in the publication. She also said that seven out of 10 dancers at the academy had their menstrual cycles stop as they competed to eat less.

Garritano said that extreme dieting problems aren't confined to La Scala, but are found throughout the profession.

Movie review: 'Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance'

Ballet has become so culturally irrelevant that people need to be reminded that a century ago it was cutting-edge contemporary art, enlisting the titans of the age in choreography, music and design. Robert Joffrey loved the groundbreaking works of that era and not only revived and reconstructed them for his own company (founded in the late 1950s), but embraced and updated their guiding aesthetic.

His story and that of his partner Gerald Arpino is retold in the 82-minute documentary “Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance” through the reminiscences of former Joffrey Ballet dancers and associates. There’s a lot of valuable information here, but for all the archival footage on view, dance is rarely allowed to make its effect. It's nearly always shackled to voice-over commentary or dismembered by nervous editing. If “Ballets Russes” and the recent “Pina” made you understand the speakers’ enthusiasm, this film makes you take an awful lot of gush on faith.

Directed by Bob Hercules, the film will have its Los Angeles premiere on Wednesday at 8 p.m. in the Zipper Concert Hall at the Colburn School downtown. A VOD/DVD/digital release is planned for June.

Before 'Pina': Memorable moments in dance on film [Video]

I once asked Alvin Ailey about a particularly unfortunate video shoot and he shrugged, saying that directors who can get the financing for dance projects aren’t always the ones who can do right by the artists involved. Wim Wenders’ "Pina" is an exception. It arguably provides a limited view of Pina Bausch’s importance as a groundbreaking theater artist, but otherwise represents a touchstone of dance-for-camera excellence.

The wonders of 3-D---and Bausch’s innovations---get all the attention in Wenders’ interviews. But if it’s true that most academy members will see "Pina" on the 2-D discs provided them rather than at any 3-D screenings, then, obviously, his Oscar chances in the best feature-length documentary category will depend more on how brilliantly he shoots dance rather than any stereoscopic wizardry. And, for audiences, "Pina" may be most valuable in reminding us of the dimensional vision informing some of the greatest 2-D Hollywood dance films.

Read more about "Pina" and the legacy of dance on film.

Most theater choreographies work across the stage-space but the greatest film dances rotate that axis for greater immediacy. An iconic example is "Cool," a rare dance in "West Side Story" (1961) actually shot by co-director/choreographer Jerome Robbins. (He was fired midway through production.) In a sequence full of in-your-face dancepower, watch the Jets’ oh-so-menacing yet oh-so-cool confrontation with the camera in the final shot.

Dance review: La La La Human Steps with U.S. debut of 'New Work'

“Dancing in the dark” would make an impeccable subtitle for Édouard Lock’s provocative “New Work,” which had its U.S. debut at the Irvine Barclay Theatre on Thursday night.

The ultra-athletic artists of Lock’s company, La La La Human Steps, whirled, kicked and wriggled at highest velocity. This iconoclastic style has brought both celebrity and notoriety to the Montreal choreographer. In “New Work,” Lock has gone one step further, designing a nearly dark lighting scheme, brightened only by precisely angled overhead and side spotlights. The dancers' faces and bodies were obscured, allowing Lock to sculpt a fragmented stage of blurred bodies. It’s an ironic twist that in cloaking his repetitive and gestural ballet language, Lock takes it to a more satisfying and nuanced level.

For more than 30 years, Lock has been re-writing the rules of contemporary dance and forcing audiences to revise how they see and register movement. 

In “New Work,” the viewer was best served by looking at the bodies’ wavering outlines, the women in strapless black leotards and tights, the men in black suits (though sometimes shirtless; costumes by Liz Vandal). Observe the strobe-like effect created by the ferociously waving arms and flexed hands, or the reflections that bounced off the ballerinas’ skin and pink toe shoes. Notice the exaggerated contours of sinewy muscles. 

Monster Mash: Blair Underwood finds Broadway berth

Sooner rather than later: The new Broadway revival of "A Streetcar Named Desire," starring Blair Underwood, will open this season, filling the slot left by the musical "Rebecca," which has been postponed. (Chicago Tribune)

Dropoff: The Smithsonian reports that the number of visitors to its museums declined by 2% last year. (Washington Post)

Resignation: Principal dancer Sergei Polunin has abruptly quit his position at the Royal Ballet. (BBC News)

Resuscitated: Andrew Lloyd Webber is actively looking to bring "Love Never Dies" to Broadway. (Los Angeles Times)

Coveted: A painting by Frans Hals that was owned by Elizabeth Taylor has sold for $2.1 million. (Los Angeles Times)

Better late ... Abu Dhabi says that its satellite Louvre art gallery will open in 2015 and a Guggenheim museum in 2017, about three years later than expected. (Agence France-Presse)

Ominous note: The general manager of La Scala in Milan, Italy, said that a balanced budget will be difficult for 2012. (Associated Press)

Back in business: New York's South Street Seaport Museum will reopen Thursday after it closed due to financial hardship nearly a year ago. (WNYC)

Moving forward: The Philadelphia Orchestra, still in bankruptcy, has announced its 2012-13 season. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Severe: Proposed legislation in Virginia would deny active symphony orchestra performers unemployment benefits between orchestra seasons. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Apply within: The Art Institute of Chicago is looking to bring more docents on board. (Chicago Sun-Times)

Passing: Nicol Williamson, the British actor considered by many to be one of the foremost interpreters of "Hamlet," has died at 75. (Los Angeles Times)

Also in the L.A. Times: The Huntington has acquired a collection of telegrams from Abraham Lincoln and Union generals, plus code books.

-- David Ng

Photo: Blair Underwood. Credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times