Dancing Times – June 2018

Dancing Times goes stateside this month, as we not only include Jack Anderson’s regular Notes from New York column – which records the opening weeks of the exciting Jerome Robbins centenary celebrations – but Barbara Newman reports on San Francisco Ballet’s extraordinary Unbound: A Festival of New Works, which presented no fewer than 12 world premieres within the space of a few days. In addition, Graham Watts catches up with Hope Muir, now running Charlotte Ballet in North Carolina, and I travel to the US capital, Washington DC, to talk to Julie Kent about her future plans as director of The Washington Ballet.
Staying on the same side of the world, although much further south, Fátima Nollén introduces Brazil’s Ballet do Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro, and Lee Knights considers the music and social dance scene in Cuba.
Closer to home, Nicola Rayner interviews ballroom and Latin dancer – and Strictly Come Dancing favourite – Kevin Clifton about the new show he is performing with Karen Clifton, and Zoë Anderson speaks to the Amateur ballroom couple, Kyle Taylor and Izabela Skierska, as they prepare to compete at the Blackpool Dance Festival.
Finally, after the plaudits he gained for his articles on ballet during the Russian Revolution, Gerald Dowler embarks this month on a new series, this time documenting the history of ballet in the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1941.