1910 saw George V ascend to the throne, the trial and execution of Dr Crippen, the publication of E M Forster’s Howard’s End and the birth of Alice Marks, later Alicia Markova, the country’s first prima ballerina. 1910 was also the year that Phillip J S Richardson founded Dancing Times – it was the first independent magazine devoted solely to dance
In an interview, before several appearances in the Italian peninsula over the next two months, Sergei Polunin said, I deeply believe in love. It’s a universal feeling; everyone wants to love and be loved. Today, I see a separation between men and women with too much aggressivity and competition between the sexes. For me, if…
A full-page article in today’s Corriere della Sera, a major Italian newspaper, has the headline: Polunin, the bad boy of dance “is homophobic”. After recent Instagram postings which were widely discussed, Sergei Polunin found sponsors disappearing and an engagement at the Paris Opera Ballet cancelled. The most commentated post was the one where he urged…
In the Upper Room and Embrace were part of a triple-bill programme by Birmingham Royal Ballet called Polarity & Proximity. Embrace, a new ballet commissioned from choreographer George Williamson as part of Ballet Now, Birmingham Royal Ballet‘s five-year programme, run in conjunction with Sadler’s Wells, to develop choreographers, composers and designers to create new and innovative works for the world stage….
After having seen the musical Priscilla, I’ve decided to come out: I’m a Sondheim fan. Yes, Into the Woods, Sweeney, the lot… even Merrily We Roll Along and The Frogs. Every cd, the live recordings, the scores. Now I’ve got that off my chest, I can say how thoroughly enjoyable I find Priscilla, Queen of…
In an interview with Italy’s Vanity Fair, the always outspoken tenor, Vittorio Grigolo, responded to journalist Sara Faillaci’s question, “Is sex important for you?” with, My name is Vittorio. I’m a sex addict. Though he was fooling, he has something of a reputation as a Latin lover or, as Faillaci writes, a “tombeur de femmes”….
The audiences laugh, sometimes the dancers laugh, but getting a dozen or so male dancers on pointe through more than one hundred performances a year is no laughing matter. Being a Trock is a serious business. I talked to three of the Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo company – Alberto Pretto from Italy, Chase…
In the week since David LaChapelle’s video with Sergei Polunin went online it has gone viral, even sending this blog offline a couple of times due to the surge in people searching for information about the Ukrainian ballet star. As I write the YouTube views are edging toward five million; just yesterday one million new views…
Joyce DiDonato has paid tribute to victims of intolerance and injustice in an NPR Music “Field Recording” video, released today at npr.org. In the video, DiDonato performs Purcell’s When I Am Laid In Earth at the Greenwich Village gay bar The Stonewall Inn. Stonewall became a household name after the police raided it on 28 June 1969 sparking…
Joyce DiDonato has always been fearlessly honest, or at least, has the courage to be honest, though it may cost her a great deal emotionally to get over her fear. I don’t know, but I do know that her bravery has helped, and is helping, many young people. Recently she talked to The Telegraph’s Rupert…
Tonight I would like to dedicate my performance of La donna del lago to the memory of Carlos Vigil – a New Mexican teen who committed suicide after being mercilessly bullied throughout school. His suicide note is beyond tragic. But I would also like to dedicate it to every single child who bullied him along the way,…
A ballet dancer with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School is claiming that he has been unfairly dismissed because he acts in pornographic videos. 22-year-old Jeppe Hansen from Denmark, joined the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School in September 2012. In an interview with CBC News he said, My identity is built on being a ballet dancer, for…
When Roberto Bolle popped out and in of the closet four years ago internet forums and gossip rags foamed at the mouth. Openly gay ballet dancers, like openly gay actors and singers, are few and far between. In 2005, after the British Navy introduced an advertising campaign aimed at recruiting gay men, Colin Richardson wrote in…
With last night’s concert in Berlin, Barbra Streisand said auf wiedersehen to Europe forever. In fact, apart from two last concerts in Israel, she is saying goodbye to live concerts altogether. This is Streisand’s fourth tour since returning to live performances in 1973 after a 27 year absence. If she waits another 6 years – that…
Silvano Bussotti, known as Sylvano, is an Italian eccentric, some say genius, and the word ‘flamboyant’ appears in many articles about this modern Renaissance man. He is a composer, poet, set and costume designer, painter, journalist, actor, singer, theatre and film director and sometime bad boy of the arts. Internationally he is more known as a composer,…
Michael Feinstein’s book on the Gershwins called, sensibly, “The Gershwins and Me” (Simon & Schuster) was published in October. While he was still working in piano bars, Feinstein got to know Ira Gershwin intimately, cataloguing his collection of records, unpublished sheet music and rare recordings in the Gershwin home over a period of six years….
What to think of Filippo Timi? After the extraordinary success of his Amleto² (Hamlet squared) comes Giuliett’ e Romeo (a loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet). There are just five characters: the Nurse, Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio and Cupid. Yes Cupid – it’s a very loose adaptation. As Cupid, Timi comes on as though Jason Bieber had been styled by…
Gay advocacy association Equality Italia has asked that gay and lesbian couples be included in cultural initiative discounting entrance fees for Italian state museums on Valentine’s Day. According to a bulletin published on the Italian Culture Ministry’s website, February 12 and 13 Italians and foreigners alike can take advantage of half-price tickets for a romantic…
Photographer Oliviero Toscani, best known for his provocative ad campaigns for Benetton, is causing scandal once again with his 2012 calendar for a leather-tanning consortium showing close-ups of 12 penises. Last year Toscani’s calendar for the consortium near Pisa featured women’s pubic areas, sparking protests. Toscani’s entourage said Thursday he would unveil the new calendar at Florence‘s…
Last night disco queen Gloria Gaynor performed at Crocus City Hall in Moscow. The 63-year-old singer talked to The Moscow Times: “It’s wonderful that I have become so popular in Russia in the last few years. I have performed for Russians in America, in Italy and in Germany. It’s a kind of love affair going…
“I will always be grateful to Bourne, because more than 20 years ago his dances made me laugh. Right from the start it was clear that he was going to bring an enormous amount of fun to the job of choreographer. His engaging irreverence was like nothing else in contemporary dance at the time. “And…
Shelagh Delaney, best known for A Taste of Honey, has died at the age of 71. Delaney was 19 when A Taste of Honey, about the friendship between a young pregnant woman and a gay artist, premièred in 1958. A success in both London and New York, it was made into a Bafta-winning film in 1961, starring…
Actor Zachary Quinto, known for portraying Spock in the 2009 blockbuster film “Star Trek,” has publicly come out as a gay man. In an interview with New York Magazine published yesterday, Quinto recalled a stage play he performed in last year, “Angels in America”, which was set against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic and…
Maurice Sendak, creator of Where the Wild Things Are, which has sold nearly 20 million copies worldwide, is 83 and walks with a stick (“It’s for hitting people”). Sendak has not published a book that he has written and illustrated in 30 years, but this week BumbleArdy is published – the story of a pig whose parents are…
Antonio Banderas is working again with Pedro Almodovar on “La piel que habito” (“The Skin I Live In”): I just needed it after so many years in America. They make beautiful movies there but they play it safer. Maybe it’s because of the money that’s involved, but for a director like Pedro, money is just for…
The Times asked writers to choose their favourite romantic film, and explain the reasons for that choice. This is drastically edited look at the list; to read in full go here: Philip Collins on Brief Encounter (1945) If the joy of romance is contained in the contrast with the accompanying sadness, which it must be, then the…
Italy’s first openly lesbian MP, Paola Concia, married in Frankfurt Friday, the first time an Italian politician has married someone of the same sex. Concia, gay spokesperson for the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), exchanged vows with Ricarda Trautmann, a criminologist from Cologne, Germany. Concia said she would have tied the knot “sooner” but a “pile”…
Questions and answers with Roberto Bolle including whether he thinks Natalie Portman deserves her Oscar for the film Black Swan, and the most beautiful woman and man in the world.
The Lee Hall/Opera North community opera has finally had its showing. The Guardian, commented on the viral storm that surrounded it: Though there are traces of Britten in the score, it’s not the dark, sexualised world of Peter Grimes or Death in Venice, but the innocuous holiday atmosphere of Albert Herring. So we can relax…
After all the controversy the Opera North community project “Beached” is finally coming together. Participants aged from 4 to 73 talk about their experience so far: Reception, Bay Primary School ‘Sea creatures’ Pippa, age 5 (Barnacle) ‘its excellent, really really exciting.’ Destiny, age 5 (Jellyfish) ‘I enjoy it when we stand up on the stage.’ Bailey, age…
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