Pandemic spawns new Fund in support of American dance 3
Mar
8
2021

Taking a high view: Aspen, Colorado for 25 years home to a multifaceted dance organization A much-needed salvo aimed at creating a “more sustainable ecosystem” arrives at a perilous moment in American dance history. Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Fund for Innovation in Dance may not have happened in the absence of COVID-19. But the pandemic ...
A “Nutcracker” for our times from Aspen Santa Fe Ballet

Jenelle Figgens, Pete Leo Walker Ed note: This story by Gillian Renault was originally written for The Younes & Soraya Nazarian Performing Arts Center and is reprinted on artsmeme with permission. The Soraya’s resident dance company, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, is capping off a quintet of annual appearances in Northridge this holiday season. Though best ...
All About Aspen Santa Fe Ballet 1

There are many reasons to be present at the Valley Performing Arts Center Saturday evening, April 16. Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, a premier and enduring western-based dance troupe, will appear in its first of three annual visits as the Center’s dance company in residence. Founded in 1996, the Aspen’ites (they straddle Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...
Story of Tanaquil

We are so looking forward to Dance Camera West‘s special screening of “Afternoon of a Faun” at the Aero Theatre next Thursday evening, co-presented with the American Cinematheque. I will be interviewing Nancy Buirski, the documentary film’s director, after the screening. It portends to be an amazing event, mixing and matching a crowd of dance ...
Richard Cragun’s lasting impact on Tom Mossbrucker
Aug
13
2012

Friend of arts·meme Tom Mossbrucker writes in memorium of Richard Cragun, the tall and imposing American-born danseur noble who forged a brilliant and distinguished career at Germany’s Stuttgart Ballet in the 1970s. Cragun, 67, died this past week shocking the dance world. A dancer of his vitality seemed to be eternal. Cragun was best known ...
Chillin’ with a ballerina by a babbling brook
Jun
18
2012

Diaghilev hung around Venice’s Lido Beach with Lifar. Balanchine cooked Sunday dinners for his favorites. Ballet impresarios need down time. If they genuinely enjoy their artistic charges, they hang around with them on their day off. Here’s the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet artistic and executive director duo, Tom Mossbrucker and Jean-Philippe Malaty, on a ...
Photog Herb Migdoll captures Eugene Loring’s “Billy the Kid” (1989) 5

Here’s an historic oddity: an American ballet about an American theme. It’s danced by an American dancer in an American company. Now this is getting tedious — it has a score by an American composer. It’s Eugene Loring‘s “Billy the Kid,” to a score by Aaron Copeland. Yes, we now live in a different world. ...
Robert Joffrey’s proteges remember him … on film and in person

Lots of interest in the Joffrey Ballet in advance of the fun, revealing, and memory-filled documentary, Joffrey Ballet: Mavericks of American Dance, which will receive nation-wide viewing this Saturday. Tom Mossbrucker, at left, memorable in the Joffrey’s production of Billy the Kid, choreography by Eugene Loring, was with the Joffrey organization from 1977 to 1998. ...