Summer, 2005

Peter Boal
Principal, New York City Ballet, and Incoming Artistic Director, Pacific Northwest Ballet


I had been curious about this dancer for quite a while. Not because he's a principal with a preeminent ballet company, nor because he's a handsome dancer (which of course he is), but because there's no other ballet dancer I know of, about whom everyone says, "He is a good guy." It isn't easy to keep a noble personality in the brilliant but competitive world of dance. When I finally interviewed Peter Boal, I could see why he's so described, with his quiet manner which he always looks up and never speaks badly of others. This summer Mr. Boal retires from his home company, New York City Ballet, and moves to Pacific Northwest Ballet on the west coast, to start his new life as an artistic director.

Photo: Paul Kolnik

Building It Right:
The Ailey's New Home
How often, in the dance world, is there the money to build a space, and to build it right? The spectacular new Joan Weill Center for Dance, designed by architects Iu + Bibliowicz, is now officially open to the public. The only word for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s new custom-built home, on 55th Street and 9th Avenue in Manhattan, is stunning. The studios are enormous. The views are spectacular. Down to the red corkboard underfoot in the hallways (for stretching on), virtually no detail has been omitted for comfort and function.

Photo: Andrew Eccles

Actor
Tatsuya Fujiwara　

One of the international offerings of this summer's Lincoln Center Festival 2005 (July 12-31) will be Modern Noh Plays, written by famed Japanese author Yukio Mishima and directed by the eminent Yukio Ninagawa. The rising young actor Tatsuya Fujiwara, who will star in "Yoroboshi," one of the production's two plays, attended the press conference held by Lincoln Center in March. Having successfully introduced himself in English to the New York press, Fujiwara then made everyone in the room laugh by confessing in Japanese, "I was up all night trying to learn my speech in English by heart, but I gave up." This handsome actor stood out during the conference among the many veteran artists from around the world, and certainly charmed the American press.

Photo: Takako Nakasu

Brainstorming in the Dance Community
Dancing on the Battlements: Choreography in the Age of Insecurity

"Why don't you just dance?" People have asked choreographer Patricia Hoffbauer that her entire career, as if politics and cultural identity could be excised to leave an aesthetically superior product. Blame it on Balanchine, or blame it on dance's status as the youngest, least intellectually respected of the performing arts: Whatever the cause, it's rare in the U.S. for politics and dance to meld with any critical or financial success.

Photo: Brad De Cecco







◆Report

A Library for Grantmakers and Grantseekers
An Introduction to The Foundation Center, New York City

"People perceive us as being one of the best data collectors in the country," says senior librarian Susan Shiroma with pride, looking around the Foundation Center's bright, friendly library. A few people sit quietly at terminals, scanning their screens intently. Elsewhere in the complex, an all-day Proposal Writing Seminar is getting started. The instructor puts up an overhead transparency that says, "Give the reader hope!"





◆Review Dance

DanceBrazil
National Ballet of Canada
Moiseyev Dance Company 　
Martha Graham Dance Company
Keely Garfield
Roxane Butterfly's Worldbeats
La La La Human Steps
Bill Shannon/Crutch Productions

◆Review Theater
Yaneura (Attic)
As You Like It 　
Late Henry Moss
Servant of two Masters
Broadway Gem of the Ocan



◆Review Film
Oldboy

◆Review Book
Lynne Garafola Twentieth-Century Dance