Category: Dance

This Saturday, the Strictly Come Dancing finalists will dance for the Glitterball. Here are their routines :

Bobby and Dianne:

Favourite Dance: Couple’s Choice to This Woman’s Work by Maxwell

Show Dance: La La Land Medley

Judges’ Pick: Samba to Young Hearts Run Free by Candi Staton

Ellie and Vito:

Favourite Dance: American Smooth to Ain’t That A Kick In The Head by Robbie Williams

Show Dance: Jennifer Lopez Megamix

Judges’ Pick: Paso Doble to Insomnia by 2WEI

Layton and Nikita:

Favourite Dance: Argentine Tango to Tattoo by Loreen

Show Dance: Friend Like Me by Ne-Yo

Judges’ Pick: Quickstep to Puttin’ On The Ritz by Gregory Porter

The Strictly Final is on BBC One this Saturday at 7:00pm!

MEXICO CITY (AP) — When music requires her to cry, Japanese traditional dancer Naoko Kihara barely alters her expression. It’s her arms and torso that move like a slow-motion wave.

“Expression is minimal because we cry with our body,” said Kihara, wrapped in her white and navy kimono, on a recent day at her dancing studio in Mexico, where an estimated 76,000 Japanese descendants live.

“It is the dance that is speaking, interpreting, since we do not smile, shout or laugh.”

Kihara won’t reveal her age, but she’s been practicing Japanese traditional dance for almost 24 years. Born in Brazil from Japanese parents who later moved to Mexico City, she carries on the legacy of Tamiko Kawabe, her mentor and pioneer of Hanayagi-style dance in the country.

For Latin American audiences, Kihara said, Japanese traditional dance might be hard to embrace.

Unlike the fast-moving interpreters of samba and salsa — widespread in Brazil and Mexico — Hanayagi dancers move quietly and gently, performing just a few moves that their bodies keep fully controlled.

“Is this yoga?” a spectator once asked Kihara, who responded: “No, it’s an interpretation.”

Some of her repertoires are almost sacred. Japanese dances as Hanayagi and Kabuki have been historically performed to honor the emperor, considered a representative of god in the Shinto religion.

For traditional dancers, choreography is a sign of respect and no detail is minor. How a woman holds her fan speaks of her sense of elegance and honor.

“You are not taught a dance, but a way of living,” said Aimi Kawasaki, a 21-year-old student of Kihara who will soon travel to Tokyo hoping to receive her dancing diploma.

Born in Mexico after her parents moved from Japan, Kawasaki says that Hanayagi is like ballet, but with an important exception: While Japanese traditional dancers are delicate and elegant, they never stand on the tip of their toes or pull their bodies toward the sky.

“A Japanese dancer is rather crouched,” Kawasaki said, her teacher demonstrating the posture: firm torso, bent knees and feet close together, as if she were a flower rooted to the ground.

“It’s to be humble,” Kawasaki said, and because Japanese traditional dance maintains profound codes.

“We move our bodies close to the earth because we are part of nature,” Kihara said. “It is a respect for the earth.”

In the Japanese worldview, Kihara said, dance originated from earth, air, fire, and water. “That’s our essence; it’s our basis.”

To keep this in mind, each Hanayagi dancer takes an oath when receiving her diploma in Japan. It’s like a manual of honor, Kihara said. A promise to preserve one’s legacy.

Thirteen students — seven of them at the basic level — study in Ginreikai, her dancing studio.

“In our performances, it’s all about patience,” Kihara said. “We call them ‘long songs,’ because they are not plays with a beginning nor an end.”

Eiko Moriya, another descendant of Japanese migrants who will soon travel to Tokyo to get certified, has spent the last three years perfecting the long songs she’ll perform before the Hanayagi committee.

Her mentor watches her attentively while Moriya’s feet slide delicately over the wood floor, and always provides feedback. “Move your foot only when the music asks for it. Be mindful of the rhythm. Don’t overbend your arm.”

“Dancing is a transformation,” Moriya said. “Our dances are pieces of culture that are re-signified.”

The meaning of their performances is conveyed through music and movement, Kihara said. Even in front of foreign audiences who might not understand a Japanese song, their bodies are their means to speak.

Her favorite long song, a story about an unrequited love, portrays a princess convinced that the man she loves has transformed into the bell of the local temple. So, to get to him, she turns into a snake.

“There are just a few movements, but each of them portrays her belief of transforming,” Kihara said. “It is a story about anger, courage. It symbolizes the suffering of humanity.”

The songs that she and her colleagues perform for Mexican audiences are shorter and less complex than the original Japanese long songs — a dance can last up to five minutes instead of 20 or 30 — but creating new choreographies and adaptations for foreign scenarios does not diminish her excitement.

“Through Japanese dance, we connect,” she said. “It is an exchange of cultures.”

“Ginrekai,” which translates into “silver mountain,” was the name chosen by her predecessor for the school because she believed that Japan and Mexico share more than their sacred volcanoes. If Mount Fuji and Popocatépetl are so similar, she used to say, it’s because deep down we are all the same.

“At Ginrekai we have that cosmic vision,” Kihara said. “Humanity is divided by religion, by culture, but for me, dancing is a way of saying: We are all one.”

——

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Four couples, two dances each, one more dance-off … it can only be the Strictly semi final.

The judges scores from last week have been carried over, meaning last weeks’ highest score – for Leyton & Nikita, put them in top spot at the start of the semi final.

Bobby & Dianne	Quickstep Paso Doble	38 35
Leyton & Nikita	Rhumba Charleston	36 40
Annabel & Johannes	Salsa Viennese Waltz	32 33
Ellie & Vito	Cha Cha Cha Couple’s Choice	37 38

And so, the semi final scores, combined with last week, are :

When hundreds of dancers converged onstage for a collective bow in honor of the opening night of City Ballet’s 75th anniversary season, it might not have been choreographed with the care that, say, George Balanchine would have given it — the scene was a touch chaotic — but it was astonishing to see so many of the bodies that have paved the way for a new ballet, for an American ballet. The company’s fall season was dominated by Balanchine classics. “Symphony in C” remains its own special life force. How could one choreographer produce so much radiance? (Read our review of the fall season opening night.)

Trajal Harrell

A choreographer who spends much of his time in Europe — he is the director of the Schauspielhaus Zürich Dance Ensemble — Harrell returned to New York with “The Köln Concert” (2021). Performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, it paired Keith Jarrett’s best-selling 1975 recorded performance with Joni Mitchell songs; here, Harrell’s signature runway movement, lush and stark, had a new maturity, resulting in a dance that possessed the clarity of a jewel. (Read our feature about Trajal Harrell.)

The Ken Dance

The warm afterglow of the Ken Dance — unofficially known as the dream ballet in Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie”— lives on. This all-male number, choreographed by Jennifer White, comes out of nowhere in the film, trading a pink beach for a shimmering bright soundstage. Led by Ryan Gosling’s Ken, the number soars as dancers leap and glide into diamond formations. The crime is that there are no Oscars for best choreography. (Read our Critic’s Notebook about the dance in “Barbie.”)

(La)Horde

When the horde that is (La)Horde, the French collective formed in 2013 by Marine Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer and Arthur Harel, made its New York City debut as part of Dance Reflections at NYU Skirball, it felt like a shot of adrenaline. With the Ballet National de Marseille, which it directs, (La)Horde presented two programs: the evening-length “Room With a View” and a mixed bill of work. Both showed off the collective’s view of experimental dance: abrasive and loud, soft and light, generous and healing in unassuming ways. (Read our feature about (La)Horde.)

Jake Roxander

At American Ballet Theater this was the year of the dancer. Or, really, one dancer: Jake Roxander, whose astonishing virtuosity and sparkling stage presence give the repertory a much-needed jolt of electricity. Over the past year, Roxander — who comes from a ballet family — has triumphed as Mercutio in “Romeo and Juliet,” Puck in “The Dream” and in basically any role he touches, small or large. (Read our review of Roxander’s Mercutio.)

Ann Liv Young

As it’s the Strictly Come Dancing semi final, the couples will each dance twice. Here’s what they’ll be performing:

Annabel and Johannes: Salsa to You’ll Be Mine (Party Time) by Gloria Estefan and Viennese Waltz Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want by Slow Moving Millie

Bobby and Dianne: Quickstep to Mack The Knife by Bobby Darin and Paso Doble to Run Boy Run by Woodkid

Ellie and Vito: Couple’s Choice to Dua Lipa Medley andCha Cha to Mambo Italiano by Bette Midler

I’m Layton and Nikita: Charleston to Fit As A Fiddle by Gene Kelly & Donald O’Connor and Rumba to Lift Me Up by Rihanna

How would you describe your creative partnership?

Desmond: Respect, I think that’s one thing. Loyalty. I’m loyal to a fault. I really respect Dwight’s work. I respect how he communicates to me, [and] what he has to say is very, very important. We’ve always had that. It’s not something we question. If we disagree, we go to our corners, figure it out, come back together; that’s a common thread. Listening to one another, communicating, as well. He’s family, a friend who goes beyond the dancing art. We gravitated towards each other as humans first, then as dancers.  

Dwight: Desmond was inspiration. I had never met anyone like him. I wanted to create, and luckily, he was open and wanted to be a part of whatever I was doing. I was still dancing full-time, and we found each other in the dancing. First, we have a friendship; we would stay on the phone all night long, [though] we were mainly talking about dance. We were two young guys who were just in love with what we were doing. “Wow,” I’d think, “this is the kind of dancer I’d like to be.”

And second—Desmond couldn’t wait to dance. For me, that was thrilling, and it also lends itself to me being able to work with him and start to build a vocabulary. I’m grateful for that. We don’t agree on everything, like he said, but at the end of the day, we always come back to Complexions. Complexions is the love child. It’s the thing we made together and now it’s flourishing 30 years later. 

A 30th anniversary is sometimes signified by a pearl, which brings me to this question: What’s the secret to keeping a company together for nearly three decades, which seems monumental, especially these days? 

Desmond: It just stems from Dwight and I having a particular passion about dance, having a through-line. Let’s do something for real—not that the dance isn’t for real—but staying the course in what we believe in. How we see the dance. Yes, we want it technical, yes, we want it passionate. And entertaining—we’re not afraid to be that. We want audiences to sit forward in their seats. There’s something really palpable from Complexions to our audiences around the world. 

They’re the same in New York, the same in L.A., or France or Italy, or any of the other places we visit. There’s something that’s coming off the stage that is a particular authenticity. We want to maintain that and not go to another place; that’s important for us. It’s in line with our original idea—putting it all on the stage—all or nothing—every eye, every head—giving 110% at all times.

The dancers are also unique, necessary and valid, and there’s a lane for them, as it was told to me, told to Dwight—we’ve put together very interesting dancers today. From non-binary, they’re being authentically themselves, and this is important, because they’re needing to voice who they are authentically, and not fit into a mold. If you hone your technique, have a finely-tuned instrument, you can do whatever you need to do.

Dwight: I don’t know what the secret is. All I know is it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. We make it by the hair on my chinny chin chin and somehow get it done. All the noise and all the other stuff along the way, it can be easy to get distracted. But I’ve always been a person who likes to talk about what’s going on in the world now. I’m a ‘now’ guy as opposed to ‘then.’

It’s [also] an investment. The thing with Complexions, and it’s the very reason that Desmond and I wanted to put together a project—that’s what it was, a project, it wasn’t a company at the time—we wanted to explore, and we really thought that there’s a beauty in knowing something. I say this all the time—the beauty of the fact that someone sitting next to me comes from a completely different background, they may have training I don’t know anything about—how they were raised and what they bring to the table. 

The beauty of the differences extends past racial lines. That’s a big part, yes, we wanted a multi-cultural [troupe]—but at the foundation is the beauty of appreciating our differences. The world would be such a boring place if we had come from the same place, had the same experiences. What sense does it make to have friction as opposed to, “Hey, tell me about you. I want to know.” That’s a point that people don’t embrace all the time. But we’re getting there.

All of a sudden, it’s Musicals Week on Strictly ! The five remaining celebrities will be dancing :

Annabel and Johannes: Foxtrot to For Good from Wicked

Bobby and Dianne: Salsa to (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life from Dirty Dancing

Ellie and Vito: Quickstep to Belle from Beauty And The Beast

Layton and Nikita: Paso Doble to Backstage Romance from Moulin Rouge! The Musical

Nigel and Katya: Charleston to Step In Time from Mary Poppins

Make sure you join us this Saturday at 7:25pm on BBC One!