Most of us will be waking up with a hangover on New Year's Day. But here's one way to class up time spent prostrate on the couch: A concert heavy on the Strauss, hosted by your TV nana Julie Andrews and complete with ballet interlude featuring costumes designed by Vivienne Westwood. » 12/26/13 12:15pm 12/26/13 12:15pm

Center Stage fans will leap with excitement about AOL's new web series about the New York City Ballet, narrated and executive produced by Sarah Jessica Parker. It's all there: the dance, the drama, the toe shoes. Except Zoe Saldana. She's not there. » 11/05/13 1:30pm 11/05/13 1:30pm

A former dancer for the Royal Ballet is launching a British TV series called Big Ballet aimed at encouraging larger dancers, which is something you just don’t hear enough of (unless you’re re-watching the now-defunct Bunheads, unwilling to accept ABC Family’s capricious decision-making process). » 9/15/13 12:30pm 9/15/13 12:30pm

When future humans look back at the era of gender normative child-rearing, when parents watched their girls stumble around a dance studio and watched their boys try to decapitate a tee-ball stand, they’ll probably draw misguided conclusions, conclusions distorted by a preponderance of archived Dance Moms clips. “Wow,… » 7/13/13 6:00pm 7/13/13 6:00pm

Gene Kim started his NYU Tisch undergraduate thesis film Fighting Spirits before Black Swan came out, but it also plays with the classic image of dueling ballerinas in black and white. But when these ladies battle on stage, they fight with something heavier than toe shoes. » 5/26/13 12:18pm 5/26/13 12:18pm

Not to be outdone by the United States in the proud sport of abusing amateur athletes, a Chinese ballet instructor apparently pulled a Mike Rice on her students. A mysterious video recently uploaded to China’s video sharing site Youku features a dance instructor screaming at her students and slapping them into proper… » 4/30/13 10:00am 4/30/13 10:00am

If you've ever watched Breaking Bad and thought "Hmm... this could use some more pliés!" — get ready. Kill Bill producer Lawrence Bender and Breaking Bad co-executive producer Moira Walley-Beckett are developing a show for Starz (with a z!) about the troubled lives of professional ballerinas. If you thought it was all… » 1/30/13 9:30am 1/30/13 9:30am

Today in places rich people are going, Natalie Portman and her hot ballerino husband Benjamin Millepied are packing up and moving to Paris. Why, Natalie? America has been so good to you! Remember Phantom Menace? We forgave you for that. We forgave you. » 1/24/13 6:00pm 1/24/13 6:00pm

In keeping with the proud tradition of grisly backstage ballet drama that movies have so thoroughly accustomed us to, Sergei Filin, the artistic director of the famed Bolshoi ballet, is still suffering from a vicious attack that took place on Thursday night when someone threw acid in his face. In. His. Face. Though… » 1/19/13 12:00pm 1/19/13 12:00pm

Ballet companies, to those of us not in the know, always seem like the most intriguing places. Like, it seems like a safe bet that they're all haunted by sad 19th century Russian ballerinas who died after being driven to madness by their multiple lovers and now spend their ghost-y days tormenting the living dancers.… » 11/08/12 1:35pm 11/08/12 1:35pm

A strip club just outside of Albany called Nite Moves made the case Wednesday in New York's Court of Appeals that its cover charge ($11) and lap dance fees ($20 for three minutes) shouldn't be subject to the state's eight percent sales tax because naked dancing is an art form, not unlike ballet. After a 2005 audit of… » 9/06/12 12:00pm 9/06/12 12:00pm

If you aren't on drugs, the idea of wearing a bell-bottom bodysuit and holding a kitten while you dance/do a malfunctioning robot impression probably doesn't sound like that much fun. Or maybe it does, but, if you're going to perform in a cat ballet, you probably should tell people that you're stoned, just as a way to … » 8/16/12 11:15pm 8/16/12 11:15pm

A soloist at an Italian ballet company has found herself jobless after telling a British newspaper that her company pressures its dancers to be thin. The dancer says that the La Scala's practices have led to an epidemic of eating disorders and fertility problems within the company, and the company claims that's simply … » 2/09/12 1:35pm 2/09/12 1:35pm

When Californian Joy Womack arrived at Moscow's elite Bolshoi Ballet Academy at 15, she spoke limited Russian and was one a number of foreigners allowed to train at the school. Now, she stands poised to become the first American to graduate from the academy this spring. » 1/31/12 1:20pm 1/31/12 1:20pm

LAS VEGAS, NV - DECEMBER 17: Model and television personality Holly Madison (C) appears as a guest performer in Nevada Ballet Theatre's production of 'The Nutcracker' with Jaime Gallagher (R) at the Theatre des Arts at the Paris Las Vegas December 17, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) » 12/18/11 1:35pm 12/18/11 1:35pm

Today in things I wish I'd known existed one year ago: a suburban Chicago organization that trains therapy dogs puts on an all-canine production of The Nutcracker so successful that tickets to the event last year sold out in four hours. They're taking this year off, but they'll be back in all their adorable dancing… » 12/02/11 7:45pm 12/02/11 7:45pm

When I was a kid, there were two best-selling books by photographer Jill Krementz that I read over and over, attempting to soak up the images, the words, the spirit of the narrative. One was A Very Young Gymnast. The other was A Very Young Dancer. In today's New York Times, we find out what happend to the little girl… » 11/17/11 1:25pm 11/17/11 1:25pm

Yes, it's a little misleading and cruel to make your pet dance around on his hind legs for food. But when you put the little tutu onto a prairie dog and watch him dance, everything else in the world just fades away... » 11/02/11 5:30pm 11/02/11 5:30pm