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    Scandal Hits U.K.’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing,’ the Original ‘Dancing With the Stars’

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    The BBC said it would add chaperones to rehearsals after allegations of abusive behavior at a hugely popular dance show that inspired international versions.For almost two decades, viewers in Britain have watched celebrities jive, waltz and cha-cha-cha on “Strictly Come Dancing,” a BBC reality television show that inspired the international “Dancing With the Stars” franchise.The format, which has been licensed to 61 other territories including the U.S., pairs professional ballroom dancers with people who are famous in other fields, from athletics and acting to politics and journalism. The amateur dancers then train intensively with their professional partners and compete in weekly live performances.Introduced in 2004, the show quickly became one of the BBC’s most popular programs, widely loved as a glitzy, family-friendly watch on weekends.But in recent months it has grabbed headlines because of a growing scandal: allegations that two professional male dancers exhibited bullying or abusive behavior toward their female dance partners during rehearsals.One former contestant, the actor Amanda Abbington, has alleged in interviews with the British media that her dance partner, Giovanni Pernice, displayed “bullying” and “aggressive behavior” and was “abusive, cruel and mean.” She declined to give further details of the behavior in interviews, saying the ongoing nature of a BBC investigation into the allegations prevented her from doing so.Ms. Abbington, who appeared in the British series “Sherlock,” cited “personal reasons” last year for leaving the dance competition during filming, but said this week that she had flagged the behavior to producers before filing an official complaint with the BBC. She said she believed that there were 50 hours of rehearsal video that could bolster her case, though they have not been made public.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      In ‘Swan Song,’ a Ballet Company Faces Racism and Sexism

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      The film follows a National Ballet of Canada production of “Swan Lake” as dancers and others deal with long-simmering issues of racism and sexism.Ballet makes a great documentary subject, with its rarefied, glamorous world that’s hidden from most viewers. What you see on the stage is just a tiny bit of the whole story. All that beauty and grace is the product of something so arduous that some fiction filmmakers have depicted it as physical and psychological torture (think of “Suspiria” or “Black Swan” or “The Red Shoes”). Even when it’s not that extreme, every ballet is the product of extraordinary commitment and work, and that means there are all kinds of stories to tell.Those tales provide excellent fodder for nonfiction filmmakers; any ballet documentary is equally about the dance and the dancers. “Swan Song” (in theaters or on Apple TV+ and directed by Chelsea McMullan) takes that to heart. It’s a film with a lot on its mind, one in which you can sense the filmmakers discovering the story as they go along.“Swan Song” centers on the National Ballet of Canada’s new production of “Swan Lake,” which was mounted in 2022. “Swan Lake,” set to a Tchaikovsky score, is one of the most widely performed ballets in the world, and also one of the most challenging for the central ballerina, who traditionally takes on two roles: the gentle Odette and the seductive Odile.During her career as an internationally renowned dancer, Karen Kain performed the role many times. After retirement, she joined the senior management of the National Ballet, becoming its artistic director in 2005. When “Swan Song” begins, she is preparing to stage and direct a new production of “Swan Lake” with the company. The work is slated to premiere in 2020, coinciding with Kain’s retirement. It’s her gift to the company and a cap to a 50-year career in ballet.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      ‘Ain’t Done Bad’ Review: Jakob Karr’s Dance to Orville Peck Songs

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      Jakob Karr, from “So You Think You Can Dance?,” has conceived and choreographed a show set to songs by the country musician Orville Peck.The tale is familiar: A young gay man, rejected by his father, leaves home and finds love and acceptance elsewhere. But “Ain’t Done Bad” packages this story in a new form: as a 90-minute narrative dance set to recordings by the out-and-proud country musician Orville Peck.“Ain’t Done Bad” — which, unusually for dance, is getting an eight-week run at Pershing Square Signature Theater — is conceived, directed and choreographed by Jakob Karr, an impressive dancer who also stars as the son. This is Karr’s first such effort, and like many first novels, the show suggests autobiography. Mostly clear and engaging in its storytelling, it’s earnest, sometimes sexy and fundamentally sweet.We meet the son with his family. There’s the mother (Megumi Iwama), who lets him play with her makeup. There’s the brother (Ian Spring), who knocks him down in roughhousing but also picks him back up. And there’s the father (the explosive, effectively creepy Adrian Lee), who is angry and disapproving.The son also has friends (the perky Jordan Lombardi and Yusaku Komori). They draw him out into playful, line-dance flamboyance and initiate him with a sparkly-fringed denim jacket. Karr skillfully contrasts this liberating joy with the table-slapping arguments of the son’s family.Escaping into the wider world, the son discovers a gay club and experiences some steamy, ankle-on-shoulder duets. (Is it just economy or is there a psychological subtext to the double casting of Spring and Lee, brother and father, as lovers?) After intermission, the son finds someone he wants to bring home (Josh Escover, who’s good looking, great at turning and a bit of a blank).Peck’s music, with his Elvis croon drifting through a spaghetti western sonic landscape, is inherently dramatic. It supports both the story and the dancing well, supplying heartache and homoeroticism, galloping horsepower and pedal-steel romance. The choreography moves in parallel to the lyrics that don’t directly apply and underlines plenty of those that do, like “the love that you need will never be found at home.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Theater

      ‘How Long Blues’ Review: Twyla Tharp in Overdrive at Little Island

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      Her frenetic new dance-theater work, which opens a new festival at the new park on the Hudson, includes references to Camus and music by T Bone Burnett.On a recent dusky evening, a dozen or so visitors to Little Island in Manhattan were gazing into its outdoor amphitheater from a nearby perch. They didn’t have tickets, sold out at $25 each, to “How Long Blues,” the first outing in a new summer festival that hopes to fulfill the site’s promise as a lively platform for the performing arts. So the slope of a rolling, manicured hill offered the best vantage point.Halfway through the hourlong show, though, most of them had wandered off.To be fair, the lush, dynamic public park, rising from the Hudson River and privately funded by the media titan Barry Diller for $260 million, can be delightfully distracting. But “How Long Blues,” a new dance-theater work conceived, choreographed and directed by Twyla Tharp, now running through June 23, is a chaotic head-scratcher. While a riverside setting can be overstimulating (a heliport is less than 20 blocks uptown), the action onstage pulls your attention in so many directions at once that you feel you’re always missing something.In addition to an excellent band on elevated platforms, a standing piano rides in on the back of a tricycle. (The music, a mercurial flow of jazz that ranges from swingy and upbeat to trippy and dissonant, is by T Bone Burnett and David Mansfield.) There are appearances by performers wearing doll heads with cartoon features, a demonlike figure covered in straw fringe and Sisyphus carrying a rock on his shoulder — all of this while two smartly dressed men (played by the Tony Award winner Michael Cerveris and a Tharp regular, John Selya) vaguely pantomime amid a swirl of vibrant dancers. (The show has only a few spoken lines.)You would have little way of knowing, without reading Tharp’s interview in The New York Times, that “How Long Blues” concerns the French writer and philosopher Albert Camus, and specifically elements from his 1947 novel “The Plague” about a pandemic in Algeria (coughing fits by a dancer or two are not sufficient clues). Notes shared privately with the press confirm that Cerveris is meant to be Jean-Paul Sartre, a close friend of Camus, played by Selya, and that “literal thinking” about narrative “is not helpful here,” according to Tharp.That’s certainly true, but nor is “How Long Blues,” named for a song by Leroy Carr, coherently abstract. Consistent gestures toward an illegible story undercut the show’s components, which are less often in harmony than in competition.Tharp’s choreography, when it has sufficient room to breathe, is the star attraction: a medley of vigorous and precise ballet technique — graceful suspension, expansive limbs — with the sort of unexpected pivots and urgent expressiveness that distinguish her muscular style.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Diplo’s Port Antonio, Jamaica

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      Diplo, born Thomas Wesley Pentz, fell in love with Jamaica, particularly its Portland parish on the northeast coast, nearly 20 years ago. “I was D. J.ing on a cruise ship, got off in Ocho Rios, and drove through Port Antonio to get to Kingston,” said the 13-time Grammy nominee who has collaborated with Dua Lipa, Sturgil Simpson, Snoop Dogg, Shakira, Bad Bunny and countless other musicians. “Portland is sort of like Costa Rica, all jungly and waterfalls. And Port Antonio is this quaint little town where I’d go on a sort of retreat, “Mr. Pentz added. About eight years ago he bought some farmland and built a house there.Mr. Pentz thinks Port Antonio is a calmer option than Ocho Rios or other popular tourist spots on Jamaica for people who enjoy nature, hiking, waterfalls and, of course, beaches. It’s also for those who seek a more authentic experience. “It’s the sort of city where you’re mixing with the locals, and I think that’s what special about it,” he said.Diplo, the Grammy-nominated D.J. born Thomas Wesley Pentz, fell in love with Jamaica nearly 20 years ago and built a house there about eight years ago. Cambron LylesBorn in Mississippi and raised in Florida, Mr. Pentz has traveled extensively and D.J.ed on every continent, including Antarctica. A livestream of his D.J. set there, which took place on the helipad of Atlas Ocean Voyages’ World Voyager, was posted on YouTube in January.Recently, Mr. Pentz has become a runner. He ran the Los Angeles marathon and competed in the Malibu Triathlon, but found that something was missing from the experience: a post-run celebration. So, he launched Diplo’s Run Club, a series of 5K runs — the inaugural events take place this fall in Seattle and San Francisco — culminating in afterparties, with D.J. sets from Diplo and friends, at the finish line. When he’s not running or traveling for work, he spends time at his home in Jamaica.Here are five of his favorite places in and around Port Antonio.1. Geejam HotelGeejam Hotel has private villas, cabins and a main building with rooms that are often occupied by working musicians.Alfonso Duran for The New York TimesOne of the hotel’s cabins, which are tucked into the garden.Alfonso Duran for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Andy Cohen, Fran Lebowitz and Others Gather for Little Island Performance

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      “It’s a miracle on the water,” the actress Candice Bergen said, gazing at a grove of trees on Thursday evening as she took shelter from the sun beneath a canopy.It was the opening night of the summer performance season at Little Island, the three-year-old floating park built on a reconstructed pier in the Hudson River.Despite thunderstorms earlier in the afternoon, around 700 actors, designers and media moguls turned up under a smattering of canopies near the island’s amphitheater, among them Andy Cohen, the Bravo host and executive producer; Annie Leibovitz, the photographer; Fran Lebowitz, the writer; Natasha Lyonne, the actress; Bryan Lourd, the chief executive of the talent agency CAA; and Jason Blum, the film producer.As waiters ferried watermelon spears and cartons of boxed water on silver platters, attendees trickled into the glade over twin gangways on the north and south sides of the island.The writer Fran Lebowitz.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesAnnie Leibovitz, right, with her daughter, Sam Leibovitz.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesBryan Lourd, the chief executive of the talent agency CAA, and Natasha Lyonne, the actress.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      As Ukraine Rebuilds Its Identity, Folk Songs Are the New Cool

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      At first sight, it looked like a typical party in a nightclub. It was mid-March in central Kyiv and a hundred or so people were wiggling on the dance floor of V’YAVA, one of the Ukrainian capital’s most popular live music venues. The hall was dark, lit only by bright blue and red spotlights. Bartenders were busy pouring gin and tonics.But the lineup that night, in a concert hall that typically hosts pop artists and rappers, was unexpected: four Ukrainian folk singers, filling the room with their high-pitched voices and polyphonic choruses, accompanied by a D.J. spinning techno beats — all to a cheering crowd.These days, Ukrainian folk music “is becoming something cool,” said Stepan Andrushchenko, one of the singers from Shchuka Ryba, the band onstage that night. “A very cool thing.”More than two years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, folk music is enjoying a surge of popularity in the war-torn nation. Faced with Moscow’s efforts to erase Ukrainian culture, people have embraced traditional songs as a way to reconnect with their past and affirm their identity.“It’s like a defensive measure,” said Viktor Perfetsky, 22, who started traditional singing classes after the war broke out. “If we don’t know who we are, the Russians will come and force us to be what they want us to be.”Members of the Ukrainian band Shchuka Ryba rehearsing for an upcoming concert.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 188 Shares159 Views

      in Music

      In New TikTok Trend, Parents Dance Like It’s the ’80s and Bring Down the House

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      Videos of parents demonstrating their moves have been a surprise hit on a site where youth rules — perhaps because the trend isn’t played for laughs.TikTok can add a new skill to its résumé: disco time machine.The social platform, normally populated with an endless scroll of Gen Z-ers dancing — mostly in short choreographed routines that have been practiced and perfected — has recently been infused with the energy of a surprising demographic: their Gen X parents.In the viral videos, parents are asked by their adult children to dance as they would have back in the day to the 1984 sonic ear worm “Smalltown Boy,” by the British synth-pop band Bronski Beat. Most posts are tagged #momdancechallenge, #daddancechallenge or #80sdancechallenge, and they have racked up tens of millions of views.The reactions have been perhaps unexpected, because instead of going for laughs, the videos are cool, like really cool, serving as a portal to another era: when dance was more often improvisational and spontaneous, when people felt the beat and found the rhythm organically, moving without the constraints of a horizontal aspect ratio.When Valerie Martinez, 23, asked her mother, Yeanne Velazquez, 58, to participate, it was before the challenge had gone viral, and they had not prepared at all. “I didn’t even play the song for her before,” Martinez said in a phone interview this week alongside her mother. But Martinez was sure Velazquez would deliver, because her mother is always dancing, she said.It was nostalgic for Velazquez, who said that when the song was popular, she was about 19 and would go dancing in the one or two clubs in Puerto Rico, where she lived. Now she and her daughter live in Florida.

      @thatpersianqt she ate with this one I fear #fyp #foryou #80s #80sdancechallenge #momsoftiktok #80smusic ♬ Smalltown Boy – Bronski Beat

      @_miamimonkey Do we all have the same mom? 😂 I thought y’all were joking until I had her do it blindly 😂 @Savvy Sandy #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #80sdancemoves #80smusic ♬ Smalltown Boy – Bronski Beat We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Review: In ‘The Fires,’ a Triptych of Stories About Gay Men and Love

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      Raja Feather Kelly makes his playwriting debut with a spellbinding story of three generations of Black men at Soho Rep.The choreographer Raja Feather Kelly’s dance-theater works have made him a mainstay on the downtown arts scene. With his latest piece, “The Fires,” Kelly is making his debut as a playwright. Rarely does a show live up so honestly to its title — wrecking and illuminating in equal measure.In his lustrous, emotionally textured play, which opened on Tuesday at Soho Rep, three gay Black men are stuck in a railroad apartment. But those men — Jay, Sam and Eli — are not roommates; they live in the same space across separate time periods: 1974, 1998 and 2021. Since the actors rarely leave the elongated stage, the characters’ stories play out in tandem.In the ’70s, Jay (Phillip James Brannon) lives with his lover, George (Ronald Peet), and becomes depressed while journaling about the Greek goddess Aphrodite, whom, he claims, is gravely underestimated: More than a mere mirthful goddess of love, Aphrodite was vengeful, war-driven and unsettled because, like Jay, she never knew her real father. Sam (Sheldon Best) in the ’90s is George’s son. He feels deeply misunderstood but finds a kinship with his recently deceased father while reading the journals he and Jay left in the apartment. Eli (Beau Badu) in the 2020s has the most sexual freedom but is stuck playing a tug-of-rope game with Maurice, (Jon-Michael Reese), a tender young man who has the potential to be Eli’s great love.Kelly does not have these characters speak directly to one another across time, but there are parallels in each scene that evoke a ghostly connection between the men. And the idea is supported by the scenic designer Raphael Mishler’s set: Most of the 1974 scenes occur on our left in a bedroom with a fireplace, typewriter and a retro two-knob radio; for the majority of the 2021 scenes, our attention is directed to the right, to a living room with an electric fireplace, Eli’s laptop and a smart speaker. Time and technology leap forward, but human desire for heat, expression and a groove remain the same.Jumbling timelines on a railroad apartment of a set does present some direction challenges, as when characters in one period trek right in front of (but aren’t acknowledged by) characters in another. You can find yourself ping-ponging between these freewheeling vignettes, desperate to catch all of the action.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More