Lock It Up. Hip hop is coming alive in Pittsburgh. Gabriel “Kg” Ash just held a successful two-day workshop, Kg Dynasty Presents: Due Season, at the August Wilson Center, with over 60 participants. In other words, Due Season is the burgeoning professional wing of Gabe’s Kg Dynasty. It was the prelude to what he hopes is a big dance storm because Gabe and Due Season (Gabe plus LJ Duncan, Sean W. Green, Asia J, Antwane Younger and Sharnell Younger) have big plans to conquer the New York City auditions January 21 for America’s Best Dance Crew, the hit series on MTV.
Board-ing. Choreographer Dennis Nahat comes to Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre as a man under fire. His board at Ballet San Jose has gradually been moving him out of the picture and officially fired him yesterday, as reported in the San Francisco Chronicle. The beleaguered director will be in town for the week of PBT’s Uncommon at the August Wilson Center, where the company will perform his Brahms Quintet, along with Mark Morris’ Maelstrom and Dwight Rhoden’s world premiere, Chromatic. This seems to be developing into a trend. Miami City Ballet board bungled the retirement of iconic artistic director and founder Edward Villella last fall. And of course, we still are stinging from the bite the Dance Alloy Theater board put on artistic director Beth Corning, who had actually brought them onto the board, and the abrupt dismissal of all employees, including successor Greer Reed and the dancers, just last summer. Is dance, particularly ballet, going corporate?’
