Dance

Jennifer Stahl, who juried this year’s Boston semi-finals of Youth America Grand Prix: “Putting exact numbers to qualities like ‘musicality’ and ‘épaulement’ is just as tricky as it sounds. But I learned a few surprising takeaways that could make a big difference in a dancer’s final score. Whether you’re competing virtually right now or just starting to plan your solo for next year, keep these six things in mind.” – Dance Magazine

Elizabeth Kendall remembers: “SoHo was dance spilling out into life. It was a grimy laboratory of the future. … In SoHo you could get a turnip soup with an asymmetrical bread chunk at an exotically rustic cafeteria named Food. You could climb leaning stairways to see free-form jazz men riffing in lofts. And you could meet other dancers on street corners and converse with them in the deadpan physical vernacular of [Yvonne] Rainer’s Trio A. Somebody would start those opening arm swings of the sloppy-tidy, faux-plebeian dance, and somebody else would cross the street and join in with the next move.” – The New York Times

Sarah Kaufman: “Artistically, The Nutcracker is a big playing field where dancers can achieve breakthroughs, because over the unusually long run of performances, they are typically cast in many different roles … [and get] chances to experiment and become comfortable in a range of characters and styles. It’s a prized platform for showing off strengths and catching the director’s eye. So while missing a cherished holiday ritual is surely a letdown for audiences …, it’s an incomparable hardship for the dancers.” – The Washington Post

Natalia Boesch: “Living-room ballet has always been a big part of my life, whether I was working out choreographic ideas or just giving myself barre. But, as I write this, living-room ballet is all we’ve had for weeks. That changes everything. I know that, for my students and other young dancers, fears about what they might lose due to the COVID-19 shutdown may be overwhelming. Below are some big-picture thoughts addressing those concerns, and a few suggestions for making the best of a frustrating situation.” – Pointe Magazine

“[Terrence] Orr’s vision included growth for the entire organization. Ticket sales, PBT School enrollment and the organization’s physical footprint in the Strip District all increased while he was artistic director.” So did the size and range of the company’s repertoire (previously heavy on Balanchine), and Orr encouraged a number of company dancers to choreograph as well. – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“The coronavirus had barely arrived in Germany just before Sofiane Sylve was hired Feb. 1 as the new artistic advisor for Ballet San Antonio. Her experiences there in May with strict coronavirus protocols at the Dresden Semperoper Ballett, where she is principal dancer and ballet master, gave her insight into how BSA will adapt its teaching and performances to keep dancers and audiences safe.” – Rivard Report (San Antonio)

Why would Silas Farley leave the stage at New York City Ballet when he was absolutely at the top of his game? “My hope is to become a leader in a really substantive way in the art form. … And I know that there are so many other facets of leadership experience and education that I don’t have.” – The New York Times

Curtis Foley, who danced with the Royal Winnipeg ballet and Les Ballets Grandiva, was, until this year, a ballet master at the Polish National Ballet He had just arrived to coach the ballet company at the opera house in the Czech city of Ostrava when the COVID lockdown struck — and he’s ended up spending four months, much of that time alone, living inside the theater. – Dance Magazine

Former Atlanta Ballet dancer Kiara Felder: “The ballet’s audience, typically, are overwhelmingly white. “It’s important to engage with the community, and it’s tough when the community looks one way and your company looks another,” Felder said. “That may be one reason the audience was what it was. It would be amazing to see the demographics of the company reflect the demographics of the city. I wish those correlated more in the arts. It’s not that way in most companies.” – ArtsATL

“As an artist, I try to portray strength, grace and power in everything I dance. Offstage my experiences with police have left me feeling diminished. I share these stories not for pity, but to create awareness.” – Pointe Magazine

“There is a pervasive idea that if you are a great dancer, you are automatically qualified to teach, whether you have training or experience in education practices or not. There is also an assumption that training to be a dance educator is only valuable if you’re working with children — that you don’t need it when teaching anyone over the age of 16.” Alexandra Cook, community programs director with Mark Morris Dance Group, learned the hard way that these assumptions are not true. – Dance Magazine

“With more crossover than ever, the line between the two once-distinct career paths feels increasingly blurred. Broadway shows now feature every style from hip hop to ballet to the work of contemporary choreographers like Sonya Tayeh and Camille A. Brown. In Los Angeles, still considered the hub of the commercial world, concert dancers seem in higher demand. … But why is this happening now, and what does it mean for the dance world as a whole?” – Dance Magazine

Since the very first Butoh performance, in 1959, “queer themes and imagery have been reoccurring, if not instrumental, in Butoh. The concepts of otherness and ambiguity, particularly with respect to gender identity and sexuality, permeate its narratives. Drag, androgyny and fluidity are staple elements.” – The New York Times

Dancer Sara Komatsu says it’s time for massive change in ballet. “If we believe in this art and want it to succeed, we must be willing to open our minds, have honest conversations, and put in the work to topple racist and elitist practices to usher in a new age of ballet that is diverse, exciting, and more beautiful than ever before.” – The Harvard Crimson

In New York, the epicenter of Black drag ball culture, dance and performance has always been a protest and a claim, say founders and members. Jack Mizrahi Gucci of the House of Gucci: “Doing it on the street, doing it in front of a cop car – it’s letting you know, ‘I’m here. I matter.'” – The New York Times

The company announced plans for a season with the overall title “Leap of Faith,” acknowledging that everything depends on the state of the COVID epidemic and what San Francisco authorities will permit. As for this year’s Nutcracker, “We’ve done this production now for something like 15 years, so we will be ready to get back onstage if the city allows it.” – San Francisco Chronicle

It’s a difficult decision to make: as Joffrey CEO Greg Cameron said, “The loss of The Nutcracker alone — more than half of the Joffrey’s annual earned revenue — compounds a financial crisis for the company that began this past spring.” Yet, as NYCB artistic director Jonathan Stafford put it, “It became apparent that there would be no way to pull this production together safely.” – The New York Times

“Movers & Makers sits down with Founder & Artistic Director Joan Myers Brown for an engaging discussion on how she dealt with overwhelming bias to attain success in the world of dance as a ‘Black Ballerina’ in the era of segregation. We also talk with Brenda Dixon Gottschild, author of a biography on Brown.” (video) – WHYY (Philadelphia)

This is part of the traditional dance of the Mari, the region’s indigenous nation. Its sudden intrusion into an otherwise classical production is no coincidence. It is part of an experiment that seeks to tackle the some of the most crucial challenges facing the post-Soviet provincial stage: how to use Soviet traditions to create art for a new Russia, while still standing on par with global artistic developments. – Calvert Journal

The choreographer created Immediate Tragedy in 1937 as Franco’s Fascist campaign raged on. Before the COVID-19 shutdown, the Martha Graham Dance Company had been working on a reconstruction of the piece, using photos, a written description by José Limón and other archival material. But once the studio was closed and the dancers were quarantined, company artistic director Janet Eilber decided to reconceive the re-creation for multiple dancers working remotely. Gia Kourlas finds out how she and the company did it. – The New York Times

George Balanchine rightly said that watching dance on TV was like reading about a murder in a newspaper—a poor approximation of the terror of the real event. And, for all its offerings, the new online dance world feels cramped and constrained. Dancers are a kind of urban wildlife, and as they crop their bodies to Zoom squares we can almost feel their horizons shrinking. They can, too. – The New Yorker

Over the past few months, with live performances canceled or on hold, dance artists have been mobilizing on multiple fronts to transform flawed and outdated systems. The Dance Artists’ National Collective, a group working to organize for a freelance dancers’ union, has seen record attendance at its virtual meetings. In early May, a webinar about a collaboratively written, 140-page, in-progress text called “Creating New Futures: Working Guidelines for Ethics & Equity in Presenting Dance & Performance” drew nearly 7,000 viewers, a large audience for a relatively niche subject. – The New York Times

Kain claims she never imagined herself becoming the National Ballet’s artistic director. In this she is in a minority of one. After hanging up her pointe shoes in the fall of 1998 Kain accepted a position as part of the company’s artistic management team under then director James Kudelka. When he resigned in May 2005 it was generally assumed Kain was his obvious successor. – Toronto Star

Put simply, dancers who aren’t ready to go back shouldn’t have to. As desperately as we miss dancing, we have to put our health—and the health of our communities—first. But as artists who often lack employment protections, it may feel risky to draw a line in the sand. – Dance Magazine

George Floyd’s murder may ultimately be a catalyst for positive change in Minnesota and beyond, but in the short-term, the local dance community has lost vital spaces and resources, including El Nuevo Rodeo, the cantina and dance club where both Floyd and his accused killer worked as security officers. By day, the cantina served as a rehearsal space for Latin American children’s dance groups, and by night it was the place to salsa. – Dance Magazine

“Ballet companies are in a bizarre holding pattern right now. With studios and theaters shut down indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic, how do they keep the repertoire alive and dancers in shape? A handful of companies, including Pennsylvania Ballet and Dance Theatre of Harlem, are pressing on with rehearsals, even with no confirmed performances.” – Pointe Magazine

In sports medicine, a growing body of research suggests that specializing in one form of training increases the risk of injury and burnout in young athletes. Not all sports medicine research is analogous to dance, but some dance-medicine practitioners, and dancers, say it might be best for students to mix it up. – Dance Magazine

The Electric Slide in Harlem and the Cupid Shuffle in Newark; the bomba in Puerto Rico and voguing in Chicago; Ojibwe and Nuhua dances in Minneapolis and haka in New Zealand — those are just a few examples of dancing at recent protests that have been making the rounds on social media. “Some came to the streets with the purpose of dancing. Others were moved to dance more spontaneously, and surprised to find themselves seen by millions online.” Reporter Siobhan Burke talked to several participants “about what it has meant to them to dance in protest.” – The New York Times

A handful of dancers have taken to Instagram to directly call out the problems they’ve seen in their own companies. – Dance Magazine