NDT in NYC

NEW YORK CITY   Nederlands Dans Theater returns to New York City Center for the first time since Emily Molnar took the helm. William Forsythe’s N.N.N.N. is joined by a pair of U.S. premieres: Imre and Marne van Opstal’s The Point Being and Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar’s Jakie. April 3–6. nycitycenter.org. —Courtney Escoyne

Centering Latina Voices

SAN FRANCISCO  The Carmen premiering at San Francisco Ballet this month won’t look or sound the same as usual. Choreographer Arielle Smith (a 2022 “25 to Watch” pick) sets the tale in contemporary Cuba—specifically at the family restaurant to which the titular heroine returns with her new husband after the death of her mother—while refocusing the story on Carmen and emphasizing the depth and complexity of the characters with cinematic flair. Escamillo, whom Carmen falls in love with, is recast as a woman, and the new score by Arturo O’Farrill only references the familiar Bizet opera as it layers in Cuban folk music. Joining the new ballet on the Dos Mujeres program is Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Frida Kahlo–inspired Broken Wings (which SFB artistic director Tamara Rojo commissioned and starred in during her English National Ballet tenure). The evening marks the first double bill choreographed by women and the first full program dedicated to Latinx stories at SFB. April 4–14. sfballet.org. —CE

Eclipsing All Else

NEW YORK CITY  Ahead of the Great North American Eclipse on April 8, the feath3r theory alights at NYU Skirball to premiere a devised dance theater work about a group of friends who team up to watch the celestial event and miss it. Raja Feather Kelly draws on Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death, the popularity of the science fiction concept of the multiverse, and the ways social media exacerbates loneliness and society’s inability to face it for The Absolute Future (or Death, Loneliness, and The Absolute Future of the Multiverse, or How to Cover the Sun with Mud). April 5–6. nyuskirball.org. —CE

Carnival of Politics

SEATTLE  Choreographed and directed by Francesca Harper and performed by dancer Wendy Whelan and poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Carnival of the Animals reframes the Camille Saint-Saëns classic to consider the animals of a political jungle as it responds to the January 6 insurrection and contemplates the future of democracy. The SOZO-produced work premieres at the Meany Center for the Performing Arts on April 6. sozoartists.com. —CE

Memories of Matriarchs

HOUSTON  With three “Bessie” Awards, the Rome Prize, and a sumptuous stage presence, Jasmine Hearn is one of the most acclaimed contemporary dance artists to come out of Houston. But Memory Fleet: A Return to Matr, a performance, installation, and online archive that preserves the memories of eight Black Houston matriarchs, is their first major commission in their hometown. Commissioned by DiverseWorks, the multidisciplinary project includes original sound scores, choreography, and garments, along with guest performances by former Houston Ballet soloist Sandra Organ Solis and additional vocals and performances by local dancers and “Houston Aunties,” as Hearn calls them. The premiere at Houston Met April 6–7 will be followed by tours to Pittsburgh and New York City. diverseworks.org. —Nancy Wozny

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

COSTA MESA, CA  American Ballet Theatre presents the North American premiere of Woolf Works, Wayne McGregor’s three-act meditation on the writings of Virginia Woolf, at Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Inspired by her novels Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando, and The Waves as well as her letters and diaries, the critically acclaimed ballet eschews narrative adaptation to take a stream of consciousness approach to the modernist writer’s oeuvre. April 11–14. abt.org. —CE

Packed With Premieres

CHICAGO  South Chicago Dance Theatre returns to the Auditorium Theatre for an evening filled to the brim with premieres by Donald Byrd, Joshua Blake Carter, Monique Haley, Tsai Hsi Hung, Terence Marling, and founding executive artistic director Kia Smith. April 27. southchicagodancetheatre.com. —CE

The Weight of a Lie

ZURICH  Cathy Marston brings her penchant for literary adaptation to Atonement, her first new work as Ballett Zürich’s director. In Ian McEwan’s novel and Joe Wright’s acclaimed film adaptation, teenage writer Briony Tallis tells a deliberate lie about her older sister’s lover and spends the rest of her life attempting to make up for its unintended consequences. Marston transfers the action to the world of ballet, making Tallis a choreographer while wrestling with the story’s questions about the fallibility of memory and the nature of self-deception and guilt. April 28–June 7. opernhaus.ch. —CE

A Jazzy Centennial

Dance artists join the nationwide celebration of iconic jazz drummer and composer Max Roach.

Max Roach 100 at The Joyce Theater

NEW YORK CITY  Richard Colton curated The Joyce Theater’s Max Roach 100 program, which will feature a new work to Roach’s Percussion Bitter Sweet album by Ronald K. Brown for Malpaso Dance Company and EVIDENCE, A Dance Company; Rennie Harris Puremovement in The Dream/It’s Time; and a solo by tap star Ayodele Casel set to a series of duets by Roach and Cecil Taylor. April 2–7. joyce.org. —CE

Bill T. Jones at Harlem Stage

NEW YORK CITY  Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company revisits Degga, a 1995 collaboration between Jones, Max Roach, and Toni Morrison, as part of Harlem Stage’s E-Moves program. Also on offer is a new work by Roderick George. April 19–20. harlemstage.org. —CE

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Romeo and Juliet and Couples Therapy

STANFORD, CA  What if Romeo and Juliet, instead of dying as star-crossed teens, lived to grow up and had to learn how to deal with each other? Ben Duke’s Juliet & Romeo shows the couple, now roughly 40 years old, putting on a dance theater performance for a live audience to confront their relationship troubles and the pressures of being the overgrown poster children for romantic love. Lost Dog’s critically acclaimed duet makes a rare appearance stateside at Stanford Live Feb. 1–3. live.stanford.edu. —Courtney Escoyne

Raise It Up

MEMPHIS  Hope Boykin contributes a premiere to Collage Dance Collective’s RISE program. Also on tap are the ballet that lends the program its name—artistic director Kevin Thomas’ Rise—and Amy Hall Garner’s Saint Glory, which was inspired by her grandparents’ Catholic and Baptist roots. Feb. 3–4. collagedance.org. —CE

Desert Rose

ON TOUR  ZooNation hits the road, beginning a North American tour of the Kate Prince–choreographed Message In A Bottle this month. Set to songs by Sting newly arranged by Alex Lacamoire, the dance theater work follows a displaced family as three separated siblings venture out on their own. The tour kicks off in Los Angeles Feb. 6–11 and wraps up in Philadelphia May 14–19, with stops in Denver, Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, Boston, Charlotte, Washington, DC, and New York City. sadlerswells.com. —CE

The Jilted Bride

MIAMI  To commemorate happy vows, save a piece of wedding cake. But after a jilting, what could a wronged woman do? Freeze the betrayal scene and keep wearing the bridal gown—the wounding of others to follow. Redemption, though, awaits. That’s the premise of Havisham!, Dance NOW! Miami’s site-specific reimagining of the most Gothic character from Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, Miss Havisham. Here she gains an expiatory backstory—two dancers portraying her at different periods, enamored then broken—seen from company co-director Hannah Baumgarten’s feminist perspective. To South Beach Chamber Ensemble’s pop and classical selections, Pip, Estella, and the brutish Drummle weave in and out as audiences traipse through North Miami Beach’s Ancient Spanish Monastery. Feb. 7– 8. dancenowmiami.org. —Guillermo Perez

Curated by Camille

NEW YORK CITY  Gibney’s DoublePlus continues this month with a pair of premieres by film and theater choreographer Mayte Natalio and multidisciplinary experimental artist Maleek Washington, who were selected for the program and mentored by Camille A. Brown. Feb. 8–10. gibneydance.org. —CE

Movin’ It On

DALLAS  For this year’s iteration of Dallas Black Dance Theatre’s Cultural Awareness program, company member and co-rehearsal director Hana Delong premieres Post Mortem. Joining it are His Grace, a tribute to Nelson Mandela by Christopher L. Huggins, and Matthew Rushing’s ODETTA, set to songs by songwriter and civil rights activist Odetta Holmes. Feb. 9–10. dbdt.com. —CE

New Works in Nashville

NASHVILLE  For its annual Attitude program, Nashville Ballet will debut commissions from resident choreographer Mollie Sansone, Kidd Pivot dancer Jermaine Spivey, and Camille A. Brown & Dancers member Yusha-Marie Sorzano, all with music performed live by local musicians. Feb. 9–11. nashvilleballet.com. —CE

Bach as Blueprint

NEW YORK CITY  In The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker uses one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s most well-known compositions as the blueprint for an evening-length solo. De Keersmaeker performs through the aria and 30 variations alongside pianist Pavel Kolesnikov for the North American premiere of the work at NYU Skirball. Feb. 22–24. nyuskirball.org. —CE

Liberating Lilith

SAN FRANCISCO  In Lilith, flamenco artist Fanny Ara uses the mythological figure—Biblical Adam’s first wife who abandoned Eden, variously interpreted as a force for evil or a symbol of female independence—to consider the weight of expectations imposed by herself and others, and her journey toward liberation. The evening-length solo work, premiering at ODC Theater Feb. 23–25, sees Ara joined by musicians Gonzalo Grau and Vardan Ovsepian. odc.dance. —CE

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Clarissa Rivera Dyas

Freelance dancer and choreographer

Clarissa Rivera Dyas thrives most in collaboration with other artists, and layers different art forms with sophistication. She created Something Remains, her 2022 evening-length choreographic debut, with visual artist and composer Jakob Pek. In it, Dyas and her three dancers pushed the boundaries of physicality as they danced with long rolls of paper and paint, serving as both brushes and canvas. Her dynamic movement, which defied predictability as it showcased both strength and vulnerability, served as the perfect counterpoint to Pek’s experimental score.

Dyas, a sought-after performer for artists like Robert Moses, prioritizes disrupting norms, challenging expectations, and embracing the raw, vulnerable, and even sloppy in her work. “How can we involve the idea of failure?” she asks. “As a Black queer artist, there is little room for failure. How can we allow for failure?”

In 2021, after recurring experiences of being tokenized in the largely white-led Bay Area dance scene, she co-founded the nonhierarchical artist collective RUPTURE alongside fellow queer Black artists jose e. abad, Stephanie Hewett, Gabriele Christian, and Styles Alexander. “It’s about being in process with collective rest, play, and somatic experimentation as resistance,” she says, “challenging what it means to be in dance and performance.” A RUPTURE event might include dance, live sound design, spoken word, visual art, multimedia elements, community engagement, improvisation, and play. In June, the cohort will present a new work at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture.

—Rachel Caldwell

Danielle Swatzie

Freelance dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker

If any contemporary dance artist captures the spirit of Atlanta’s up-and-coming generation, it’s Danielle Swatzie. Take her solo The Fleeting Serenade. In the section set to Ella Fitzgerald’s rendition of the jazz standard “Angel Eyes,” Swatzie whirls across the stage, her legs slicing arcs, arms gesturing in staccato bursts as she embodies the emotional turmoil churning beneath the song’s smooth surface.

A graduate of Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, Swatzie is equally compelling in front of or behind a camera. She creates an aura of honesty, thoughtfulness, and fearless compassion combined with a drive to unpack­ inner emotional landscapes. Her dance films, which illuminate a vision of a more equitable world, have been garnering increasing attention. META, a solo reflecting on family, generational trauma, and feminine empowerment, received the 2021 BronzeLens Film Festival Award for Best Music/Dance Video. Her growing roots through concrete was selected for American Dance Festival’s 2023 Movies By Movers festival. The film features seven young women artists, Black and white, who join together in precarious group counterbalances to confront individual experiences with racism and find wholeness as a community—as Swatzie says, through “radical connection and radical love to manifest radical change.”

—Cynthia Bond Perry

Grace Rookstool

Soloist, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre

Last season, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s statuesque Grace Rookstool made a pair of major debuts. The then–corps-member embodied emotional resilience as Mina in Michael Pink’s Dracula and showed off her commanding stage presence and technical prowess as Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty. She dances with an assuredness that artistic director Adam McKinney says got her promoted to the rank of soloist for this season. “She is a consummate professional, a classicist, and has a natural sensibility to embody music,” he says of the 23-year-old.

Born and raised on Whidbey Island, Washington, Rookstool trained at Pacific Northwest Ballet School and in its Professional Division Program. While there, she was selected for an exchange program with Dresden Semperoper Ballett and danced in its production of La Bayadère. She joined PBT’s corps de ballet in 2019.

A truly versatile dancer, Rookstool says she most enjoys high-flying jumps. Expect her career to soar in 2024.

—Steve Sucato

Erina Ueda

Dancer, Giordano Dance Chicago

Erina Ueda’s breakout moment with Giordano Dance Chicago came last April in Kia Smith’s Luminescence. With a cast of 22 dancers filling the cavernous Harris Theater, the piece starts and ends with Ueda completely alone, in a solo showcasing her unbridled facility and unflappable joy. Giordano’s dancers are known for their silky jazz technique balanced with razor-sharp precision. Ueda has that and more, bringing honesty and authenticity to the company’s rep. 

Ueda earned a BFA in dance with a minor in psychology from the University of Arizona, not too far from her hometown of Chandler, Arizona. Born in Japan, she was the first Asian woman to join the 60-year-old Giordano company. She’s upped its digital game, too, as the company’s social media manager and video content producer since her arrival in 2022.

—Lauren Warnecke

Donovan Reed

Dancer, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham

Nature metaphors spring to mind as you watch A.I.M by Kyle Abraham’s Donovan Reed. They seem driven by wind, buoyed by water, licked by fire. They might stop a liquid phrase cold with a thorny angle—not breaking the spider’s thread of movement, but rather snapping it taut. They can make the unlikeliest shapes look organic. (Though these qualities never feel less than authentic to Reed, they are very Abraham-esque: Reed, who’s danced with A.I.M since 2018, can channel the choreographer with uncanny precision.)

But Reed is an unmistakably human performer, too. In Abraham’s MotorRover—a duet that responds to Merce Cunningham’s 1972 work Landrover—they temper Cunningham’s signature formality with playfulness and wit, carrying on a danced conversation with partner Jamaal Bowman that seems full of little inside jokes. Reed’s a force of nature with a soul.

—Margaret Fuhrer

Kaitlyn Sardin

Irish and hip-hop dancer

You might know her as @kaitrock: the artist whose one-of-a-kind, Irish-dance-meets-hip-hop mashups have earned her an avid following on Instagram and beyond. While traditional Irish dance, with its strict verticality, might seem at odds with more full-bodied and grounded ways of moving, Kaitlyn Sardin finds their common thread: rhythm. Through drumming feet, swiping arms, or swiveling knees, she can tease out the intricacies of whatever sound is fueling her. (Beyoncé, Tinashe, and Victoria Monét are a few current favorites.) In every aspect of her short-form solos—including her colorful fashion choices—she is unabashedly herself.

A former competitive Irish dancer with a foundation of razor-sharp technique (she grew up training at the Watters School in Orlando), Sardin broadened her dance horizons as a student at Hofstra University, where she began adding forms like dancehall and vogue to her vocabulary. She has toured with the Chicago-based Trinity Irish Dance Company and is gearing up for new projects in 2024. From February 14–March 3, you can find her performing in Jean Butler’s What We Hold at the Irish Arts Center in Manhattan. 

Being Black and queer in the mostly white, sometimes culturally conservative world of Irish dance, she’s aware that younger dancers who break with convention might see themselves in her. Her advice for them? “Just go for it. Don’t be afraid, and the world will embrace you.”

—Siobhan Burke

Jake Roxander

Corps member, American Ballet Theatre

Watching Jake Roxander as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet last July, it was hard to believe that he was making his Metropolitan Opera House debut in the role. Without a trace of nerves, the 21-year-old American Ballet Theatre corps member fully inhabited the character—cocky, loveable, magnetic, with flashes of hot-tempered recklessness. Then there was his dancing: Each solo was thrillingly virtuosic and highly musical, with pirouettes that paused momentarily on relevé—just enough time for him to give an impish grin before he was on to the next feat. 

Roxander comes from a family of dancers; he and his brother Ashton, a principal with Philadelphia Ballet, were trained by parents David and Elyse Roxander at their studio in Medford, Oregon. He spent a season with Philadelphia Ballet’s second company before joining ABT’s Studio Company in 2020, where he stood out in Balanchine’s Stars and Stripes and a duet from Twyla Tharp’s Known by Heart.

ABT has wasted no time pushing Roxander to the forefront since he joined the main company in 2022. This fall he danced principal roles in Harald Lander’s Études and Alexei Ratmansky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and debuted in the role of Puck in Sir Frederick Ashton’s The Dream. With his powerful, unforced technique and boy-next-door charm, he is making a name for himself, and fast. 

—Amy Brandt

Jindallae Bernard

Choreographer, filmmaker, and corps member, Houston Ballet

Jindallae Bernard’s portrayal of the jealous Lady Rokujo in Nao Kusuzaki’s Genji, an Asia Society Texas Center commission, exuded chilly charm and understated, seductive sensuality. Her quiet authority and stoic elegance also served her well in Stanton Welch’s neoclassical Tu Tu at Houston Ballet, though she proved equally capable of turning up the voltage in Balanchine’s Stars and Stripes. And her talents extend to choreography and filmmaking, too.

Bernard joined Houston Ballet’s corps in 2022. She’s been with the organization since she was 6 years old, rising through the Academy and Houston Ballet II before landing an apprenticeship in 2021. During her training, she took on several choreographic opportunities. Her whimsical short dance film Phase, created in 2020 during a virtual summer program composition class, so caught the eye of artistic director Stanton Welch that the company showcased it during its first live performance after the pandemic pause. “Her work feels so high-end, from the story to her use of color and light, and her directorial insight,” says Welch. He selected her to premiere a new ballet in December for the company’s annual Jubilee of Dance, for which she created Parodie de l’histoire du ballet. Says Bernard: “My goal is to contribute in as many ways as I can.”

—Nancy Wozny

Kia Smith

Executive artistic director, South Chicago Dance Theatre

Last year’s premiere of Memoirs of Jazz in the Alley proved a perfect showcase for choreographer and director Kia Smith. The evening-length “dance opera” exemplified her choreographic voice—note-by-note precision, fluid torso movement, unexpected gesture, powerful unison—and marked the debut of her 7-year-old company, South Chicago Dance Theatre, at the Auditorium Theatre, its largest venue to date. The work paid homage to Smith’s childhood experiences at her musician father’s weekly Jazz in the Alley gatherings. That background surfaces in the way her dances feel born out of the detail and nuance of jazz music.

Smith’s success lies not only in her artistic acumen but also in the way she considers dance and the business of it on a large scale. The Chicago native is both artistic and executive director of SCDT, which has expanded its presence at home through the South Chicago Dance Festival and abroad with its Choreographic Diplomacy international exchange program. Amidst a growing list of outside commissions—notably including the rousing Luminescence for Giordano Dance Chicago’s 60th anniversary last spring—this year Smith will bring her company on tour to Seoul, South Korea, and return to the Auditorium Theatre with another world premiere.

—Maureen Janson

Hohyun Kang

Sujet, Paris Opéra Ballet

A morbid teenager involved in a murder-suicide isn’t exactly an easy first major role. Yet from the moment South Korea’s Hohyun Kang, who joined Paris Opéra Ballet in 2018, stepped out as Mary Vetsera in Mayerling last season, she found logic and purpose in Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s choreography. As she draped herself around Paul Marque, her Prince Rudolf, her lines sizzled with dramatic tension.

It was an arresting breakthrough for the 28-year-old, who had been on balletomanes’ radar for her easy, radiant musicality and technique in ballets such as Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco. A graduate of Korea National University of Arts, she was noticed by William Forsythe shortly after joining POB and landed a soloist role in his Blake Works I, before quietly making her way up the ranks and becoming a sujet (soloist) last season. She is already slated for a Kitri debut in April—and may well follow in the footsteps of Paris’ first South Korean étoile, Sae Eun Park.

—Laura Cappelle

Karla Puno Garcia

Musical theater choreographer

When last year’s Tony Awards had to go without a script and instead lean on dance to set the scene, host Ariana DeBose knew just the choreographer who could pull it off: Karla Puno Garcia. The resulting opening number brought viewers on a danced journey through the United Palace theater, using Garcia’s spunky, sassy movement to amp up excitement for the night. Later, Garcia’s unapologetically feminine flair and super-satisfying musicality showcased DeBose and Julianne Hough in a duet that felt both timely and timeless.

Garcia was the first woman of color to choreograph the Tonys. But it’s far from her only brush with the event. A Broadway vet who’s been dancing on the Great White Way since her college days at New York University, she previously performed with the casts of Gigi and Hamilton at the Tonys and was a dancer and associate choreographer in 2021 when Sergio Trujillo choreographed the opening number. Soon, she may even be up for a Tony herself: She’s making her Broadway choreographic debut this January with Days of Wine and Roses, which she co-choreographed with Trujillo.

For his part, Trujillo thinks she’s “unstoppable” as a choreographer: “Karla’s like a musician that can play all the instruments with her feet and arms and body,” he says. “She comes across as incredibly gentle, but she’s a force to be reckoned with.”

—Jennifer Heimlich

Kuu Sakuragi

Soloist, Pacific Northwest Ballet

With a raw physicality matched with bighearted sensitivity, Kuu Sakuragi is quickly heading toward rockstar status at Pacific Northwest Ballet. He creates electrifying spectacles onstage, delivering one jaw-dropping performance after another. His big technical jumps look as if he’s floating on air, an impression only heightened by his gravity-defying turnin David Parsons’ Caught, while his warmth and humility come through as deference to the other dancers onstage, as in Alexei Ratmansky’s Wartime Elegy. A PNB DanceChance student and Professional Division graduate, Sakuragi joined the corps in 2020 after dancing with Alberta Ballet for three years and was promoted to soloist in November. “Certain dancers live more completely in the moment when they’re dancing,” artistic director Peter Boal says. “Nureyev, Wendy Whelan, Carla Körbes come to mind. Kuu is one of them.” 

—Gigi Berardi

Sydnie L. Mosley 

Founding executive and artistic director, SLMDances 

In the spring and summer of 2020, conversations about racial equity and social justice erupted across the dance field. How could exclusionary systems be transformed? How could imbalances of power be corrected? How could people better care for one another?

For the choreographer, performer, educator, and writer Sydnie L. Mosley, these questions were nothing new. The Baltimore-born Mosley has been envisioning a future free from oppression—with dance as one way to get there—at least since 2010, when she founded her Harlem-based collective SLMDances. For people just beginning on that journey, she and her collaborators became a guiding light.

A self-described “creative home for trans, cis, nonbinary, queer, disabled, fat, masculine presenting, Black women and femmes of many generations,” SLMDances takes seriously the term “collective,”operating through a model of shared leadership and responsibility. Their community-engaged, joyfully interactive works have tackled issues like street harassment (The Window Sex Project, 2012) and the economics of dance (BodyBusiness, 2015). Their latest, PURPLE: A Ritual in Nine Spells, honors the Black feminist playwright, poet, and dancer Ntozake Shange, whose legacy Mosley extends through her own intertwining of movement and language. Premiering at Lincoln Center last summer, PURPLE marked a turning point for Mosley in its visibility and scale. Her vision persists; what’s changed, perhaps, is the world’s readiness to join her.

—Siobhan Burke

Laila J. Franklin

Independent dance artist

Contradictions power Laila J. Franklin’s charisma. She can shift from sly comedy to earnest sincerity over the course of an eight-count. She moves with disarming frankness, making even complex gestures look straightforward and open; she also seems to keep part of herself closed to the audience, protective of her own mystery.

That sense of unknowable-ness sits right at the center of choreographer Miguel Gutierrez’s I as another, which Gutierrez and Franklin performed in New York City last spring. The intimate, probing duet suggests we can never truly know each other, or even ourselves—but we can try. In I as another, Franklin showed a kind of virtuosic empathy, living fully inside Gutierrez’s creative vision without erasing herself. Forget walking in someone else’s shoes—she can dance in their feet.

Franklin, who earned a BFA from Boston Conservatory in 2019 and an MFA from the University of Iowa in 2021, is also a choreographer, teaching artist, and writer. Maybe over time we’ll get to know her better through her own work. Maybe she’ll always keep part of herself a mystery. Either way, she’ll be holding our attention.

—Margaret Fuhrer

Lucy Fandel

Independent dancer and choreographer

In the semi-improvised, place-based dance Lucy Fandel creates, the land is something alive, not just a backdrop. “The inhaling clouds, quivering blades of grass, swarms of gnats, or the occasional romping dog pulled us in,” she writes of her and Bailey Eng’s creative explorations during a residency in Spain. In a section of their filmed field notes, Fandel responds viscerally to these movements in the environment while dancing atop a rocky outcropping, at once fluid and angular as she articulates through her hands, rib cage, pelvis. 

A dance artist, writer, and arts outreach worker, Fandel grew up in Concord, Massachusetts, and Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France. “Switching languages forces you to think differently,” she says. She later crossed borders yet again, moving to Montreal to study contemporary dance and sociology at Concordia University. Fandel’s attachment to sociology field work influenced her dance perspective and, today, she’s at the forefront of the burgeoning sustainable eco-dance movement in Canada. She’s right at home engaging with the landscape during her outdoor research (“conversations,” as she calls them), examining the vectors of science and dance while sensitizing people to the natural environment in all its ambiguity and transformation.

—Philip Szporer

Miguel Alejandro Castillo

Choreographer and freelance performing artist

Onstage, Miguel Alejandro Castillo emanates a warmth and wit that creates instant connection. An incredibly committed performance in Faye Driscoll’s whirlwind ensemble work Weathering last April highlighted this generosity. As part of a precarious flesh sculpture that teetered off the edges of a spinning raft, Castillo maintained an active, intense bond with his fellow performers, even as his ponytail swept the ground and it became increasingly unclear whether he was being supported or smothered.

Castillo brings a bright presence and big love into the studio, Driscoll says, alongside an impressive conceptual curiosity. “He’s embracing the full range of human experience,” she says, “connecting the light and the dark.” In his own choreography, the Venezuelan artist, who started in theater, explore­s his native country’s diaspora, blending forms to forge a kind of future folklore.

Castillo recently completed a New York Live Arts Fresh Tracks residency and acted as movement director for the David Lang opera Prisoner of the State. He’ll keep building on that momentum in 2024: In addition to choreographing John Adams’ opera The Gospel According to the Other Mary for Volksoper in Vienna and touring Weathering, Castillo will be a choreographer in residence at both PAGEANT performance space in Brooklyn and Abrons Arts Center in lower Manhattan. 

—Candice Thompson

Naomi Funaki

Tap dancer and choreographer

During the in-person debut of Ayodele Casel’s Chasing Magic, Japanese tap artist Naomi Funaki commanded attention with her clear, confident sounds. She modulated her tones and phrasing to cover a broad emotional spectrum, from contemplative to exuberant, as she floated through a duet, in a role originated by Casel, with joyful ease. “Her technical prowess and rhythmic voice are dynamic and contain so much depth and nuance,” says Casel, who invited Funaki to make her choreographic debut last April during Casel’s Artists at the Center engagement at New York City Center.

Casel is not alone in her sentiments. Funaki was the recipient of a 2023 Princess Grace Award and is an apprentice with Dorrance Dance. She performed in the December premiere of Caleb Teicher’s reworked Bzzz, a tap-meets-beatbox show for which she also served as assistant choreographer, and in January will show off her range in Leonardo Sandoval’s samba-inflected I Didn’t Come to Stay with Music From The Sole.

Ultimately, Funaki’s goal is to bring the spirit and professionalism of the New York City tap community back to Japan. Casel has every faith that she will, and along the way inspire a whole new generation of tap dancers.

—Candice Thompson

Olivia Bell

Corps member, New York City Ballet

Some dancers demand your attention. New York City Ballet’s Olivia Bell politely requests it. But the elegantly understated dancer is no wallflower. A fervent musicality powers her fine-grained technique, giving it a lush, romantic sweep. 

Bell, who only joined New York City Ballet’s corps in May, still has surprises in store. At last summer’s Vail Dance Festival, she danced Balanchine’s Tarantella, a mile-a-minute showstopper that must have been nearly impossible to survive at Vail’s one-and-a-half-mile elevation. Bell handled the challenge with not just polish but sparkle, nailing the work’s witty musical phrasing and showing off the prodigious pirouettes that most of us had previously only seen on her Instagram page. Here’s to more surprises, and soon, on NYCB’s stage. 

—Margaret Fuhrer

Pauline Casiño 

Commercial dancer

Pauline Casiño booked her Broadway debut without an in-person audition. She learned about casting for Once Upon a One More Time, directed and choreographed by Keone and Mari Madrid, after the first round of auditions had already concluded and asked her agent to help find a way in. “I always knew of Keone and Mari,” she says. “As a fellow Filipino, I wanted to be part of something they’re creating.” Even though she had never taken class with the Madrids, let alone worked with them before, she landed the part of Esmeralda through a video submission. Onstage, she brought the ensemble character to life with her unforgettable fluidity, powerful femininity, and magnetic presence.

Casiño, who moved to the Bronx from the Philippines at age 12, grew up thinking dance was extracurricular. While studying chemistry in college, she danced in commercial choreographer Candace Brown’s The Soul Spot and BTS’ Love Yourself: Speak Yourself New Jersey concert, but it wasn’t until she graduated in 2020 that she fully embraced dance as her profession. Since then, she has performed with Anitta and Doja Cat at MTV’s Video Music Awards, as well as choreographed and directed her own dance visual. Only three and a half years into seriously pursuing a dance career, Casiño has already proved she has star quality. 

—Kristi Yeung

Rafael Ramírez

Flamenco dancer and choreographer

With fluid arms, deep, effortless lunges, supple contractions, and rapid, complex footwork, Rafael Ramírez spellbinds. But it is his old soul, which adds sensual vulnerability to his performances, that leaves an indelible impression.

Ramírez’s prowess in both traditional and contemporary flamenco captivates across venues, from Spain’s most prestigious tablaos to international theaters with the companies of famed choreographers such as David Coria and Rafaela Carrasco. He’s also garnered critical recognition: In 2021, he won the highly coveted Desplante Masculino at the International Cante de las Minas Festival and, last year, received the 2023 Best New Artist Award from the prestigious Festival Jerez for his Entorno. He carried that momentum into the 2023 Bienal de Málaga, where he premiered Recelo, a collaborative work with prize-winning dancer Florencia Oz exploring the primal emotion of fear, and into a 10-city U.S. tour of his solo show, Lo Preciso, this past fall. With more performances of Recelo ahead, Ramírez enters 2024 on the road to international recognition.

—Bridgit Lujan

Yuval Cohen

Corps member, Philadelphia Ballet

An elegant carriage and genteel demeanor make Yuval Cohen an ideal storybook prince. But behind that refinement lies impressive power. His explosive, elastic leaps and strong, centered turns had everyone buzzing at last summer’s USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi. The 21-year-old Israeli dancer, a newly promoted Philadelphia Ballet corps member, was the first from his country to medal, taking home the senior bronze.

Cohen’s USA IBC coach was his longtime mentor, Nadya Timofeyeva, with whom he trained at the Jerusalem Ballet School. In 2018, she took him to a competition in Russia, where he won first prize and a spot at the Vaganova Ballet Academy. After becoming the school’s first Israeli graduate in 2021, Cohen joined Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet. But the pandemic created visa complications, forcing him to return home that summer. 

Cohen joined Philadelphia Ballet II in October 2021 and became a company apprentice the following season. He’s already gained notice in a range of featured roles, including a Stepsister in Cinderella, the Gold variation in The Sleeping Beauty, and Escamillo in Angel Corella’s new production of Carmen, which premiered this fall.

—Amy Brandt

Sean Lew 

Commercial dancer and choreographer

In viral YouTube videos, two seasons of NBC’s “World of Dance,” performances with stars from Janet Jackson to Justin Bieber, and his own hour-long dance film, II, Sean Lew has won over millions of fans with his articulate athleticism, honest storytelling, and undeniable charisma. The 22-year-old is far from new to the industry, but he’s still taking his career in new directions. In 2023, he conquered his biggest fear: battling. “It’s not just if you’re good at dancing, then you can battle,” Lew says. “People live, breathe, and eat battling.” He amped up his fitness training and studied freestyle genres such as house and krumping, and, after a humbling early-round loss at his first battle, he went on to win the Red Bull Dance Your Style Los Angeles regionals in April. He then brought home the national title in May and represented the U.S. at the global competition in November.

Despite his newfound commitment to the competitive freestyle scene, Lew continues to grow his career in other areas. Over the last year, he launched his first fitness and dance intensive, Artist Range, with trainer Karl Flores; was a first-time creative director for Jackson Wang’s Coachella performance; and was a first-time co-producer on a Dermot Kennedy music video. “The beauty and curse of my life,” he says, “is I just want to do everything.”

—Kristi Yeung

Solal Mariotte

Independent choreographer and dancer, Rosas

In EXIT ABOVE — after the tempest, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s typically minimalistic world suddenly seemed looser and brighter. The reason? A new generation of dancers, led by French newcomer Solal Mariotte, who got his start in hip hop. The curly-haired 22-year-old acted as a mercurial leader, shifting easily from floor work to the air, launching himself into arresting dives to the floor.

At 18, looking for a challenge, Mariotte applied to P.A.R.T.S., the school founded by De Keersmaeker in Brussels, where he immersed himself in contemporary dance while co-founding a breaking crew, Above The Blood, on the side. In addition to joining Rosas in 2023, he is also developing projects with his crew and as a choreographer. In January, a new version of his solo Collages/Ravages will premiere at the prestigious Suresnes Cités Danse festival in France. With his influences now cross-pollinating­ in captivating ways, a shape-shifting career beckons.

—Laura Cappelle

Kamala Saara

Dancer, Dance Theatre of Harlem

Midway through William Forsythe’s Blake Works IV last April, Kamala Saara transfixed the audience in a soulful, introspective solo. She stretched her long limbs expansively, pulling every inch out of them before retracting dynamically into the next phrase. She seemed to be lost in a dream, her arms sweeping through an unseen atmospheric viscosity. And while the solo is deeply internal, Saara invited the audience at Dance Theatre of Harlem’s New York City Center season into her world. 

Saara, 21, grew up studying at the Yuri Grigoriev School of Ballet in Los Angeles, spent two summers at the Bolshoi Ballet Intensive in New York City, and at 16 was invited to Moscow to perform at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy’s annual gala. She moved to New York in 2019, training first with Andrei Vassiliev before entering the School of American Ballet. SAB’s focus on speed and lightness, she says, made her more versatile.

Meanwhile, then-DTH artistic director Virginia Johnson had had her eye on Saara since Chyrstyn Fentroy invited her to take company class at age 15. Saara joined DTH in 2020, shining in Stanton Welch’s Orange and Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante. This season, she takes on the principal role in Balanchine’s Raymonda-inspired Pas de Dix, adding a glamorous ballerina part to her repertoire. 

—Amy Brandt

Water Street Dance Milwaukee 

Contemporary dance company

In Milwaukee, ballet is king. But funders, dancers, presenters, and audiences are all sitting up and taking notice of Water Street Dance Milwaukee, giving the city the top-shelf contemporary company it deserves. The company, which rehearses in a suburban Milwaukee enclave, launched just as the pandemic hit, but still managed to build a roster of impeccable dancers, create a dance festival, and form pre-professional programs. The city’s dance community is mobilizing around Water Street’s momentum as the company produces new festivals, outdoor pop-up performances, and shared auditions. It performs all over the Midwest, but directo­r Morgan Williams’ goal is to take Water Street international. He sprinkles up-and-coming choreographers, like Kameron­ N. Saunders, Madison Hicks, Braeden Barnes, and Leandro Glory Damasco, Jr., into the rep alongside his own choreography. At just 33, he is a savvy director and choreographer with support from some of the region’s sharpest dance leaders and a long runway ahead.

—Lauren Warnecke

Header collage photo credits, left to right, top to bottom: Ryoko Konami, courtesy Naomi Funaki; Michelle Reid, courtesy Kia Smith; Todd Rosenberg, courtesy Giordano Dance Chicago; Laura Irion, courtesy Karla Puno Garcia; Rosalie O’Connor, courtesy American Ballet Theatre; Angela Sterling, courtesy Pacific Northwest Ballet; Kat Stiennon, courtesy Water Street Dance Milwaukee; Erin Baiano, courtesy New York City Ballet; Jay Spencer, courtesy Miguel Alejandro Castillo; Isabella Herrera, courtesy Kaitlyn Sardin; Julien Benhamou, courtesy Paris Opéra Ballet; Nir Arieli, courtesy Dance Theatre of Harlem; Steven Pisano, courtesy A.I.M by Kyle Abraham; Lawrence Elizabeth Knox, courtesy Houston Ballet; Alex Harmon/Red Bull Content Pool, courtesy Sean Lew; Robbie Sweeny, courtesy Clarissa Rivera Dyas; Anne Van Aerschot, courtesy Rosas; Bailey Bailey, courtesy Laila J. Franklin; C-Unit Studio, courtesy Pauline Casiño; Anita Buzzy Prentiss, courtesy Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre; Nicole Mitchell Photography, courtesy Danielle Swatzie; Gabriel Asensio, courtesy Rafael Ramírez; Camille Augustyniak, courtesy Lucy Fandel; Arian Molina Soca, courtesy Philadelphia Ballet; Travis Coe, courtesy Sydnie L. Mosley.

The post Introducing Our 2024 “25 to Watch” appeared first on Dance Magazine.

All About Ailey

NEW YORK CITY   Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater takes over New York City Center for the month of December as the company celebrates its 65th anniversary. Following an opening-night gala on Nov. 29 honoring artistic director emerita Judith Jamison, the five-week season features premieres by former artistic director Robert Battle, former Ailey dancer Elizabeth Roxas-Dobrish (Me, Myself and You, a duet set to “In A Sentimental Mood”), and new Ailey artist-in-residence Amy Hall Garner (CENTURY, inspired by the choreographer’s grandfather). Also in the mix are fresh productions of Ronald K. Brown’s Dancing Spirit, Alonzo King’s Following the Subtle Current Upstream, Jamar Roberts’ Ode, and Hans van Manen’s Solo; programs highlighting the legendary women of the company and featuring live music performed by the Future of Jazz Orchestra; and, of course, a healthy helping of Ailey classics. Nov. 29–Dec. 31. alvinailey.org. —Courtney Escoyne

Seven and Seven

NEW YORK CITY   Seven dancers, seven violists, three collaborative works. Tiffany Mills Company and contemporary music troupe Ensemble Ipse converge at National Sawdust for a program of live music and dance theater, inspired by texts exploring exile, the human cost of war, and the literal and metaphorical power of sight and being seen. Dec. 2–3. nationalsawdust.org. —CE

Dreamy Duets

NEW YORK CITY   A dreamy collection of current and former dancers from Bruce Wood Dance, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, The Joffrey Ballet, Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, New York City Ballet, and San Francisco Ballet come together for Lar Lubovitch at 80: Art of the Duet, a special Works & Process program featuring performances of some of the choreographer’s favorite duets alongside a conversation about their creation. Dec. 3. guggenheim.org. —CE

Snapshots of Love

SAN FRANCISCO   In Loving: A Photographic History of Men in Love, 1850s–1950s, Hugh Nini and Neal Treadwell presented hundreds of previously unpublished vintage photographs of gay couples from their collection. Following a two-month developmental residency at 836M Gallery, RAWdance co-artistic directors Wendy Rein and Ryan T. Smith premiere a series of duets inspired by those images, Loving Still. Select photos are being reproduced in a larger format for display in the space; additionally, audiences attending the free performances can catch an abbreviated version of Shawn Sprockett’s Unspeakable Vice walking tour, which unearths Jackson Square’s queer history, ahead of the show. Dec. 8–10. rawdance.org. —CE

Undercurrents

DRESDEN   Contemporary choreographer Johan Inger has a knack for delving into the psychology and dark undercurrents of the subjects he tackles, particularly when he takes a more narrative bent. His latest: A Swan Lake for Dresden Semperoper Ballett, which uses the oft-performed classic to question how violence, manipulation, personal freedom, and respect intersect and impact personal relationships. Dec. 9–Jan. 14. semperoper.de. —CE

Happily Ever After?

WORCESTER, MA   Why is it that in so many fairy tales, female protagonists can only attain happiness by enduring sacrifice and violence? That’s the question animating For you, I dream of me, a new evening-length from Kristin Wagner. Developed in part through workshops reconsidering those stories with local young adults of all gender identities, some of whom will perform alongside Wagner’s Bodies Moving company, the work has its first public showings at the Jean McDonough Arts Center BrickBox Theater Dec. 15–16. bodiesmoving.com. —CE

Fresh Nutcrackers

Two new takes on the holiday classic premiere.

Orlando Ballet

ORLANDO   Drawing from his experience working in children’s theater, artistic director Jorden Morris frames Clara’s dream as a journey through a life-sized snow globe. Steering away from the Land of the Sweets’ potential for cultural insensitivity, Tchaikovsky’s “Chinese” dance is reinterpreted as a pas de deux between Drosselmeyer and a yellow-and-black heron, and the Arabian divertissement features a dancer—premiering with a female soloist but choreographed to be non–gender-specific—defying gravity in an acrobatic Cyr wheel. Tapping the Orlando community, Morris collaborated with Disney puppeteers to bring sets and costumes by Robert Perdziola to life. Dec. 8–24. orlandoballet.org. —Hannah Foster

Milwaukee Ballet

MILWAUKEE   Artistic director Michael Pink says that his 2003 Nutcracker production is still “bloody good,” so much so that much of its choreography is being retained for The Nutcracker: Drosselmeyer’s Imaginarium. With the reconceptualization, Pink seeks to continue the protagonists’ narrative journey into the second act, featuring them prominently in the dancing throughout. Whimsical new costumes, sets, and music transitions between scenes create a seamless flight into imagination and wonder. Dec. 8–26. milwaukeeballet.org. —Steve Sucato

The post Two New <i>Nutcrackers</i> and a Half Dozen Other Performances Worth Catching This December appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Way Back Balanchine

NEW YORK CITY On October 11, 1948, New York City Ballet gave its first performance. As part of the company’s anniversary celebrations, it will re-create that program exactly 75 years later with performances of founder George Balanchine’s Concerto Barocco, Orpheus, and Symphony in C. Other programs in the company’s fall season (through Oct. 15) focus on Balanchine’s choreography—including the return of Bourrée Fantasque, last seen at NYCB in 1994—with the annual Fall Fashion Gala on Oct. 5 featuring new costumes for Balanchine’s Who Cares?, along with founding choreographer Jerome Robbins’ Glass Pieces. nycballet.com. —Courtney Escoyne

Panning for Gold

SAN FRANCISCO Kinetech Arts investigates its home city of San Francisco’s tech boom through the lens of the city’s roots in the mid-19th-century gold rush with Aurum. Has humanity learned from the ecological and human tolls of the greed and exploitation of 1849? The multimedia project premieres Oct. 13–15 at ODC Theater. kinetecharts.org. —CE

Follow the White Rabbit

MANCHESTER, UK Red pill or blue pill? Science fiction blockbuster The Matrix erupts into a large-scale immersive performance with Free Your Mind, the opening production of Factory International’s new space, Aviva Studios. After collaborating for the opening ceremony at the 2012 London Olympics, director Danny Boyle teams up once more with choreographer Kenrick “H2O” Sandy and composer Michael “Mikey J” Asante (the co-founders of lauded London-based hip-hop troupe Boy Blue) to re-create iconic moments from the film and show audiences just how deep the rabbit hole goes. Oct. 13–Nov. 5. factoryinternational.org. —CE

Five on Five

CHICAGO With its S45 program, Chicago’s experimental Zephyr Dance offers new perspectives on a Merce Cunningham classic. David Sundry’s uniquely designed SITE/less space provides multiple audience vantage points for a restaging of Cunningham’s 1956 Suite for Five, which is joined by the premiere of a five-part Cunningham-inspired work. Zephyr director Michelle Kranicke created one section and gathered veteran choreographers Paige Cunningham-Caldarella, Darrell Jones, Roxane D’Orléans Juste, and Kota Yamazaki for the others. The prompt for each: Lean into their own aesthetic (everything from butoh to voguing), with Suite for Five as a springboard. Oct. 19–22. zephyrdance.com. —Maureen Janson

Hidden in the Spotlight

PITTSBURGH Jennifer Archibald’s new ballet for Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Sounds of the Sun, centers a complex historical heroine. Florence Waren was born Sadie Rigal in South Africa in 1917 to a Jewish family. A celebrated performer in France and Germany during World War II, she hid her identity from the Nazis as she worked undercover as a resistance agent. “I am committed to creating stories that I think the world needs to see and learn from,” says Archibald. The ballet headlines PBT’s Light in the Dark program, which also includes works by Sasha Janes, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, and Barak Marshall. Oct. 27–29. pbt.org. —Steve Sucato

Take a Chance, Roll the Dice

NEW YORK CITY For its Imminent Chance program, BalletCollective explores themes of probability. Artistic director and New York City Ballet soloist Troy Schumacher has nabbed electronic composer Phong Tran for his new ballet, driven by a tabletop role-playing game custom-designed for the premiere by Samantha Leigh. Schumacher also rolls the dice on queer Puertorriqueño choreographer Omar Román De Jesús, known for his gritty, wry commentaries on social interaction. He’ll create a work to an original composition for chamber ensemble by Robert Honstein with haunting floral visual art by Kathrin Linkersdorff. Seven NYCB dancers will perform the works at Trinity Commons in lower Manhattan. Oct. 31–Nov. 2. balletcollective.com. —Joseph Carman

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The awards honor the artistry, integrity, and resilience that dance artists have demonstrated over the course of their careers. They feature several changes for 2023, including the addition of an annual theme, the establishment of criteria for the selection committee, and the inclusion of posthumous honors to recognize some of the many artists active since 1954 who were not given awards during their lifetimes.

A ceremony to recognize the 2023 honorees will be held in New York City at Buttenwieser Hall at The Arnhold Center, 92NY, on Monday, December 4 at 7 pm Eastern, with performances and presentations for each recipient. For ticket information, visit dancemediafoundation.org.

Here are the artists we’re celebrating at this year’s awards, which have a theme of education.

Antoine Hunter

Oakland native Antoine Hunter aka Purple Fire Crow is an award-winning internationally known Black, Indigenous, Deaf, and Disabled choreographer, dancer, actor, instructor, speaker, producer and Deaf advocate. This Two-Spirit creates opportunities for Disabled, Deaf, and hearing artists, produces Deaf-friendly events, and founded the Urban Jazz Dance Company in 2007 and Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival in 2013. Awards include the 2022 Disability Futures Fellowship, 2021 Dance Teacher Award, 2019 National Dance/USA fellowship, 2018 inaugural Jeanette Lomujo Bremond Humanity Arts Award, and 2017 Isadora Duncan (Izzie) for Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival. In 2020, Hunter founded #DeafWoke, an online talk show that amplifies BIPOC Deaf and Disabled stories as a force for cultural change.

Alicia Graf Mack

Alicia Graf Mack was named dean and director of dance at The Juilliard School in 2018. A former dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Dance Theatre of Harlem, and Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Graf Mack also danced with Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet, Beyoncé, John Legend, Andre 3000, Alicia Keys, and Jon Batiste. Graf Mack graduated magna cum laude with honors from Columbia University and holds an MA in nonprofit management from Washington University in St. Louis. She has been an assistant professor at Webster University and adjunct faculty at the University of Houston and Washington University in St. Louis. She is the co-founder of D(n)A Arts Collective, and host and co-producer of the podcast Moving Moments.

Norton Owen

Norton Owen is a curator, writer, and archivist with more than 50 years of professional experience in dance. Since 1976, he has been associated with Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, where as director of preservation he oversees projects involving documentation, exhibitions, audience engagement, and archival issues, as well as extensive online archives, podcasts, and more. In 2000, Dance/USA selected him for its Ernie Award, honoring “unsung heroes who have led exemplary lives in dance,” and he has also received awards from the Martha Hill Dance Fund, Dance Films Association, the José Limón Dance Foundation, and the Theatre Library Association.

Bijayini Satpathy

Considered a foremost master of Odissi, Bijayini Satpathy has four decades of intensive practice as a performer, teacher, and research scholar. Her journey in choreography began four years ago with ABHIPSAA—A Seeking, commissioned by Duke Performances, Baryshnikov Arts Center, and NEFA’s National Dance Project. She was the artist in residence with Live Arts at the Metropolitan Museum from 2021 to 2022. Satpathy is currently a resident fellow at NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts and was a New York Dance & Performance Award (“Bessie”) Honoree in 2020. Satpathy’s Odissi practice began in her motherland, Orissa, India, and flourished for a quarter of a century at Nrityagram until 2018.

Maria Torres

Maria Torres has sculpted a diverse career spanning direction, choreography, education, and production. Torres pioneered the dance technique Latin jazz, now taught worldwide. She has worked extensively on Broadway (Swing, On Your Feet!, Summer: The Donna Summer Musical), in film (Dance with Me, Enchanted), and on television (“So You Think You Can Dance”). Torres has participated in the Dance Oral History Project at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and is now helping document the style of social dance she grew up with, the Hustle. She is a trustee of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation and on the board of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and the League of Professional Theatre Women.

Chairman’s Award: Jody Gottfried Arnhold

A Chairman’s Award, chosen by Dance Magazine Awards Chairman Frederic M. Seegal to honor distinctive leaders behind the scenes, will go to Jody Gottfried Arnhold, MA, CMA. A luminary in dance education and an advocate for dance, she founded the Dance Education Laboratory (DEL) at 92NY in 1995 in response to the need for a practical and focused dance pedagogy program. She continues these efforts as executive producer of the NY Emmy nominated documentary, PS DANCE!: Dance Education in Public Schools, to raise awareness and advocate for her mission, Dance for Every Child.

Harkness Promise Awards: Baye & Asa and Omar Román De Jesús

Amadi “Baye” Washington and Sam “Asa” Pratt, of Baye & Asa, and Omar Román De Jesús are the recipients of the two Harkness Promise Awards, which offer a grant and rehearsal space for innovative young choreographers. These awards, conferred in partnership with the Harkness Foundation for Dance, are funded by net proceeds from the Dance Magazine Awards ceremony.

Posthumous Awards

Posthumous Dance Magazine Awards will be given for the first time ever in 2023, paying tribute to dancer, choreographer, and teacher Syvilla Fort; dancer, choreographer, actor, musician, and teacher Gregory Hines; dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, and educator Pearl Primus; and choreographer, dancer, and teacher Helen Tamiris.

Stay tuned for Dance Magazine‘s December issue to learn more about each of these artists and how they have shaped the dance field.

The post Here Are the 2023 Dance Magazine Award Honorees appeared first on Dance Magazine.

The Storm of the Century

“We see all of our work as creating worlds,” say Taylor Knight and Anna Thompson, co-directors of slowdanger. The multidisciplinary entity is known for drawing audiences into atmospheric experiences through surreal landscapes enriched with evocative vocals, ambient sound scores, and moody lighting effects.­ SUPERCELL, their largest-scale production to date, unfolds amid deconstructed environs where five individuals face the fury of a burgeoning thunderstorm that forebodes massive devastation and annihilation. Each has a story, told through postmodern dance, improvisation, dialogue, and live camera feeds.

The storm serves as a “representation of society’s hypnotic connection to media sensationalism, desensitization, and climate disasters,” state the co-directors, who consulted with an advisory team of scientists and educators in developing the work that “responds to but does not solve the issue of climate change.” College Park, MD, Sept. 21–22; Pittsburgh, Dec. 8–9. slowdangerslowdanger.com. —Karen Dacko

Birmingham’s Heavy Metal Ballet

Concert dance and pop culture have been close bedfellows in the U.K. recently: Over the past 12 months, we’ve seen everything from a Rambert reimagining of “Peaky Blinders” to former Spice Girl Mel C taking to the Sadler’s Wells stage in a Merce Cunningham–style­ unitard. Now, Birmingham Royal Ballet is getting in on the action with Black Sabbath: The Ballet. With choreography by Raúl Reinoso and Cassi Abranches, led by Pontus Lidberg, the three-act work will be set to orchestrations of the titular band’s legendary tracks, as well as new compositions performed live by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia.

The second in a trilogy of Birmingham-focused works programmed by artistic director Carlos Acosta to pay homage to the city’s cultural heritage—Birmingham is Black Sabbath’s hometown, and they performed their first gig in a pub a stone’s throw from BRB’s headquarters—it claims to be the world’s first true heavy metal ballet experience. While maybe not an experience we knew we needed, there’s appetite for it: The premiere run sold out shortly after it was announced, with extra shows being added in response to the demand. Premieres at the Birmingham Hippodrome Sept. 23–30 before touring to Theatre Royal Plymouth (Oct. 12–14) and London’s Sadler’s Wells (Oct. 18–21). brb.org.uk. —Emily May

Ease on Down to Broadway

If you’ve seen Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” video, you’ve seen choreographer JaQuel Knight’s ebullient, sexy, defiantly strutting hip-hop style. It’s not exactly what comes to mind when you picture “Ease on Down the Road,” but that will be changing when Knight makes his Broadway debut choreographing a new production of The Wiz, the groundbreaking 1975 musical that gave Dorothy and her misfit pals from The Wizard of Oz a soul transfusion and a message of Black affirmation. Joining Knight and director Schele Williams are Black artists from the music industry, film, and television, all taking a fresh look at Charlie Smalls’ Tony-winning score and William F. Brown’s book. The original, which ran for four years, took seven Tony Awards in all, including Best Musical and Best Choreography (for George Faison). The team for this version arrives toting a slew of Oscars, Emmys, and Grammys, so look out. Tour begins Sept. 23–30 at the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore, and continues to additional cities before opening on Broadway next spring. wizmusical.com. —Sylviane Gold 

Mthuthuzeli On the Move

South African choreographer Mthuthuzeli November was already in demand when he was included in Dance Magazine’s 2022 “25 to Watch.” Now, fresh from his latest creation for Ballet Black—the narrative, Nina Simone–inspired Nina: By Whatever Means, which continues to tour the U.K. through Nov. 2—his choreographic commissions are off the charts in both Europe and the U.S. Over the next year he’s set to make works for Charlotte Ballet (Oct. 5–28), Ballett Zürich (January), and Staatsballett Karlsruhe (premiering April 27). Even further ahead, in fall 2024 he’ll create a contemporary retelling of Romeo and Juliet for the U.K.’s Northern Ballet, and Ballet Black will be reviving his lockdown-inspired The Waiting Game next year.

But first, November will take to the stage in his own choreography in a live version of his film My Mother’s Son, a dynamic, fluid, and emotive duet with his brother and National Ballet of Canada principal Siphesihle November. The performance at Toronto’s Fall for Dance North (Oct. 6–7) will mark the first time the pair have shared the stage as professionals. mthuthuzelinovember.co.uk. —Emily May

Spies of the Civil War

For her first venture into opera, artist-activist Jawole Willa Jo Zollar directs and choreographs Intelligence, an epic Civil War story co-created with composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer. The opera revolves around the remarkable true story of two women in Richmond, VA, involved in pro-Union espionage: Elizabeth Van Lew, a member of a prominent Confederate family, established a spy ring, while Mary Jane Bowser, born into slavery in the Van Lew household, collected vital information on the war effort while pretending to be gathering laundry. Eight dancers from the Zollar-founded Urban Bush Women will weave movement into the opera’s tapestry of music and storytelling. Commissioned by Houston Grand Opera, Intelligence premieres Oct. 20–Nov. 3 at the Wortham Theater Center. houstongrandopera.org. —Caitlin Sims

Camille A. Brown and Alicia Keys Join Forces

Apartment ads now call it Clinton, but back in the ’90s, the then-sketchy, west-of-Times-Square neighborhood where Alicia Keys grew up was still known as Hell’s Kitchen. And that’s the setting, and the title, of her new off-Broadway musical, to be choreographed by another New Yorker, Queens native Camille A. Brown. The 17-year-old heroine (played by Maleah Joi Moon, and whose mother is played by Shoshana Bean) shares Keys’ nickname, Ali, and some elements of her history, in a book written by playwright Kristoffer Diaz. Brown will be setting songs from Keys’ 15-Grammy career as well as new ones composed specifically for the show. Keys and Brown are both exceptional women who carved spaces for themselves as artists rather than commodities, and Hell’s Kitchen is bound to share their grit and their grace. Oct. 24–Dec. 10 at New York City’s Public Theater. publictheater.org. —Sylviane Gold 

Theme and Three Variations

Postmodern choreographer Annie-B Parson has long been skeptical of the way unison is often used to glorify a phrase in modern dance and give it an easy intentionality. But after reading W.H. McNeill’s Keeping Together in Time, in which the author writes of his ecstatic experience in military marching drills, she traded that skepticism of the choreographic trope of unison for full-blown obsession. For March, a forthcoming piece for her Big Dance Theater, she invited fellow choreographers Tendayi Kuumba and Donna Uchizono to join her in creating a three-part, intergenerational, intersectional evening-length dance based on forms of unison “from the monstrous to the utopian,” she describes, for a cast of 17 female-identified dancers.

March will premiere Dec. 10–16, in the round on the square stage at New York City’s newly opened Perelman Performing Arts Center, and is a co-commission with PAC NYC, American Dance Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, and The National Center for Choreography at The University of Akron. pacnyc.org. —Meredith Fages

All Aboard the “A” Train

Sugar Hill: The Ellington/Strayhorn Nutcracker rolls into theaters this season. The two-hour dance story discards The Nutcracker’s 1892 libretto as it sends Lena Stall on a journey of self-discovery in glamorous 1930s Harlem. Fueled by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s The Nutcracker Suite, a spunky take on Tchaikovsky’s score, it’s augmented with other songs from their 28-year collaboration. While not the first Nutcracker spun from the 1960 album, this one boasts a dazzling team of multi-genre choreographers: Joshua Bergasse directs and co-choreographs with Jade Hale-Christofi, Caleb Teicher and Jon Boogz contribute additional choreography, and theater legends Graciela Daniele and Carmen de Lavallade serve as consultants. As of press time, dates have been confirmed at New York City Center (Nov. 14–26) and Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre (Dec. 19–30) with other cities expected to follow. sugarhillnutcracker.com. —Karen Dacko

The Metaverse of Mere Mortals

San Francisco Ballet’s 2024 season is its second under Tamara Rojo’s artistic leadership, but it’s the first to bear her creative stamp. She’s making a milestone statement on opening night with the premiere of Aszure Barton’s Mere Mortals—the first woman-choreographed full-length in the company’s 90-year history. Inspired by the myth of Pandora’s box, the ballet grapples with philosophical issues around artificial intelligence and the evils it could unleash. “What questions should humanity be asking itself about AI?” Rojo wonders. “What risks should we take in order to gain knowledge?” An original score by British electronic composer Sam Shepherd, aka Floating Points, and avant-garde production design and visuals by the Barcelona-based Hamill Industries will create an immersive experience for artists and audience alike. “The goal,” Barton says, “is to create a moving, visceral experience by recontextualizing the classic parable for our modern world.” Jan. 26–Feb. 1. sfballet.org. —Claudia Bauer

Unpacking a Controversial Icon

Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel: alluring fashion icon and notorious antisemite. What is it about Chanel that continues to capture public fascination, and what can we learn from her complex and controversial life? In Coco Chanel: The Life of a Fashion Icon, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa explores Chanel’s mythic status without glorifying the woman in total—a nuanced and analytical approach that ballet often shies away from.

A co-production between Hong Kong Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, and Queensland Ballet, the full-length premiered in Hong Kong in March. Atlanta Ballet will bring Chanel stateside this season before its Queensland premiere next fall. In conjunction with the production, Atlanta Ballet has partnered with the local William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum and SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film to develop educational programming unpacking Chanel’s fashion legacy, as well as the damaging impact of her antisemitism and collaboration with the Nazi Party; Atlanta Ballet will provide additional instructional resources and host discussions on combating antisemitism. Feb. 9–11, 16–17. atlantaballet.com. —Kyra Laubacher

Birds of a Feather

In the allegorical 12th-century poem “The Conference of the Birds,” birds from all over the world come together and find unity despite their differences on a journey toward spiritual enlightenment. It’s only fitting, then, that a confluence of dance styles converge for Zorongo Flamenco Dance Theatre’s adaptation of the ancient Sufi text. Choreographer and dancer Darrius Strong, whose work is heavily influenced by hip hop, brings his penchant for narrative to this collaboration with artistic director Susana di Palma. Though he didn’t have prior training in flamenco, Strong says he found the form’s rhythmic nature and musicality relatable. International flamenco guitarist and composer Juanito Pascual leads the live music for the adaptation, premiering Feb. 10–11 at the Cowles Center in Minneapolis. thecowlescenter.org. —Sheila Regan

Making Work on Work

Laura Gutierrez grew up amidst paint cans and brushes, enormous tarps, ladders, and ratchet straps—the materials her father used as a billboard painter. “The way I know dance, my dad knows billboards,” she says. Gutierrez honors her father’s 48 years of labor with the premiere of her new solo, In Tarps I Trust. The Houston native, now based in New Jersey, plans to lean into the unruliness and extreme physicality of her father’s profession. “I really need to shed a lot of angst and take hold, and what better way to do so than wrestling with a 14×48-foot tarp,” says Gutierrez­, who has made a career creating and performing site-specific work in museum and gallery settings. Gutierrez last addressed issues surrounding labor in Center Aisle Blues, set in a Fiesta Mart, a Texas grocery-store chain serving the Latino community. She continues this thread with In Tarps I Trust, premiering in Houston this spring at the MATCH as part of DiverseWorks’ series on labor, Work of Art/Art is Work. lauraegutierrez.com. —Nancy Wozny

Return of the Roaring ’20s

The Great Gatsby has inspired manyfold adaptations since its 1925 publication, but the disillusionment—with love, marriage, the American Dream—that courses through F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel has often proved trickier to capture than the stylish decadence of its Roaring ‘20s setting. An upcoming new musical, however, shows promise. Gatsby boasts director Rachel Chavkin, whose knack for balancing spectacle with emotional impact was showcased in Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812 and Hadestown; a score by Florence Welch and frequent Florence + The Machine collaborator Thomas Bartlett; a book from Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Martyna Majok; and choreography by Sonya Tayeh—who better to capture the wild opulence of Jay Gatsby’s parties than the dancemaker whose over-the-top dance sequences for Moulin Rouge! nabbed her a Tony Award? The premiere of Gatsby will close the season at American Repertory Theater, a noted incubator for Broadway-bound new works, with previews beginning May 25 and opening night slated for June 5. americanrepertorytheater.org. —Courtney Escoyne

Breaking Onto the International Stage

Breaking will make history as the first dance form to reach the Olympic stage next summer. Staying true to its hip-hop roots, the breaking program will revolve­ around the battle. In two events, one for 16 b-boys and one for 16 b-girl­s, ­competitors will face off in a single-elimination–style tournament. As they go head to head to perform improvised sets of their most impressive top rocks (standing movements), down rocks (floor work), and freezes (inverted poses), they will be judged on their athleticism and artistry.

Breaking for Gold USA has developed a competition circuit to determine the country’s best breakers. To become Olympians, these breakers will need to earn spots at Olympic qualifying events, where they will compete for the opportunity to represent breaking’s birthplace on the largest international stage at the ­2024 Summer Games in Paris. Aug. 9–10. paris2024.org. —Kristi Yeung

Mean Girls, Take Three

Get in, losers, we’re going back to high school, again. Mean Girls, the 2004 movie that inspired the Tony-nominated 2018 Broadway musical, will soon see its third incarnation as a movie musical. While musical comedy veteran Casey Nicholaw originated the musical’s moves, à la lunch-tray choreography and spontaneous tap dance breaks, this film adaptation will have a fresh take courtesy of choreographer Kyle Hanagami. With a signature style that’s intricate, musically expressive, and invitingly fun, Hanagami has emerged as a go-to collaborator in both the K-pop and commercial-dance scenes. His viral touch may be exactly what this adaptation needs to bring the musical’s whip-smart lyrics—by Nell Benjamin, who, along with original screenplay and Broadway book writer Tina Fey, has hinted at some surprises and potentially a new song or two—to life on screen. The new film will stream on Paramount+, date to be announced. paramountplus.com. —Amanda Sherwin

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Maria Majors, STL Rhythm Collaborative

Three to Get Ready

Performers: Kelly Ging, Maria Majors, Tommy Wasiuta

Choreographer: Tommy Wasiuta

Composer: Dave Brubeck

. . .

Mikaela Santos

 Variation from Le Talisman

Choreographer: Marius Petipa

Composer: Riccardo Drigo

. . .

Dominic Moore-Dunson

In his eyes

Choreographer: Dominic Moore-Dunson

Composer: Max Richter

. . .

Andrew McShea

You, a body

Choreographer: Andrew McShea

Composer: Haley Heynderickx

. . .

Madeline Maxine Gorman

Between Myself

Choreographer: Madeline Maxine Gorman

Composer: Molly Joyce

This is a work-in-progress excerpt from an evening-length work titled Between Myself. Inspired by a series of near-death experiences, terrible first dates, and childhood diary musings, Between Myself will be a work that explores the psychological journey of coming to grips with queerness, disability, and the corporate world.

. . .

Ashton Edwards

Bright Young Things

Choreographer: Joshua Grant

Composer: William Lin-Yee

~  Intermission  ~

Quinn Starner

Into the Storm

Choreographer: Jason Parsons

Composer: Sébastien Roux

. . .

Tendayi Kuumba

 BlackBird

Choreographer: Tendayi Kuumba

Composer: UFlyMothership

. . .

Erin Casale

Variation from Walpurgisnacht

Choreographer: Leonid Lavrovsky

Composer: Charles Gounod

. . .

Dandara Veiga

Novo Começo

Choreographer: Annabelle Lopez Ochoa

Composer: Ludovico Einaudi

. . .

Jordan Demetrius Lloyd

Black Cherry

Choreographer: Jordan Demetrius Lloyd

Sound arrangement: Jordan Demetrius Lloyd

. . .

Cameron Catazaro (with Ashley Knox)

After the Rain

Choreographer: Christopher Wheeldon

Composer: Arvo Pärt

The post 25 to Watch Live! appeared first on Dance Magazine.

A Queer Oasis

SAN FRANCISCO  Devised theater and dance company Detour takes over drag nightclu­b Oasis for We Build Houses Here. In the immersive dance theater performance, crafted by Detour co-founder Eric Garcia in collaboration with the work’s 10 performers, the nightclub becomes a desert island playing host to “a band of glittering castaways,” celebrating and honoring sanctuaries for queer communities—like nightclubs. Choreographers Cornelius (aka drag queen VivvyAnne ForeverMORE) and Maurya Kerr (artistic director of tinypistol) act as contributing directors. May 4–20. detourdance.com. —Courtney Escoyne

Approaching the Sun

SOUTH FLORIDA  To heat up stages across South Florida, Dance NOW! Miami has gone solar. For its Masterpiece in Motion series, the company joined forces with Cameron Basden, a Gerald Arpino Foundation répétiteur, to rescue from near loss Arpino’s 1974 The Relativity of Icarus. Contentious upon debut, its sexually charged male duet draws from the myth of the youth who, on wings his father crafted, flew too close to the sun and fell into the sea. Part of Arpino’s centennial, the reconstruction appears alongside Gli Altri/The Others, a premiere by DNM’s artistic co-directors Hannah Baumgarten and Diego Salterini in collaboration with Italy’s Opus Ballet. May 11–13. dancenowmiami.org. —Guillermo Perez

Divining Home

MINNEAPOLIS  Leslie Parker’s Divination Tools: imagine home draws on Black pedagogy, conjuring and activism as it reflects on divinity and lineage. The latest iteration of her multiyear Call to Remember initiative, which considers different perspectives on improvisation through a Black femme lens, is Parker’s first major new dance work since before the pandemic debuts at the Walker Art Center May 11–13. walkerart.org. —CE

Isn’t It Romantic?

ATLANTA  The final program of Atlanta Ballet’s season is named for Remi Wörtmeyer’s new work. Significant Others, set to music by Fanny Mendelssohn (sister to Felix), celebrates creatively fruitful relationships, romantic or otherwise. Choreographer in residence Claudia Schreier also contributes a premiere to the triple bill, which is rounded out by Ben Stevenson’s Three Preludes, a pas de deux about two dancers falling in love in the studio. May 12–14. atlantaballet.com. —CE

Futures Foretold

SAN FRANCISCO  What if your friend could suddenly see the future? Sharp & Fine co-founders Megan and Shannon Kurashige explore the possibilities with their latest work, Imaginary Country. An eclectic cast of San Francisco–based contemporary artists—Sonja Dale, Julie Crothers, Caitlin Hicks, Molly Levy and Meredith Webster—unravel­ the impact clairvoyance could have on a person’s relationships, and how they think about the future, in the work’s premiere run at Z Space. May 12–14. sharpandfine.org. —CE

Through a Crystal, Darkly

LONDON  Wayne McGregor’s dance adaptation of Jim Henson’s 1982 film The Dark Crystal finally arrives at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre this month. UniVerse: A Dark Crystal Odyssey reimagines the cult-classic fantasy, trading Henson’s groundbreaking puppetry for dancers while considering its characters’ journey to restore balance to a broken world in the context of our own planet. The Studio Wayne McGregor and Royal Ballet co-production, in association with the Jim Henson Company, runs May 13–June 4. roh.org.uk. —CE

Not Your Usual Rite

NEW YORK CITY   Known for her feminist reimaginings of classical ballets through a South African lens, Dada Masilo returns to The Joyce Theater for the U.S. premiere of The Sacrifice. Inspired by the endlessly revisited Rite of Spring, the work fuses the traditional narrative of a young girl ritualistically dancing herself to death with Tswana, the traditional dance of Botswana, and is set to an original, contemporary score—rather than the iconic Stravinsky—played live onstage. May 23–28. joyce.org. —CE

Celebrating Ghana

NEW YORK CITY  DanceAfrica, the largest African dance festival in the U.S. and Brooklyn Academy of Music’s longest continuous program, returns for its 46th edition over Memorial Day weekend. This year’s extravaganza focuses on Ghana, with National Dance Company of Ghana headlining with both traditional performances from across the country and West Africa and a new work choreographed for the occasion by DanceAfrica director Abdel R. Salaam. Appearances by the DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers, RestorationArt Dance Youth Ensemble and more are also on tap. May 26–29. bam.org. —CE

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The National Dance Education Organization believes in its mantra: “Behind every dancer who believes in themselves, is a dance teacher who believed in them first.” On May 4, NDEO invites you to participate in #ThankADanceTeacherDay, a global initiative celebrating dance education and the teachers who are part of it. Started in 2014, #ThankADanceTeacherDay is a social media campaign tailored toward raising awareness about the life-changing impact of dance education. The holiday specifically recognizes dance teachers, who are often left out of the celebrations during National Teacher Appreciation week (May 8–12). To join in this year and spread some love to your favorite dance teachers, all you need to do is create your own thank-you message or share a story about a meaningful educator in your life, then post it on your social media accounts using the hashtag #ThankADanceTeacherDay on Thursday, May 4.

Whether you’re a seasoned educator, an admiring student, or even a parent, there is someone who paved the way for you. So this May 4, be sure to join NDEO in thanking our dance teachers for all they do!

The post Mark Your Calendars for #ThankADanceTeacherDay on May 4! appeared first on Dance Magazine.

A Change in the Weather

NEW YORK CITY  In Faye Driscoll’s latest, a cast of 10—dancers, singers, crew—create an ever-morphing sculpture from bodies, sounds and scents, slowly shifting as a raft-like stage, too small to contain them and embanked by the audience, moves beneath them. Weathering, named for the process by which weather conditions cause the physical disintegration of features on the earth’s surface over time, draws attention to the subtleties of touch while investigating the ways events larger than ourselves impact and move through us. Commissioned through New York Live Arts’ Randjelović/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist program, the work’s debut runs April 6–8 and 13–15. newyorklivearts.org. —Courtney Escoyne

Movers and Shakers

NEW YORK CITY  This year’s delightfully busy edition of La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival offers disparate visions of what contemporary dance can be. Norwegian choreographer Kari Hoaas premieres Shadowland, a response to the instability of the world after the start of the pandemic. Nela H. Kornetová’s Forced Beauty, which explores power structures and violent aesthetics, gets its U.S. premiere, while Bobbi Jene Smith’s Broken Theater, developed at La MaMa and featuring a cast of a dozen contemporary dance who’s whos probing the lines between who they are as performers and as people, makes its New York debut. Also on the docket: a shared evening of three Arab American choreographers (Nora Alami, Jadd Tank and Leyya Mona Tawil), Dance Magazine editor at large Wendy Perron’s recent collaboration with Morgan Griffin (Wendy Perron: The Daily Mirror; 1976/2022), and works by Kayla Farrish and Baye & Asa. April 6–30. lamama.org. —CE

Caves, Comedians and Commissions

NEW YORK CITY  Martha Graham Dance Company returns to The Joyce Theater with a slate of programming mixing the old with the new. Premieres by hard-hitting dance theater duo Baye & Asa and Gaga-influenced dancemaker Annie Rigney rub elbows with Graham classics—Cave of the Heart, Embattled Garden, Dark Meadow Suite, Every Soul Is a Circus—and more recent endeavors, like last year’s eight-choreographer reimagining of Canticle for Innocent Comedians (led by Sonya Tayeh) and Hofesh Shechter’s­ nightlife-inspired CAVE. April 18–30. joyce.org. —CE

Harlem Heads to Midtown

NEW YORK CITY  Dance Theatre of Harlem brings a pair of major new works home for their New York debuts: Tiffany Rea-Fisher’s Sounds of Hazel, a celebration of jazz icon Hazel Scott that premiered in Washington, DC, in October, and William Forsythe’s latest entry in his Barre Project, Blake Works IV, which debuted in January at Penn Live Arts. Joining those ballets for the New York City Center engagement are a revival of Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante and Christopher Wheeldon’s This Bitter Earth, while a second program offers existing repertory by Helen Pickett, Stanton Welch, Nacho Duato and artistic director designate Robert Garland. April 19–23. nycitycenter.org. —CE

Think Green

Choreographers turn their attention to urgent environmental concerns.

The Future Is Now

SALT LAKE CITY  Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company artistic director Daniel Charon collaborates with theater director Alexandra Harbold for a new evening-length work. To See Beyond Our Time takes climate change and humanity’s necessary reckoning with the clear and present danger it presents as its subject, inspired by the impact of diminishing water levels in the Great Salt Lake on the area’s ecosystem. April 13–15. ririewoodbury.com. —CE

Nor Any Drop to Drink

PITTSBURGH  Corningworks artistic director Beth Corning concocts masterful dance-theater explorations that draw from the conundrums of human existence. She provokes us with questions, but says, “I don’t have the answers.” The fisherman, the butterfly, eve & her lover – a parable, created for her award-winning­ Glue Factory Projects series, which features artists over age 45, boasts a cast of four savvy performers alongside water, turf and 7.5 tons of sand. With her latest evening-length opus, Corning dives into the global climate crisis and takes the 50-member audience with her to ponder “How much do our little personal efforts really matter?” April 15–23. corningworks.org. —Karen Dacko

Naming the Lost

LONDON  Nederlands Dans Theater tours to Sadler’s Wells, bringing the UK premiere of Crystal Pite’s latest creation for the company, Figures in Extinction [1.0]. The work, which touches on melting polar ice caps and extinct animal species as it questions whether humanity can truly name all that is being lost in this age of extinction, debuted last year and is the first of a planned trio of premieres created in collaboration with theater director Simon McBurney. Rounding out the triple bill are Jiří Kylián’s “unfinished” 100th work, Gods and Dogs, and Gabriela Carrizo’s disconcertingly dreamlike La Ruta. April 19–22. sadlerswells.com. —CE

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RRR (short for Rise Roar Revolt) tells the story of a friendship between revolutionaries in pre-independence India, and “Naatu Naatu” is essentially a dance-off between the two of them—and the colonial establishment. The high-energy choreography for the scene, filmed at the Presidential Palace in Kiev, Ukraine, was created by Prem Rakshith. “The steps as such were not hard, but what was harder is the sync,” Jr NTR told Entertainment Tonight. “Each person has a different style of dancing, but for [director S. S. Rajamouli] it was so important that in the film, when two friends are aligned together, you really don’t need to look at each other, you know that you are one.”

Rajamouli asked Rakshith to create steps that were both straightforward and catchy: “[The choreography] should be not complicated, because I also wanted to figure out steps which people would like to do for themselves,” he told Vanity Fair, adding that he told Rakshith that “it should be nice, it shouldn’t be too difficult, it should suit the style of both actors—and it should be fantastic.”

The film’s stars will not perform at the awards ceremony as they’ve been working on other projects and haven’t had time to rehearse.  “I think it will be nice for me to sit down in the audience and watch the song,” Jr NTR told KTLA, “because the moment I watched that clip, my legs started aching all over again.”

Instead the Academy Awards tribute will feature Los Angeles-based dancers, including Lauren Gottlieb, a So You Think You Can Dance and Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa alum who has worked in the Indian film industry, and starred in the 2013 ABCD: Any Body Can Dance.

“Naatu Naatu” won the Golden Globe and the Critics Choice awards for best song. Performed by Kaala Bhairava and Rahul Sipligunj, “Naatu Naatu” is up against “Applause” (Tell It Like A Woman, performed by Sofia Carson), “Hold My Hand” (Top Gun: Maverick, performed by Lady Gaga), “Lift Me Up” (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, performed by Rihanna) and “This Is A life” (Everything Everywhere All At Once, performed by Ryan Lott, David Byrne and Mitski).

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Dancin’ Back to Broadway

NEW YORK CITY  More than four decades after its original Broadway bow, Bob Fosse’s DANCIN’ returns to the Great White Way. Original 1978 cast members Wayne Cilento and Christine Colby Jacques direct and reproduce Fosse’s choreography, respectively, with additional reconstruction by Corinne McFadden Herrera, while a formidable cast tackles Fosse’s notoriously specific moves in the packed musical revue. Previews begin at the Music Box Theatre March 2, with opening night set for March 19. dancinbway.com. —Courtney Escoyne

Presence/Absence

NEW YORK CITY  Inspired in part by her work as a hospital chaplain, Keely Garfield’s The Invisible Project looks for hope as it considers disappearing acts and the interplay of presence and absence. Garfield is joined in the ritualized performance, premiering at NYU Skirball, by frequent collaborators Molly Lieber, Paul Hamilton and Angie Pittman. March 10–12. nyuskirball.org. —CE

Facing Love

CANTON, MI  Ballet 5:8 premieres a new evening-length work this month. BareFace, choreographed by artistic director Julianna Rubio Slager, is inspired by C.S. Lewis’ final novel, Till We Have Faces, which was itself a retelling of the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche from the perspective of the latter’s sister. March 11. ballet58.org. —CE

Time for a Reckoning

NEW YORK CITY  The Reckoning, Francesca Harper’s response to the 2010 killing of 7-year-old Aiyana Mo’Nay Stanley-Jones­ by police, receives its live performance premiere at Works & Process, performed by members of Ailey II and FHP Collective and set to original music by Nona Hendryx. Commissioned by ARRAY’s Law Enforcement Accountability Project, the film and performance project is being presented in conjunction with the Guggenheim exhibition “Nick Cave: Forothermore.” March 11. guggenheim.org. —CE

Spanish Soul

ON TOUR  When flamenco luminary Sara Baras lets loose with footwork, the floor breaks out in banter, protest, jubilation, firing up her onstage collaborators. Alma, her latest production, bares the soul of that art in numbers both intimate and expansive. Striking design and a tight team of dancers, singers and instrumentalists bring theatrical flash to illuminate flamenco’s embrace of Cuban bolero. The show kicks off its American tour by headlining Flamenco Festival Miami XIV (March 16–19), which also features acclaimed guitarist Rafael Riqueni and a premiere from rising bailaora Irene Lozano, before heading to New York City Center (March 23–26) and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (March 29–30). arshtcenter.org, nycitycenter.org and kennedy-center.org. —Guillermo Perez

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Latest

NEW YORK CITY  Broadway mainstay Phantom of the Opera may be set to close next month, but a new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical arrives in its wake: Bad Cinderella, with choreography by JoAnn M. Hunter, contemporizes the fairy tale, questioning traditional beauty standards and adding a few new twists. The production’s opening night at the Imperial Theatre is set for March 23. badcinderellabroadway.com. —CE

Squaring the Past

NEW YORK CITY  A journey through time, space and identity, Christopher “Unpezverde” Núñez’s The Square: Displacement with no end recounts his nomadic Indigenous ancestors’ encounters with colonial geographies over the last two centuries. March 23–25. abronsartscenter.org. —CE

60 Years of Jazz

CHICAGO  Giordano Dance Chicago is doing it up big for Celebrate Giordano, its 60th-anniversary extravaganza. The jazz institution will showcase notable works from across its history: founder Gus Giordano’s rarely seen Sing, Sing, Sing (1983), Randy Duncan’s Can’t Take This Away (1997), Ron De Jesus’ pivotal Prey (2003) and Liz Imperio’s La Belleza de Cuba (2013). Former GDC dancer and associate director Michael Taylor offers Celebrate 60, an opener crafted specifically for the occasion, while Kia Smith contributes a premiere honoring Homer Hans Bryant, featuring dancers from GDC, Giordano II and her own South Chicago Dance Theatre—the collaboration a notable first for GDC. March 31–April 1. giordanodance.org. —CE

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A Profoundly Ukrainian Giselle

WASHINGTON, DC  The Giselle arriving at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts this month promises to be a particularly emotional one. It will mark the U.S. debut of the nascent United Ukrainian Ballet, the Netherlands-based company of refugee ballet dancers who fled the invasion of Ukraine last year. Alexei Ratmansky (himself a citizen of Ukraine) specially crafted the production for the company. American Ballet Theatre principal Christine Shevchenko, also Ukrainian, is slated to guest during the engagement. Feb. 1–5. kennedy-center.org. —Courtney Escoyne

Seeding Revival

NEW YORK CITY  For the third edition of Revival, Johnnie Cruise Mercer offers to those who have seed in the ground. Inspired by William McDowell’s album Sounds of Revival, the Feb. 2 event brings together two generations of artists to move through “meta-physical practices rooted in Black spiritual tradition” in pursuit of a collective inner will. A recording of the performance will be available digitally for 72 hours, starting Feb. 3. 92ny.org. —CE

Brought to a Boil

ALAMEDA, CA  Percussive dance company MoToR/dance is set to debut its first evening-length work this month. For Water in the Kettle, artistic director Evie Ladin brings together an all-female, multigenerational ensemble to illuminate the recurrent struggles faced by women in the U.S. across generations, turning Rhythmix Cultural Works into a sort of contemporary village square filled with communal story and song. Feb. 3–4. rhythmix.org. —CE

Spirits of Nashville’s Past

NASHVILLE  Nashville Ballet’s Attitude: Anthology employs a graveyard setting to introduce audiences to lesser-known stories of important individuals in the city’s history. “The stories that make it into the history books aren’t the only stories of why we live the lives we do,” says artistic director Paul Vasterling, who conceived the new production in the mold of the company’s nationally acclaimed Lucy Negro Redux. Choreographed by Vasterling with contributions from Sidra Bell, Windship Boyd, Mollie Sansone and Shabaz Ujima, the multimedia work is set to original music composed and performed live by local alternative/indie singer morgxn. Feb. 10–12. nashvilleballet.com. —Steve Sucato

Hamburg Ballet in the Windy City

CHICAGO  Before he was artistic director of Hamburg Ballet, John Neumeier grew up in Milwaukee and spent his early dance career in Chicago. It seems only fitting, then, that the company should tour to the Windy City in the midst of its 50th (and penultimate) season under his direction. On tap is Neumeier’s The Glass Menagerie, with international ballet star Alina Cojocaru, for whom the principal role was made, joining the company for the Harris Theater engagement. Feb. 23–25. harristheaterchicago.org. —CE

Glass Slippers

Two new productions of Cinderella debut.

Oklahoma City Ballet

OKLAHOMA CITY  Ryan Jolicoeur-Nye choreographs the evening-length fairy tale, his second since being appointed­ artistic director of Okla­homa City Ballet in October. Feb. 10–12. okcballet.org. —CE

Tulsa Ballet

TULSA  Following two shorter works for Tulsa Ballet—2021’s What If? and last spring’s Celestial Bodies—British choreographer Andrew McNicol returns to tackle his first full-length. Feb. 9–12. tulsaballet.org. —CE

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We have exciting news. Dance Media has merged with Hollywood.com, a leading entertainment platform led by entrepreneurs Mitch Rubenstein and Laurie Silvers, the founders of the Syfy Channel, Broadway.com, Movietickets.com, and co-founders of Misfits, a leading e-sports organization. Silvers is the current Chair of the Board of Trustees of the University of Miami, a member of the Board of the PBS Foundation, and a life trustee of the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach.

“This powerful combination of these two great brands strengthens our entertainment platform which will yield benefits for our customers and suppliers,” says Silvers. “Hollywood.com and Dance Media will continue to provide the same great content and service you’ve come to love with big plans to grow together in the future.”

Dance Media publishes Dance Magazine, Dance Spirit, Pointe, Dance Teacher, and The Dance Edit. These reach dance students, dance professionals and dance lovers around the world through their many channels spanning digital, print, audio, social, events, and more. “While I have enjoyed supporting these brands as they flourished, I’m anticipating even bigger, more strategic outcomes with Hollywood.com,” says Fred Seegal, previous owner of Dance Media. Currently Vice-Chair of Investment Banking at Cowen, he added that “I have known Mitch and Laurie for over 35 years and know they will be great leaders for the brands and am pleased they have asked me to stay on as Chairman of the Dance Magazine Awards.” Seegal also serves as the Board Chair at the Parrish Art Museum and is the immediate past Chair of the James Beard Foundation.

“The synergy between Dance Media and Hollywood.com will propel the dance brands forward, particularly where dance and entertainment intersect,” says Joanna Harp, President of Dance Media. “There is tremendous potential for new ideas, partnerships, audience cross-over, and leveraging this thoughtful connection.”

Over time, we believe this combination will make both Hollywood.com and Dance Media well-positioned for the long term. For now, it continues to be business as usual at Dance Media and you should not expect any changes in your partnership with us.

If you have questions, please contact your Dance Media representative, or if you’d like to talk to the team at Hollywood.com, please reach out to Kaity Navarro, Head of Business Operations at dance@hollywood.com.

Sincerely,

Hollywood.com & Dance Media

The post Dance Media Merges With Hollywood.com appeared first on Dance Magazine.

2022

Kyle Abraham

Lucinda Childs

Herman Cornejo

Brenda Dixon-Gottschild

Dianne McIntyre

Chairman’s Award: Jim Herbert

Harkness Promise Awards: Johnnie Cruise Mercer and Kayla Farrish

2021

Robert Battle

Andy Blankenbuehler

Dormeshia

Akram Khan

Tamara Rojo

Chairman’s Award: Works & Process

Special Citation: Dr. Wendy Ziecheck

Harkness Promise Awards: Alethea Pace and Yin Yue

2020

Carlos Acosta

Debbie Allen

Camille A. Brown

Alonzo King

Laurieann Gibson

Chairman’s Award: Darren Walker

Harkness Promise Awards: Marjani Forté-Saunders and Kyle Marshall

2019

Masazumi Chaya

Angel Corella

David Gordon and Valda Setterfield

Sara Mearns

Chairman’s Award: Linda Shelton

Harkness Promise Awards: Bobbi Jene Smith and Caleb Teicher

2018

Ronald K. Brown

Lourdes Lopez

Crystal Pite

Michael Trusnovec

Leadership Award: Nigel Redden

Harkness Promise Awards: Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie and Raja Feather Kelly

2017

Rennie Harris

Marika Molnar

Linda Celeste Sims

Diana Vishneva

2016

Carolyn Adams

Lynn Garafola

Lar Lubovitch

Tiler Peck

2015

Soledad Barrio

Marcelo Gomes

Karen Kain

David Vaughan

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar

2014

Brenda Bufalino and Tony Waag

Misty Copeland

Luigi

Wayne McGregor

Larissa Saveliev

2013

Martha Clarke

Mats Ek

Philip Glass

Yuan Yuan Tan

Patricia Wilde

2012

Julie Kent

Anna Kisselgoff

Renee Robinson

Dianne Walker

2011

Dr. William Hamilton

Alexei Ratmansky

Kathleen Marshall

Yvonne Rainer

Jenifer Ringer

2010

Deborah Jowitt

Pilobolus Dance Theatre

Irina Kolpakova

Matthew Rushing

2009

Allegra Kent

Ohad Naharin

Sara Rudner

Jason Samuels Smith

2008

Pina Bausch

Lawrence Rhodes

Ethan Stiefel

Sylvia Waters

2007

Bettie de Jong

Bebe Neuwirth

Desmond Richardson

Wendy Whelan

2006

Todd Bolender

Eiko & Koma

David Howard

Gelsey Kirkland

Joan Myers Brown

2005

Clive Barnes

Alessandra Ferri

Donald McKayle

Jimmy Slyde

Christopher Wheeldon

2004

Jose Manuel Carreño

Chuck Davis

Anna Halprin

Chita Rivera

2003

William Forsythe

Susan Jaffe

Jock Soto

Charles and Stephanie Reinhart

2002

Nina Ananiashvili

Frank Andersen

Jack Mitchell

Tina Ramirez

2001

Terese Capucilli

Michael M. Kaiser

Susan Stroman

Damian Woetzel

2000

David Parsons

Ann Reinking

Ben Stevenson

1999

Barbara Horgan for the Balanchine Trust

Al Pischl for Dance Horizons

Jacques d’Amboise

Martin Fredmann

Kevin McKenzie

1998

Jeraldyne Blunden

Julio Bocca

Suki Schorer

Dame Ninette de Valois

1997

Claude Bessy

Anna-Marie Holmes and Bruce Marks

Dudley Williams

Hernando Cortez & Dancers Responding to AIDS

1996

Peter Boal

Savion Glover

Francia Russell and Kent Stowell

Ann Barzel*

1995

Susan Marshall

Carla Maxwell

Fayard and Harold Nicholas

1994

Christine Dakin

Kate Johnson

Jirí Kylián

1993

Bill T. Jones

Pierre Dulaine and Yvonne Marceau

Beatriz Rodriguez

1992

Darci Kistler

Meredith Monk

Helgi Tomasson

1991

Virginia Johnson

Mark Morris

Jennifer Tipton

1990

Garth Fagan

Eliot Feld

Hanya Holm

1988

“Dancing for Life”

Moscelyne Larkin and Roman Jasinski

P. W. Manchester

Kyra Nichols

1987

Merrill Ashley

Trisha Brown

Liz Thompson

David White

Doris Hering*

1985

Charles “Honi” Coles

Richard Cragun

Frederic Franklin

Heather Watts

Walter Sorell*

1984

Alexandra Danilova

Robert Irving

Donald Saddler

Tommy Tune

Dance Masters of America, Inc.*

1983

Jeannot Cerrone

John Neumeier

Michael Smuin

Martine van Hamel

1982

Fernando Bujones

Laura Dean

Arnold Spohr

Lee Theodore

1981

Selma Jeanne Cohen

Sir Anton Dolin

Twyla Tharp

Stanley Williams

1980

Patricia McBride

Ruth Page

Paul Taylor

Herbert Ross and Nora Kaye*

1979

Aaron Copland

Jorge Donn

Erick Hawkins

1978

Mikhail Baryshnikov

Raoul Gelabert

Bella Lewitzky

1977

Murray Louis

Natalia Makarova

Peter Martins

1976

Michael Bennett

Suzanne Farrell

E. Virginia Williams

1975

Alvin Ailey

Cynthia Gregory

Arthur Mitchell

1974

Gerald Arpino

Maurice Béjart

Antony Tudor

1973

The Christensen Brothers (Lew, Harold, Willam)

Rudolf Nureyev

1972

Anthony Dowell

Judith Jamison

1970

Sir Frederick Ashton

Carolyn Brown

Ted Shawn

1969

Erik Bruhn

Katherine Dunham

Carla Fracci

1968

Eugene Loring

Alwin Nikolais

Violette Verdy

1967

Carmen de Lavallade

Sol Hurok

Wesleyan University Press

1966

Edwin Denby

Margaret H’Doubler

Maya Plisetskaya

1965

John Butler

Peter Gennaro

Edward Villella

1964

Gower Champion

Robert Joffrey

Pauline Koner

1963

Isadora Bennett

Margot Fonteyn

Bob Fosse

1962

Melissa Hayden

Anna Sokolow

Gwen Verdon

1960

Merce Cunningham

Igor Moiseyev

Maria Tallchief

1959

Dorothy Alexander

Fred Astaire

George Balanchine

1958

Alicia Alonso

Doris Humphrey

Gene Kelly

Igor Youskevitch

1957

Lucia Chase

José Limón

Alicia Markova

Jerome Robbins

1956

Agnes de Mille

Martha Graham

1955

Jack Cole

Gene Nelson

Moira Shearer

1954

Dance on TV: Adventure (CBS)

Tony Charmoli (NBC)

Max Liebman (NBC)

Omnibus (CBS)

*Special award

The post Dance Magazine Award Recipients appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Dandara Veiga

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Doña Perón, created for Ballet Hispánico, does not shy from darkness. Its portrait of Eva Péron devotes ample time to the shadowy aspects of the controversial Argentine first lady’s life. But such is the brilliance of Dandara Veiga’s charisma that, should you see her in the title role, you’ll inevitably come out admiring Evita. 

The kind of dancer who can make psychological turmoil legible in her body, Veiga brings us not just into Perón’s world but into her churning mind. Her dancing and acting share a clarity of purpose: Every element is well-defined, though free of melodramatic overstatement. In Veiga’s hands (and limbs, and face), Perón becomes a person rather than a caricature.

Veiga has been a standout since joining Ballet Hispánico in 2017. But Doña Perón, the company’s first commissioned full-length work, gives her room to expand into her artistry. It’s a star vehicle, and Veiga is a star. —Margaret Fuhrer

Cameron Catazaro

Steady strength and lyrical pliability put a bloom on Cameron Catazaro’s dancing. His carriage—at over 6′ 2″, he stands tall in the corps of Miami City Ballet—adds nobility and romantic magnitude to his portrayals, a combination that has earned him a bouquet of eye-catching roles, with Prince Siegfried in Alexei Ratmansky’s Swan Lake at the forefront. Catazaro credits his Swan Queen, principal soloist Samantha Hope Galler, with inspiring him to build, through a diligent work ethic, dramatic dimension. His knack for characterization has also heightened the father’s solemnity in Prodigal Son and put youthful vigor into an old legend through Prince Ivan in Firebird.

Canton, Ohio–born and trained, Catazaro spent a year each at Ballet Academy East and MCB School fine-tuning Balanchine-style technique, which sped him, after joining the company in 2019, to featured roles in “Emeralds” and Stravinsky Violin Concerto. And his repertoire keeps growing. Just this fall he took the lead in John Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet. For the season ahead, he’s learning Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun and is set to perform Martha Graham’s Diversion of Angels, in which he spread his first-timer’s wings at Jacob’s Pillow last summer. —Guillermo Perez

Guillaume Diop

Becoming the face of diversity at a venerable institution like the Paris Opéra Ballet is no small burden to bear—and can magnify the pressure of a high-profile debut. For a split second, early in Guillaume Diop’s first performance as Solor in La Bayadère last season, a flash of panic registered on his expressive face as the 22-year-old struggled to keep French star Dorothée Gilbert balanced in his arms.

Yet not only did Diop recover, but he improved as the evening went on, with supple elevation in Solor’s treacherous variations and unaffected poise. Born to a French mother and a Senegalese father, the young corps member—who trained at the Paris Opéra Ballet School, but credits a summer intensive with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater as a personal breakthrough—has handled every challenge with grace in his four years with the Paris Opéra.

In 2020, he was among a group of Black employees who pushed for progress around racial issues at the institution. The following year, Diop, who was still a quadrille—the lowest corps rank—was given the last-minute opportunity to replace an injured principal as Romeo in Nureyev’s Romeo and Juliet. Under heavy scrutiny, Diop’s joyful elegance won over the audience, a feat he repeated as Solor and as Don Quixote’s Basilio. This fall at the internal concours de promotion, he was promoted to the highest corps rank, sujet. The road to becoming the French company’s first Black étoile may be long, but Diop has all the makings of a trailblazer. —Laura Cappelle

Adelaide Clauss

As Terpsichore in Balanchine’s Apollo this summer, The Washington Ballet’s Adelaide Clauss mesmerized the audience—as well as Apollo—with adroit, sharp-edged dancing coupled with a flirtatious allure. Gifted with ribbonlike épaulement and an ardent work ethic, Clauss is a consummate artist.

A Buffalo, New York, native, Clauss trained at The Neglia Conservatory of Ballet and American Ballet Theatre’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School. Catching the eye of TWB artistic director Julie Kent shortly after joining ABT’s Studio Company in 2015, the now-24-year-old is currently in her sixth season with TWB and a bona fide company star.

“Adelaide has this mystery, imagination and luminous quality that allows her to lose herself in whatever roles she is performing,” says Kent. With Clauss having done so in plum roles including Odette/Odile in Kent and Victor Barbee’s Swan Lake and The Lilac Fairy in their The Sleeping Beauty, along with the Sugar Plum Fairy in Septime Webre’s The Nutcracker, Kent foresees her having many more opportunities to further develop as a storyteller in 2023 and beyond. —Steve Sucato

Andrew McShea

Rooted yet explosive, his wingspan like that of some ravenous bird, Whim W’Him’s Andrew McShea creates shapes that seem impossible. “His bones are like liquid,” says artistic director Olivier Wevers of this astonishing shape-shifter. McShea easily claims the focus onstage, evoking haunting narratives as he creates characters that are bold, vulnerable, unnerving. In Ethan Colangelo’s a vanishing thread, he’s a painter, the space is his canvas, and every part of his body adds color to his story and character. In Wevers’ Cannibalistic Sanctuary, it’s the torque of his torso, head, then limbs, all wildly flexible, that makes him become the crawling creature, the wounded son. The past three years with Whim W’Him have brought great leaps in artistry and confidence for this dancer, who is, more than anything, a storyteller. “He invites me into a dance fantasy,” says Wevers. “An incarnation of the contemporary dancer I wish I could have been.” —Gigi Berardi

Ishida Dance Company

It’s rare, in Texas, to witness the level of dancing and dancemaking that Ishida Dance Company consistently achieves in a single evening. Since debuting the company at the beginning of 2020, artistic director and choreographer Brett Ishida has recruited dancers with a flair for drama and rare movement qualities from top companies and choreographers from all parts of the globe. The result? One-of-a-kind shows in Austin and Houston, which project a boutique international festival vibe. Ishida, who has a background in literature, crafts evenings that alchemize into a cohesive whole. Creating a poetic structure that begins with her own work—which typically stems from a written script—and choosing guest choreographers and movers who complement the narrative thread, the gentle impresario orchestrates events that transcend what’s expected of the typical pick-up company model. The season ahead offers new works by European choreographers John Wannehag, Kristian Lever and Mauro Astolfi. Judging from the growth of audience enthusiasm, Ishida, who’s begun nabbing increasingly prominent commissions, and her eponymous company are enjoying a warm Texas embrace. —Nancy Wozny

Mac Twining

Choreographer Christopher Williams’ works often evoke both the immediate present and the mythical past, the earthly and the unearthly. While those oppositional forces might pull uncomfortably at some performers, Mac Twining, a dancer of great freedom and sweep, handles them with easy grace. As the Poet in Williams’ queer reimagining of Les Sylphides, Twining is a hero for both the Romantic and the modern era. Playful, breezy, open-hearted—shades of Timothée Chalamet—he becomes the perfect foil for the more introspective elegance of ballet star Taylor Stanley’s Queen of the Sylphs.

Twining also performs with Stephen Petronio Company, bringing the same relaxed naturalness to Petronio’s harder-edged, thoroughly contemporary works. Wherever he’s dancing, Twining seems very much himself, and right at home. —Margaret Fuhrer

Amanda Castro

Amanda Castro never wants audiences just to see her when she dances. “I want you to feel things,” she says. “It’s not about me. It’s about what you walk away with.” It’s a somewhat paradoxical desire for a dancer whose luminous stage presence is almost addictive—you fear you’ll miss a clever improvisation or a flash of joy if you let your eyes wander to another performer even for a moment. Her warmth, her vivacity linger long after the curtain closes. 

Castro usually practices her onstage magnetism in tap shoes, frequenting the works of the genre’s heavy hitters like Dormeshia, Ayodele Casel, Jared Grimes and Caleb Teicher. But that wasn’t always the case: Castro danced with Urban Bush Women for four years, taking tap classes whenever she could, before transitioning into musical theater (including a high-profile tour as Anita in West Side Story). It was while working on UBW’s 2015 Walking With ’Trane, inspired by the music of John Coltrane, that she had a realization: “The whole process, I just wanted to have my shoes on,” she says. It didn’t take long for Castro to become one of New York City’s most in-demand tap dancers (winning Grimes’ Run the Night competition in 2016 didn’t hurt). 

Recently, Castro has been expanding her “rhythmic storytelling,” as she puts it, through Soles of Duende, a collaboration with kathak dancer Brinda Guha and flamenco dancer Arielle Rosales that’s quickly amassing critical praise and institutional support. Broadway and an evening-length solo work are still on Castro’s bucket list—blink, and she’ll have already checked them off. —Lauren Wingenroth

Águeda Saavedra 

In flamenco it is not so much what you do as how you do it that is most important—and this is where Águeda Saavedra excels. She nullifies the need to perceive her movement as either contemporary or traditional; rather, she is a vessel of movement expression that recontextualizes time from moment to moment. Her deep backbend can go anywhere; with castanets it evokes an old style of decades ago, while with a head roll while seated on the floor, we are swept into today’s world. 

The 27-year-old has been described in the national Spanish press as the “present and future of flamenco.” Performing with top companies on international stages since her late teens, Saavedra has worked under the direction of award-winning contemporary flamenco choreographers Manuel Liñán, Daniel Doña, Marco Flores and Mercedes de Córdoba as well as the Ballet Flamenco de Andalucía, and regularly appears in Spain’s most prestigious tablaos. 

“I have a personal and artistic need to expose myself in a solo work, in a way that I have never done,” Saavedra says. With the coveted Best New Artist Award from the 2022 Festival de Jerez and what she describes as “an unbeatable team” in hand, it seems such a project is only a matter of time. —Bridgit Lujan

Vidya Patel

Following in the footsteps of Akram Khan and Shobana Jeyasingh, Vidya Patel brings together her knowledge of classical Indian and contemporary dance to mesmerizing effect. In a dance film created in fall 2021 as part of her two-year tenure as a Sadler’s Wells Young Associate, she executes quintessential kathak turns and gestural flourishes with her own personal twist. Delicate and intentional, she switches deftly between fluid, almost meditative motions and sudden staccato slices and foot taps. Performing an abstract piece of choreography, Patel’s earnest eyes follow each of her movements with an intensity that gives them narrative meaning. Her talent for storytelling is also evident in the film Trinity (2021), by visual artist Hetain Patel, where she was not only required to dance but also act.

Trained in kathak, Patel first caught the British dance scene’s attention when she represented the South Asian category in the Grand Finals of the 2015 BBC Young Dancer competition. Soon after, she was invited to work with a range of well-known companies and choreographers, such as Richard Alston and Gary Clarke. 

This October, she premiered Don’t Mind Me at Sadler’s Wells, using the children’s board game Snakes and Ladders—which originated in India—as a frame to explore themes of trauma and healing, luck and chance, power and society. It was her final piece as a Young Associate, and only whetted appetites to see how her work will develop. —Emily May

Ashton Edwards

A soaring jump, whirligig turns, refined pointe work, lines for days—Ashton Edwards has them all. But what makes the 20-year-old Pacific Northwest Ballet corps member an unforgettable performer isn’t their meticulous technique, musicality and apparently effortless physicality—it’s joy, pure and simple. Onstage, Edwards (whose pronouns are they/them) radiates a love for ballet that started at age 3, when they saw Brandye Lee dance the Sugar Plum Fairy. “I just wanted to be everything she embodied,” says Edwards. They started training a year later, and ballet quickly took on a deep personal resonance. “Growing up queer in the Black community, and also in a low-income community, it was this escape from reality,” they say.

Fast-forward 16 years and Edwards has garnered featured roles in Justin Peck’s The Times Are Racing and Dwight Rhoden’s Catching Feelings at PNB, and in Mango, adapted from Andrea Miller’s sky to hold, in Taylor Stanley’s Dichotomous Being program at Jacob’s Pillow. They’ve also had an impact as a nonbinary ballet dancer of color. “Ashton is so much more than their talent,” says PNB artistic director Peter Boal. “They are a thoughtful advocate for change within the company and in the world of dance.” Yet for Edwards, everything still comes down to The Nutcracker, and that magical feeling of ballet bliss. “Getting to perform the corps of Snow—my heart flutters every time!” —Claudia Bauer

Quinn Starner

Professional ballet isn’t where most comp kids—the contemporary-competition dynamos who dominate “So You Think You Can Dance” rosters—end up. But when they do turn their distinctive powers toward ballet, magic often happens.

Quinn Starner, an alum of the competition circuit, now cuts fearlessly through choreography of all styles at New York City Ballet. When she was a young teenager, her fantastically vivid solos earned accolades at both contemporary and ballet contests. In 2018, she changed tacks, enrolling at the School of American Ballet; last year, she joined NYCB’s corps. Professional ballet life has polished down some of her harder edges, but that has only enhanced her sparkle. As an original cast member in both Silas Farley’s Architects of Time last spring and Kyle Abraham’s Love Letter (on shuffle) last fall, she showed a new refinement in her épaulement and port de bras.

Starner seems more than ready for ballet’s technical challenges, and invigorated by its artistic ones—much like fellow comp-kid-turned-ballet-pro unicorns Tiler Peck, James Whiteside and Catherine Hurlin. That’s a good list to be on. —Margaret Fuhrer

Elijah Richardson

With quirky charisma and an infectious smile, Elijah Richardson burst onto Chicago’s dance scene in 2018. But it was last year that he made an indelible mark, delivering a masterful performance in South Chicago Dance Theatre’s smash hit, five-year anniversary concert at the Harris Theater—just two years and a pandemic after he worked there as an usher. The San Jose, California, native has long been insatiable, training in everything from figure skating to musical theater, ballet to Gaga. He booked a ticket to the Windy City the moment he graduated from Chapman University with a dance degree. Three seasons with DanceWorks Chicago solidified Richardson’s command of physical theater, but this dancer is as multifaceted as his interests: He pulls off impassioned lyricism and pinpoint precision as easily as slapstick comedy. Others outside Chicago have taken notice too: He recently guested with Memphis’ Collage Dance Collective and has had his work selected four times for the 92Y Mobile Dance Film Festival. —Lauren Warnecke

Dominic Moore-Dunson

“Urban Midwest storytelling” is how dancer and choreographer Dominic Moore-Dunson describes his approach to his works. The 33-year-old’s visceral, cross-disciplinary dance projects, themed around Blackness and social justice, pull from his personal experiences living and working in Akron, Ohio. Trained at Akron’s performing arts schools, Moore-Dunson performed with Cleveland’s Inlet Dance Theatre for 10 years. His 2018 The “Black Card” Project, billed as a “live-action dance-theater cartoon,” was developed during his time at Inlet; a solo work, CAUTION, was commissioned by Akron Art Museum that same year. A 2019 Jacob’s Pillow Ann and Weston Hicks Choreography Fellowship and 2019 Cleveland Arts Prize Emerging Artist Award for Theatre and Dance soon followed.

His current project, inCOPnegro, is a two-pronged exploration of the concept of “safety” and police relations in Black communities throughout America. “It’s me trying to understand what to say to my kids about police as Black people,” says Moore-Dunson, who has been wrongfully stopped some 45 times by police. The podcast inCOPnegro: Black and Blue, launched in April 2022, features the dance artist in conversation with individuals on both sides of the “blue line” as he tries to find answers to that question. The evening-length dance theater production, developed in part at the National Center for Choreography at The University of Akron, is set to debut in June. —Steve Sucato

Becca Robinson

When given the chance to perform on national television, most dancers flaunt their most impressive tricks. But as a contestant on NBC’s “Dancing with Myself,” Becca Robinson chose instead to make people laugh, sniffing her armpit and dropping into a sudden split. That’s not to say Robinson lacks real moves: Her eye-catching versatility has earned her impressive credits, including assisting choreographer Bo Park in creating a Virgin Voyages dance show, as well as dancing in the movies In the Heights and Isn’t It Romantic, Taylor Swift’s performance at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, and a flash mob at the premiere of Jennifer Lopez’s documentary Halftime.

No matter the job, the San Diego–born, New York City–based Robinson lets her sense of humor shine through. In a hypercompetitive dance world, her unapologetic quirkiness is refreshing. “If there’s not some sort of comedic element in my improv, the dance or my facials, then I didn’t do my job of being authentic,” she says. “It’s okay to be different. There’s room on the dance floor for everyone.” —Kristi Yeung

Tendayi Kuumba

The Lady in Brown in Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf is the choreo-poem’s emotional center, bookending the show with her utterances of the famous lines that give the groundbreaking work its title. But in Tendayi Kuumba’s interpretation of the role, it wasn’t just her monologues that both catalyzed and grounded last year’s much-lauded Broadway revival, directed and choreographed by Camille A. Brown. It was her dancing—electric, free, fearless—that established her as the show’s driving force and the standout in a cast full of standouts.

Kuumba’s Chita Rivera Award–winning performance was just the most recent example of the 34-year-old’s striking ability to bring her full self to all the vastly varying stages she dances on, from David Byrne’s American Utopia—her Broadway debut—to her time with Urban Bush Women. The work she creates with partner Greg Purnell as UFly Mothership is as multi-hyphenated as she is, combining music, movement and technology to create expansive sensory universes. (Their most recent work, The Adventures of Mr. Left Brain and Ms. Right, for the Stephen Petronio Company, premiered last month.)

Next up for Kuumba: choreographing one-third of a shared program with Annie-B Parson and Donna Uchizono that will premiere later this year in New York City and tour in summer 2024. —Lauren Wingenroth

Mikaela Santos

It’s her imaginative spark—along with pristine technique and bright musicality—that makes Mikaela Santos one of Atlanta Ballet’s most captivating dancers. Last March, Santos breathed startling freshness into Giselle’s peasant pas de deux, catching the music’s quickening pulse with fleet footwork while her upper body revealed buoyant flourishes with warmth and spontaneity. In May, Santos enchanted in Sergio Masero’s Schubertiada. She tripped along Schubert’s rolling rhythms with swift attack—each change of focus revealed new facets and feelings as she caught her partner’s eye and drew out the music’s playful sensuality.

Born in the Philippines, Santos credits her teacher, Effie Nañas, for preparing her to study and compete at the international level, where Santos developed an “inner presence” and the confidence to show her individuality, and with nurturing her natural expressivity. Santos often imagines she’s dancing in wind or underwater. “Once you finish a step, it breaks the moment,” she says. “I want people to feel that it’s not going to stop.” After her recent tour de force performance in Justin Peck’s In Creases, with more opportunities ahead, it doesn’t seem she’ll have to. —Cynthia Bond Perry

Simone Acri

Houston Ballet artistic director Stanton Welch has found a new muse in Simone Acri. In a jaw-dropping solo in Welch’s Sparrow, set to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Baby Driver,” Acri weaved through the driving beat, revealing the song’s bittersweet undercurrent. In Brigade, he nailed Welch’s tongue-in-cheek humor while dazzling with his freewheeling style. And it’s not just his artistic director’s work in which the newly minted soloist excels: He launched this season with a robust performance of Trey McIntyre’s Peter Pan, giving the hellion of a wild child ample charisma along with soaring flying skills. With an ability to both move with total abandon and mine the in-between places, Acri sources his spectacular technique to shape a choreographer’s vision. He’s like a fully charged battery—high-energy but precise, and solid with his bravado turns and jumps. But it’s how he does those things, with such nuance, joy and connection to the audience, that has him turning the heads of spectators and artistic staff alike. —Nancy Wozny

Elwince Magbitang

It’s not every day that American Ballet Theatre casts an apprentice in a soloist role. And yet, as Elwince Magbitang soared through barrel turns, 540s, tours and other feats in the second act of Don Quixote last June, it was clear that the company was introducing its audiences to a virtuoso talent. 

Powerful, musical and charismatic, the 21-year-old Magbitang has been creating buzz since he arrived in 2018 from his native Philippines to train at ABT’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School. As a student he was chosen to dance a small part in the premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s The Seasons. Shortly afterward, in 2019, he joined ABT’s Studio Company, where he impressed in bravura roles like the folk-inspired Gopak variation. This fall, as a newly promoted corps member, he made his debut as Puck in Sir Frederick Ashton’s The Dream.

“Elwince’s dancing shows strength and panache,” says former ABT principal Stella Abrera, a close mentor. She spotted Magbitang, then a student at Manila’s Steps Dance Studio, in 2018 when he performed in a fundraising gala she organized in the Philippines. Impressed, she and her husband, Studio Company artistic director Sascha Radetsky, arranged his audition for the JKO School. “It’s been such a thrill witnessing his journey,” Abrera says. “He’s an inspiration to his hometown and beyond.” —Amy Brandt

Erin Casale

A compact powerhouse as much at home in leotard roles as she is in tutu-and-tiara ballets, Erin Casale is every bit a 21st-century dance artist. In an excerpt from Marius Petipa’s Le Talisman while she was a student at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School, her buoyant steps, turns and extensions evoked visions of an ebullient Disney heroine. As a featured soloist in Nacho Duato’s Duende, she contorted her body into shapes resembling symbols from some ancient civilization. “Erin is very daring and dynamic when she moves,” says former Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre artistic director Susan Jaffe. “When I needed someone with presence and power to dance the lead in my Bolero, Erin was the perfect fit.”

A Johnstown, Pennsylvania, native, Casale trained at Virginia’s Academy of Russian Ballet and Johnstown Concert Ballet prior to going to PBT’s school, where she rose through its levels to be handpicked in 2019 by then–artistic director Terrence S. Orr to join the company. Now in her fourth season with PBT, the 23-year-old says her career goal is “to experience everything.” —Steve Sucato

Gianna “Gigi” Todisco

Gianna “Gigi” Todisco’s resumé is the picture of versatility. In the six years since she graduated from Loyola Marymount University, she’s served as movement director for Post Malone, ZHU, Islands and NIKI; performed in a series of operas choreographed by Jacob Jonas and No)one. Art House’s Chris Emile; appeared in music videos and commercials for the likes of Tinashe, Vans, OnStar and Hennessy; and made waves in the concert dance scene with Micaela Taylor’s The TL Collective. She recently wrapped up a run as choreographer and performer with opening act Kali Uchis as part of Tyler, the Creator’s world tour. Through it all, Todisco leaves her unique stamp on everything she does, imbuing each project with her gritty, avant-garde, effortlessly cool sensibilities—whatever corner of the industry she finds herself in. —Sophie Bress

Jordan Demetrius Lloyd

On a balmy evening early last June, a public school playground deep in Brooklyn became New York City’s hottest proverbial club: Droves of people—an equal mix of experimental-dance who’s whos and Bedford-Stuyvesant residents—flocked to a free performance of Jordan Demetrius Lloyd’s Jerome, an enchanting, elegant work that seemed to both capture and converse with the particular magic of golden hour in the neighborhood. 

Lloyd—whom New York audiences may also know as a performer in the works of David Dorfman, Beth Gill, Tere O’Connor and others—was as surprised as anyone by the massive turnout. But in retrospect, underestimating Lloyd’s skill as a community-gatherer, a self-producer or an artist is a mistake. The 28-year-old, who’s been receiving growing support for his work over the past several years (a New York Live Arts Fresh Tracks residency, a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, commissions from Issue Project Room and Danspace Project), leaves little to chance, crafting dreamy, highly detailed works full of unexpected gesture and pedestrian virtuosity.

Inspired by postmodernism, Lloyd positions his work at the intersection of that canon and other contemporary performance aesthetics. But don’t try to put his work in any kind of box, or category: “I feel a deep aversion to branding myself as the artist that does a thing,” he says. “A unidirectional career does not feel like the one I’m after.” We may not know where Lloyd is going next, but the masses are sure to follow. —Lauren Wingenroth

Musa Motha

Musa Motha came into his own in the September premiere of Rambert’s Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby. Equally at home in flamboyant jazz club scenes as in opium-riddled dream sequences and fast-paced fight choreography, Motha seamlessly switches between cheeky, staccato, hip-hop–inspired solos and intimate duets in the role of Barney.

Motha dances with crutches; his left leg was amputated when he was 11 after he was diagnosed with bone cancer. While such a surgery could have been seen as career-ending for anyone in a physical profession, it propelled Motha into the world of movement. After starting off as a commercial street dancer—most notably featuring in Drake’s “One Dance” music video—Motha, originally from South Africa, first transitioned into contemporary concert dance when he joined the Johannesburg-based Vuyani Dance Theatre in 2018, before debuting with Rambert last May. While the UK is home to pioneering organizations like Candoco, which hires a mixture of disabled and non-disabled performers, the former rarely secure positions with mainstream companies like Rambert. Now, as a member of Britain’s oldest contemporary-dance company, Motha is helping to shift perceptions in the country’s dance scene, and is perfectly placed to continue growing as an artist in his own right. —Emily May

Madeline Maxine Gorman

Madeline Maxine Gorman doesn’t just live her values, she choreographs and dances them. Navigating the dance world as a queer, disabled and neurodivergent creative, she incorporates material from her intersectional identities into her intellectually probing, politically minded and personally revelatory works. Between Myself, a developing solo show, draws from her childhood diary musings, memories of terrible first dates and her ongoing experiences with hearing loss. Bitten Tongue, created when she was studying dance and communications at Towson University, probes the inner psyche of a working woman rebelling against holding her tongue in a male-dominated corporate world. Filled with flings and forceful tumbles, its androgynous choreographic language leans in. New this year, her Tooth and Claw will examine “tall poppy syndrome” (when successful people are criticized for succeeding), pointedly blasting American exceptionalism to an original score riffing on ABBA’s “Money, Money, Money.”

Gorman, who was selected for Dance Place’s Dance and Disability Residency, created GRIDLOCK Dance to reflect her values as an artist and person. Foremost, that means paying dancers for rehearsals and performances, and deep collaborative work. She strives for what she calls “concinnity,” a concept akin to harmony. In practice, that includes planning around dancers’ schedules and valuing other parts of their lives. “Real life comes first,” she says. “Not a part-time gig.” —Lisa Traiger

STL Rhythm Collaborative

The professional tap scene in St. Louis fizzled when Robert Reed, founder of the St. Louis Tap Festival and lead ambassador for the form in the Gateway City, died in 2015. But Maria Majors took up the mantle in 2021, forming the STL Rhythm Collaborative by combining her pickup troupe, moSTLy TAP, with companion group moSTLy JAZZ to reconnect tap dancers with their jazz music roots. Its first full-length show, which premiered in October 2021, pulled apart music by the Dave Brubeck Quartet and strung it back together with indulgently satisfying taps layered on top. That same year, the company launched the STL Rhythm Fest, modeled after Reed’s illustrious festival and reinvigorating the local scene. This summer’s edition brought heavy hitters like Chicagoans Nico Rubio, George Patterson III and Martin “Tre” Dumas III back to the city to shore up professional-level training, but the company itself has some serious chops—proving that St. Louis’ ongoing legacy as a city for tap is secure. —Lauren Warnecke

Header photo credits, left to right, top to bottom: Alexander Iziliaev, courtesy Miami City Ballet; Mike Esperanza, courtesy Castro; Rosalie O’Connor, courtesy Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre; Michelle Reid, courtesy South Chicago Dance Theatre; Farruk Mandujano, courtesy Mandujano; Olivia Moon Photography, courtesy Moore-Dunson; Amy Gardner, courtesy Todisco; Paul Court, courtesy Richard Kornberg and Associates; Laurence Elizabeth Knox, courtesy Houston Ballet; Agathe Poupeney, courtesy Paris Opéra Ballet; Paula Lobo, courtesy Ballet Hispánico; Liv Battista, courtesy Robinson; Camilla Greenwell, courtesy Rambert; Whitney Browne, courtesy Lloyd; Rosalie O’Connor, courtesy American Ballet Theatre; Clarence Alford, courtesy STL Rhythm Collaborative; xmbphotography, courtesy The Washington Ballet; Bill Gorman, courtesy Madeline Maxine Gorman; Erin Baiano, courtesy New York City Ballet; Allina Yang, courtesy Whim W’Him; Kim Kenney, courtesy Atlanta Ballet; Spelman College, courtesy Kuumba; Angela Sterling, courtesy Pacific Northwest Ballet; Camilla Greenwell, courtesy Patel; Amitava Sarkar, courtesy Ishida.

The post Introducing Our 2023 “25 to Watch” appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Nothing Ever Lasts Forever

NEW YORK CITY  For the final production of this year’s Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music presents the U.S. premiere of Emanuel Gat’s LOVETRAIN2020. Created during the pandemic, the work sets a cast of 14 dancing to—and sometimes singing along with—songs by Tears for Fears in an eccentric, intensely physical celebration of togetherness. Dec. 1–3. bam.org. —Courtney Escoyne

Mixing Up Medea

LONDON  Lost Dog artistic director Ben Duke is no stranger to classic literature. He’s adapted Milton’s Paradise Lost, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities into shows blending theater, dance and comedy. His recent Cerberus, for Rambert, a meta and comical yet sentimental meditation on death, marked a shift for Duke from his usual stomping ground of the English literary canon to more ancient matters. For his latest work, Ruination, he reimagines the myth of Greek sorceress Medea, challenging the narrative that she killed her children to wreak revenge on her husband. Premiering at The Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre this month, it’s being billed as a humorous, festive alternative for those who have seen The Nutcracker one too many times—a transformative take on the notoriously bloody and murderous myth. Dec. 1–31. roh.org.uk. —Emily May

Hands, Touching Hands

NEW YORK CITY  When Neil Diamond started singing, no one knew that the Brooklyn songwriter would ride hits like “Cherry, Cherry” to 50 years of gold and platinum recordings, sold-out arenas and the phenomenon that is “Sweet Caroline.” But 130 million album sales later, a Broadway show was inevitable. A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical stars Will Swenson, who performs the music while an older Diamond recounts his life to a therapist. Reports from the Boston tryout suggest that Steven Hoggett has provided his usual deft choreography, and those who saw American Idiot also saw that he and director Michael Mayer know how to elevate jukebox musicals. The Broadway opening is set for Dec. 4 at the Broadhurst Theatre. abeautifulnoisethemusical.com. —Sylviane Gold

Stream of Consciousness

NEW YORK CITY  Tere O’Connor Dance gives its first New York City performances since 2018 this month. On tap is the premiere of Rivulets, in which the philosophically minded, cerebral choreographer, in collaboration with a cast of eight dancers, examines the unruly nature of consciousness, set to a musical score created by O’Connor. Co-commissioned by Baryshnikov Arts Center and Danspace Project, the work appears­ at BAC Dec. 7–10 and 14–17. bacnyc.org. —CE

Back to the Future

NEW YORK CITY  Stephen Petronio Company brings its Bloodlines/Bloodlines(future) initiative to Danspace Project. Petronio’s RE New New Prayer For Now and a reconstruction of Steve Paxton’s 1982 Jag vill gärna telefonera (I Would Like to Make a Phone Call) join a trio of new works: The Adventures of Mr. Left Brain and Ms. Right, from Tendayi Kuumba and Greg Purnell (aka UFly Mothership), Davalois Fearon’s Finding Herstory and Johnnie Cruise Mercer’s Process memoir 7 (Vol 8): ‘back to love.’ Dec. 8–10. danspaceproject.org. —CE

Bharatanatyam and Belonging

SAN FRANCISCO  What does it mean to belong in America? Bharatanatyam company Nava Dance Theatre digs into this question through the lens of the labor of South Asian women immigrants in artistic director Nadhi Thekkek’s Rogue Gestures/Foreign Bodies, which premieres at ODC Theater Dec. 9–11. odc.dance. —CE

An Afternoon Nutcracker

NEWARK, NJ  State Ballet Theatre of Ukraine interrupts touring of its Sleeping Beauty to bring The Nutcracker—a production that debuted in Dnipro, Ukraine, in 2020—to New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Dec. 18. njpac.org. —CE

The post 7 Performances Sure to Be a Treat This December appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Kyle Abraham

It’s hard to throw around a phrase like “voice of a generation” without feeling hyperbolic. Yet it comes to mind when thinking about Kyle Abraham. No matter whether he’s tackling old-fashioned topics like love or bringing a contemporary take to issues like identity and community, this 45-year-old choreographer captures something exceptionally current in his work. Moments of all-out hustle might dissolve into soft introspection or a sexy, badass strut as he seamlessly sews together movement from the studio and the street, confirming the legitimacy of artistry from both sources. What might stand out most is how poignantly he uses the body to portray vulnerability—the vulnerability of forced machismo,­ of being Black in America, of life today. 

Abraham first became a talk-about with Inventing Pookie Jenkins, a hip-hop–inflected solo he performed decked out in a romantic tutu at New York City Center’s 2007 Fall for Dance festival. Once he formed his own company, now called A.I.M by Kyle Abraham (an abbreviation of the former name, Abraham.In.Motion), he made a splash with 2010’s Bessie Award–winning The Radio Show, looking at the loss of communication and his father’s Alzheimer’s through the lens of the closing of Pittsburgh’s only hip-hop radio station. A couple years later, Pavement, inspired by the movie Boyz n the Hood and W.E.B. Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk, cemented his reputation as a true original. More awards and raves steadily followed. Commissions from ballet star Wendy Whelan and others led to a series of creations for New York City Ballet, starting with the jaw-dropping The Runaway, bringing Pookie Jenkins’ swagger to Balanchine’s house with hauntingly beautiful solos for principal Taylor Stanley in particular. It’s no surprise that top companies like Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, The Royal Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and others have all clamored for their own Abraham premieres. 

Meanwhile, he continues to create moving pieces for his company while investing in more than just his personal choreography. Many of the dancers who’ve worked with Abraham at A.I.M are proving to be fresh, nuanced dancemakers on their own—so much so that last summer, a festival at Lincoln Center titled “Reunions” consisted entirely of choreography by talented A.I.M alumni, like Kayla Farrish and Rena Butler. Not just an icon, but an inspiration and mentor, Abraham is paying it forward to fill this generation with several strong voices, and making the dance field richer for it.

—Jennifer Heimlich

Lucinda Childs

The name Lucinda Childs brings to mind elegance, precision and complexity born from simplicity: a crystalline minimalism so focused yet free, it approaches the spiritual. Think of her work, and you might envision the plain yet exalted figures of Dance, her landmark 1979 collaboration with Philip Glass and Sol LeWitt, inexorably gliding and turning across the stage and the scrim in front of it; or the stark celestial beings of her 1983 Available Light, guarding the tiers of Frank Gehry’s towering set with their quietly exacting steps.

From her experiments in the 1960s as a founding member of Judson Dance Theater to her current creations and restagings of past works, Childs has indelibly shaped the course of modern and postmodern dance, her influence continuing to ripple out across genres and generations.

Childs, who grew up in New York City, studied modern dance with Hanya Holm and Helen Tamiris, then at Sarah Lawrence College and the Merce Cunningham Studio. As a Judson renegade, she put everyday objects to absurdist use, perhaps most memorably in her 1964 solo Carnation, in which she wore a colander as a hat, adorned with hair curlers, and fashioned kitchen sponges into a kind of beak. Recalling the work in Patrick Bensard’s 2006 documentary, Lucinda Childs, her fellow Judsonite Yvonne Rainer said, “The power of that solo was that this completely glamorous persona was doing these ludicrous things.”

In her work of the 1970s, documented in the invaluable online resource “A Steady Pulse” (from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage), Childs turned her attention to geometry and repetition, often deploying a spare ballet vocabulary in silence. She reunited with music as the choreographer of the 1976 opera Einstein on the Beach, directed by Robert Wilson and composed by Glass, in which she also performed. Of her mathematical sensibility, the dance scholar Sally Banes, in Terpsichore in Sneakers, observed: “Repetition and shifting contexts make a world of detail come alive, as the act of dancing provokes a conscious act of seeing.”

With an avid European following, Childs holds the rank of Commandeur in France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and received the Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion award in 2017. Look around, and you’ll see traces of her aesthetic everywhere, from the work of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Sarah Michelson—modern dance titans in their own right—to younger artists just starting out. In recent revivals at the Museum of Modern Art and The Joyce Theater, her older works have kept revealing new layers of brilliance.

—Siobhan Burke

Herman Cornejo

What more is there to say about Herman Cornejo? It seems that every superlative has been used when it comes to this dancer. It is hard to think of another male dancer, or another dancer period, who is so universally lauded and admired. “His jump is like something out of a Warner Bros. cartoon,” Joan Acocella wrote about him in The New Yorker in 2004. “His speed is altogether abnormal….But what is most remarkable about him is clarity.” And it’s all true.

Cornejo has been a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre since 2003. Next year will be his 24th with the company, where he has now danced more or less every leading role in the classical canon. He is also a favorite of choreographers, from Martha Clarke and Twyla Tharp to Alexei Ratmansky, Mark Morris and Wayne McGregor. He is as at ease in fast, teasing roles, like Puck in The Dream, as he is when called upon to suffer, as in Manon; he can do cabrioles with a wink and a smile as Basilio in Don Quixote or be noble and touching as Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake.

It’s easy to forget that Cornejo had to fight for these roles. There was a time when, according­ to ballet’s rather confining ideas about type, he was considered too short to embody them convincingly. Like Baryshnikov before him, he convinced the higher-ups and the audience otherwise. The minute he stepped into the role of Count Albrecht in Giselle, everyone could plainly see he belonged there. Because, in addition to possessing dance chops, Cornejo projects charisma, charm, intensity and intelligence. “I see him as a hero,” Tharp once said of him, “something that’s out of vogue these days.”

Tharp is right. There is something timeless about Cornejo’s approach to dance. Even before he began training in his native Argentina at age 8, his mother would wake him at 4 in the morning so they could drop his sister Erica off in time for her own classes at Teatro Colón. He became a professional dancer at 14. From that very young age, he took his profession, and his gift, very seriously, and worked extremely hard at it. At 16, he won the gold medal at the International Ballet Competition in Moscow—the youngest winner in the contest’s history.

And perhaps because of this discipline and grit, learned at such a young age, his dancing has an honesty and purity of intention that still ring through every step he takes in the studio and on the stage. He’s a prince, through and through.

—Marina Harss

Brenda Dixon-Gottschild

A scholar, performer, choreographer and anti-racist cultural worker, Brenda Dixon-Gottschild­ holds a PhD in performance studies from New York University, is professor emerita at Temple University and is a writer for Dance Magazine, composing features on a range of topics, like “Decolonizing Flamenco Through Exploring Black Influences” and “The Power of Dance as Political Protest.” Throughout her nearly 50-year career as an author and cultural warrior, her writings, lectures, artistic presentations and intellectual charm have reminded us that we too have a responsibility to activate our activism, ebbing and flowing as we embrace Black movement influences. Her critical performance essays and post-performance reflexive dialogues serve as survival tactics with healing functions for readers, existing as glorious disruptors in both academic and concert spaces.

By expanding the discourse on values in dance, two of her seminal texts, Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts and The Black Dancing Body: A Geography From Coon to Cool, encourage some readers to embrace parts of themselves they may have been taught to hate. She’s a winner of multiple awards, including the Congress on Research in Dance Award for Outstanding Leadership in Dance Research (2008), and awards and fellowships from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. Her research blossoms from a kind of radical resistance and remembrance, as she archives her explorations with her powerful voice, body and pen. Dixon-Gottschild coined the phrase “choreography for the page,” using her writings and her dances to express and question essential truths. Her choreographic works are often in collaboration with her husband, dancer/choreographer Hellmut Gottschild, with whom she has created and performed Stick it Out (1993), Frogs (1996) and Tongue Smell Color (2000).

A fundamental facet of Dixon-Gottschild’s brilliance is her advocacy. She empowers her audiences to legitimize their ownness…their uniqueness and, for many of us, our Blackness. Dixon-Gottschild’s tactical teachings exist at the intersection of her artistic influence and historical knowledge, thereby offering a rubric for reading, contextualizing, understanding and celebrating dance that is not necessarily Eurocentric.

Engaging with the scholarship of Dixon-Gottschild warrants reflection on larger social constructs of race and gender. Her body of work reminds us that while some of us may be vulnerable to the work that burdens us, the histories our bodies hold can also free us from that burden. Dixon-Gottschild’s work continues to be the beating heart of many emerging Black scholars’ research, as they navigate all spaces, reveling in their Blackness and understanding that their Black feet, Black butts and Black skin are symbols of unapologetic beauty, bliss and brilliance.

—Gregory King

Dianne McIntyre

This year, Dianne McIntyre celebrates the 50th anniversary of Sounds in Motion, the company she founded and directed from 1972 to 1988, and its premiere concert. McIntyre started dancing at age 4 with teacher Elaine Gibbs, and by 7 she was choreographing on neighborhood kids in her first production, presented at a local library in her hometown of Cleveland. At 25, with New York City as her dance home, her company’s debut at the Cubiculo Theatre made it official. For 16 years, McIntyre’s deep understanding that dance and music must coexist was passed on to the gifted dancers and musicians of her company. After closing the company and its school, she began making and performing works as an independent choreographer.

McIntyre’s performances, choreography, collaborations and teachings are insightful, and invariably raise the consciousness about Black people’s stories. Watching her dance and create these stories are lessons in enlightenment. McIntyre’s body is its own instrument, and one can “hear” the sounds as they are realized. She can shepherd musicians to match or follow her arms as they sweep the air, her toes as they test the floor, the swirling, spinning and tilting of her torso and the sprinkling of the imagined through her fluttering fingers. Some memorable solo performances, choreography or collaborations are: If You Don’t Know, as part of “FLY: Five First Ladies of Dance” by 651 ARTS, with McIntyre, Germaine Acogny, Carmen de Lavallade, Bebe Miller and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar; we carry our homes within us which enables us to fly, as part of New York Live Arts’ music series; and myriad choreo-poems­ alongside her longtime friend, the late Ntozake Shange. McIntyre choreographed Change for Dance Theatre of Harlem, Porgy and Bess for the English National Opera, and the films Beloved and Miss Evers’ Boys, to name a few.

There is not a single descriptor that is Dianne McIntyre. But we know that over these 50 years she cultivated the careers of many dancers, including Zollar, Marlies Yearby, Bernadine Jennings and Carole Anne “Aziza” Reid, all of whom were integral parts of Sounds in Motion before assuming leadership roles in dance, social consciousness and service. McIntyre is as effervescent in an impromptu phone call as she is cogent when planning an upcoming event. She has been honored with a Teer Pioneer Award and an American Dance Festival Award; and by Dance/USA, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Harlem Arts Alliance, and the Bessies; and has received an Emmy nomination, and fellowships from John S. Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, among others. It’s a long time coming, but now as a capstone for her 50 years of creating and giving, Dianne McIntyre is rightfully being honored by Dance Magazine.

—Charmaine Warren

The Chairman’s Award: Jim Herbert

A Chairman’s Award, chosen by Dance Media CEO Frederic M. Seegal to honor distinctive movers and shakers behind the scenes, will go to Jim Herbert, the founder and executive chairman of First Republic Bank. A longtime supporter of dance, Herbert is the founder of Chelsea Factory, as well as a board member with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and San Francisco Ballet.

Harkness Promise Awards

Funded by net proceeds from the Dance Magazine Awards ceremony, the Harkness Promise Awards offer a $5,000 grant and 40 hours of rehearsal space for innovative young choreographers. This year’s awardees are Kayla Farrish and Johnnie Cruise Mercer.

Kayla Farrish is a New York City–based dancer, choreographer, director and photographer. “My work questions a range in human and societal experiences,” says Farrish, founder of Kayla Farrish/Decent Structures Arts. “As an African American woman from the South, with no records beyond American soil and inquiring identity, I [create] in order to see myself.” She recently collaborated with Brandon Coleman on the duet Broken Record and with Melanie Charles on Roster, co-directed a film with Charles, choreographed for Saul Williams’ Motherboard Suites, and created the dance theater feature-length film Martyr’s Fiction. Farrish is currently a rehearsal director at Sleep No More in New York City and an adjunct faculty member at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Johnnie Cruise Mercer is a queer, Black choreographer, educator, impresario and social entrepreneur based in New York City. “Led by my curiosity for embodied philosophy, my work takes action as movement responses, practices that support and acknowledge history, memory and space,” says Mercer. He works within the New York Public School system through The Leadership Program, a mentorship-based organization that uses art to cultivate leadership qualities, and is the founding producer and company director of TheRedProject/NYC. “To me, making is about embracing reality, listening, releasing and preparing for a communal, metaphysical, revolution.”

The post Honoring Legends in Dance at the 2022 Dance Magazine Awards appeared first on Dance Magazine.

The winners of the 2022 World Choreography Awards are:

Motion Picture

Justin Peck: West Side Story

Television Award Show/Special

Tessandra Chavez and Derek Hough: Disney Queen Singalong

Music Video

Phillip Chbeeb and Makenzie Dustman: Blake McGrath, “Whisper”

Digital Content, Independent

Nastya Yurasova: Jealousy

Television, Episodic

Mandy Moore and Luther Brown: Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist

Television, Reality Show/Competition

Derek Hough: Dancing With The Stars, “Tango Of The Dead”

Commercials

Ashley Wallen: “Wren Kitchens”

Digital Content

James Kinney, Lady Be Good

Live Stage Performance for Broadcast

Nastya Yurasova, Envy

The post Recognizing Excellence in Choreography for the Camera at the World Choreography Awards appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Walker’s Broadway debut was in On the Town at age 16; he went on to dance in Ambassador and Lorelei as well as in Fosse’s The Pajama Game, Pippin and Dancin’ before moving to Los Angeles to teach and perform in commercials. He returned to Broadway to perform in the 1986 revival of Sweet Charity, Fosse’s final production before his death. In 1998, Walker co-conceived and recreated choreography for the tribute musical Fosse, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1999. In 2013, he was nominated for a Tony for his choreography for the revival of Pippin. 

Walker choreographed and taught Fosse style jazz all over the world, including spending nearly 20 years directing the musical theater program at Jacob’s Pillow. At the time of his death, Walker was at work on two new musicals: Feelin’ in the Mood, The Glenn Miller Musical and Jack Cole, The Musical. (Walker also worked to codify Cole’s work.) 

A public memorial will be held at a later date.

Header photo by Nathan Johnson, courtesy Michael Moore Agency.

The post Honoring Chet Walker (1954-2022) appeared first on Dance Magazine.

The Dance Magazine Awards ceremony, including performances and celebratory speeches, will take place in person at Chelsea Factory in New York City on Monday, December 5, 2022, at 7 pm EST, with net proceeds supporting the Harkness Promise Awards. For ticket information, visit dancemediafoundation.org.

We’re thrilled to announce the honorees for the 2022 Dance Magazine Awards:

Kyle Abraham

Choreographer Kyle Abraham—recipient of a 2013 MacArthur fellowship, 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award and 2018 Princess Grace Statue Award, among many other recognitions—makes deeply powerful dance works that often speak to the Black American experience. In addition to creating for his own ensemble, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, he has choreographed for companies around the world, including The Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Lucinda Childs

Postmodern choreographer and dancer Lucinda Childs started her career as a member of the Judson Dance Theater and founded her own company in 1973. Her rich and varied career encompasses concert works such as Available Light and Dance, her seminal 1979 collaboration with Philip Glass and Sol LeWitt; operas including Mozart’s Zaide, Glass’ Akhnaten and John Adams’ Doctor Atomic; and more than 30 works for ballet companies around the world.

Herman Cornejo

An acclaimed principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre since 2003, Herman Cornejo has danced most of the leading roles of the classical canon and created more than a dozen new ballets with the leading choreographers of today. A frequent national and international guest star, Cornejo has also pursued his own artistic endeavors to foster the creation of new works. His accolades include the Gold Medal in the VIII International Moscow Competition, a New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Award for Outstanding Performer in 2013, and the 2014 Prix Benois de la Danse for Best Male Dancer. He has been appointed a Messenger of Peace by the United Nations and was recently recognized as one of America’s Great Immigrants by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Brenda Dixon-Gottschild

Esteemed artist-scholar Brenda Dixon-Gottschild, PhD, is an interdisciplinary researcher, writer, lecturer, performer and professor emerita of dance studies at Temple University. She is the author of four books centering Black dance artists and forms: Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts; Waltzing in the Dark: African American Vaudeville and Race Politics in the Swing Era; The Black Dancing Body: A Geography from Coon to Cool; and Joan Myers Brown & The Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina: A Biohistory of American Performance.

Dianne McIntyre

Choreographer Dianne McIntyre is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Doris Duke Artist awardee and a three-time “Bessie” Award winner whose work is rooted in research and explores the intersection of history, culture, personal narrative and the human experience. Her five-decade career encompasses Broadway, television and film, commissions for Dance Theatre of Harlem and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and projects for her own company, Sounds in Motion, such as the adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. She had a longtime collaboration with the late playwright and poet Ntozake Shange, creator of for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf. McIntyre choreographed the 1998 film Beloved, based on the novel by Toni Morrison.

Chairman’s Award

Jim Herbert, the founder and executive chairman of First Republic Bank, will be given a Chairman’s Award, chosen by Dance Media CEO Frederic M. Seegal to honor distinctive movers and shakers behind the scenes. 

Harkness Promise Awards

Johnnie Cruise Mercer and Kayla Farrish are the recipients of this year’s Harkness Promise Awards, which offer a $5,000 grant and 40 hours of rehearsal space to innovative choreographers in their first decade of professional work. This award, conferred in partnership with the Harkness Foundation for Dance, is funded by net proceeds from the Dance Magazine Awards ceremony.

The 2022 Dance Magazine Awards Selection Committee

The selection committee for the 2022 Dance Magazine Awards included Dance Magazine editor at large and Dance Magazine Awards chair Wendy Perron, master teacher Sheila Barker, Dance Magazine contributor Joseph Carman, The Dance Edit editor in chief Margaret Fuhrer, Dance Media president Joanna Harp, MoBBallet (Memoirs of Blacks in Ballet) founder Theresa Ruth Howard, incoming American Ballet Theatre artistic director Susan Jaffe, New York City Center vice president for programming Stanford Makishi, Pointe managing editor Lydia Murray and former American Dance Festival director Charles L. Reinhart. The committee considered nominations from the editorial staff and advisors of Dance Magazine as well as from the dance public.

The post Announcing the 2022 Dance Magazine Award Honorees appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Where Prayer and Play Meet

What can be made in a particular museum that can’t be made anywhere else? It’s a question Bijayini Satpathy has considered during her tenure as 2021–22 MetLiveArts artist in residence. Widely lauded as an international treasure, she creates what she calls “futuristic choreographies of traditional dance,” accompanied by nontraditional soundscapes by composer Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy.­ In the spring, she performed abstractions of ancient­ Odissi dance forms in interventions responding to the art, architecture, artistry and aesthetics of four galleries at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum­ of Art. On Sept. 13 at the Grace Rainey Rogers Audi­torium, in the fifth and final performance of her residency, Satpathy­ will synthesize 18 months of on-site research­ to explore the inter­section of praying and playing. “I’ve fed my body enough for it to speak,” the veteran artist says. We’re all ears. metmuseum.­org. —Meredith Fages

Ukraine Artists Debut Stateside

When the Kyiv City Ballet flew to Paris on Feb. 23 to embark on a long-planned tour, little did they know that their home country would be under siege the following day. The artists have since been sheltering in France, raising funds and forging ahead with performances—which will soon include the company’s first-ever appearances in the U.S. The 15-city tour, showcasing a full-length Swan Lake and a mixed-rep bill of contemporary choreography and Ukrainian folk dance, kicks off in Wilmington, NC, and includes stops in Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit and Oklahoma City, as well as at New York City Center’s Fall for Dance. Sept. 16–Oct. 24. kcbtheater.com. —Claudia Bauer

Bringing Jamaica to South Florida

Rousing live music, vivid design and vigorous performances will bring the spirit of the Caribbean to our shores when National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica visits South Florida. Whether soulful or light­hearted, the troupe’s repertory, curated by artistic director Marlon D. Simms, draws as aptly from the tra­ditions of the African diaspora as from modern dance to project a cultural rainbow. Signature pieces such as company co-founder Rex Nettleford’s Kumina, which reveals Congolese roots, and Drumscore, depicting the grace of everyday life in a Creole society, follow the beat of Jamaican sounds and movement toward an all-embracing humanity. The double 60th-anniversary celebration of both the island’s independence and the company’s founding hits South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center on Oct. 1, followed by Miramar Cultural Center Oct. 2–3. smdcac.org and miramarculturalcenter.org. —Guillermo Perez

An Iconic Ballerina Gets Her Flowers

Lauren Anderson’s pointe shoes are in the Smithsonian, so it’s only fitting that there be a dance-theater piece based on the living legend’s storied life. Plumshuga: The Rise of Lauren Anderson tells the unfiltered story of the ballerina’s historic journey to become Houston Ballet’s first Black principal, as well as her battle with addiction and her courageous road to recovery. Produced by Houston’s Stages, the production features writing by acclaimed former Houston Poet Laureate Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton (who led an exhaustive research and interview process), choreography by Houston Ballet artistic director Stanton Welch and local modern dance legend Harrison Guy, music by Jasmine Barnes and dancers from Houston Ballet. Previews Oct. 7–12, ahead of an Oct. 13–Nov. 13 run. stageshouston.com. —Nancy Wozny

An Extended Flight

In 2017, Crystal Pite created Flight Pattern, her first work for The Royal Ballet. Set to the opening movement of Górecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, the short ballet responded to the ongoing refugee crisis, shifting between presenting its 36-strong cast as a community moving together as one body and as individuals with their own unique stories, emotions and relationships. This year, Pite will develop the Olivier Award–winning work into a new, full-length ballet set to premiere at London’s Royal Opera House on Oct. 18. As so many tragic events have unfolded since Flight Pattern’s first iteration—from the devastating effects of the U.S. and U.K.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan to the displacement of millions of Ukrainians—it feels timely to revisit the work, and to consider how dance can be used to speak to one of the biggest humanitarian crises of our time. Oct. 18–Nov. 3. roh.org.uk. —Emily May

Brazil’s Messy Humanity

The pulsating human mass in Lia Rodrigues’ choreography can slip from feeling like a neighborhood party to a frightening mob. This fall, the Brazilian Rodrigues, whose work is celebrated in Europe but rarely seen in the U.S., brings the darkly outrageous Fúria, flesh grappling with flesh, to the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, OH, Oct. 21–22; Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Oct. 28–29; and Peak Performances in Montclair, NJ, Nov. 3–6. Then, switching moods but not modes, she offers her raucously joyful Encantado to Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, Nov. 8–9. wexarts.org, walkerart.org, peakperfs.org and bam.org. —Wendy Perron

New Director, New Works

America’s oldest ballet company has big new things in store for 2023: San Francisco Ballet’s 90th repertory season will be its first under Tamara Rojo’s artistic direction, and it opens with next@90. Planned by outgoing artistic director Helgi Tomasson, the new-works festival will bring world premieres from a tantalizing roster of dancemakers creating their first SFB commissions—Nicolas Blanc, Bridget Breiner, Robert Garland, Yuka Oishi, Jamar Roberts and Claudia Schreier—as well as resident choreographer Yuri Possokhov and frequent contributors Val Caniparoli and Danielle Rowe. Tomasson’s taste for innovation made SFB’s last new-works festival, 2018’s mammoth Unbound, a treasure trove of choreographic surprises and star-making roles for the company’s young dancers. With any luck, next@90 will be just as rewarding. Jan. 20–Feb. 11. sfballet.org. 

—Claudia Bauer

A Surprise at City Ballet

Among the crowd of mainstays whose work is appearing during New York City Ballet’s winter season, Keerati Jinakunwiphat is a welcome surprise. A dancer for A.I.M by Kyle Abraham and a freelance choreographer, she’s premiering her first dance for NYCB this February on a program alongside Alexei Ratmansky’s Voices and Justin Peck’s Everywhere We Go. The ballet’s debut will make Jinakunwiphat, who is Thai American, the second Asian American choreographer to set work on NYCB and the first Asian American woman to do so.

Jinakunwiphat received her first professional commission in 2019—a piece for A.I.M—and has since choreographed mostly for contemporary dance companies, including PARA.MAR Dance Theatre, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company and Houston Contemporary Dance Company. But she’s no stranger to the NYCB ecosystem: She assisted Abraham during the creation of The Runaway and premiered a ballet for the New York Choreographic Institute last fall. Titled Impeccable Quake, it showcased both Jinakunwiphat’s characteristic attention to the individuality of each of her dancers and the sweeping motions and curving shapes that are emerging as central elements of her style. We can’t wait to see how these qualities unfold on the NYCB mainstage. Feb. 1, 8, 9, 11. nycballet.com. —Caroline Shadle

Part of That World

The live-action remake of the Disney animated classic The Little Mermaid is slated to hit cinemas in May. The literal fish-out-of-water story, directed by Rob Marshall, features choreography by Tara Nicole Hughes—best known for her dancing in Mary Poppins Returns and La La Land—and Joey Pizzi—co-choreographer of Mary Poppins Returns and associate choreographer for movie musicals like Hairspray and Dreamgirls. Airborne choreography combined with special effects will create the underwater illusion on screen, but audiences can also anticipate beautiful dancing on land as the romance between Prince Eric and Ariel unfolds. It’s going to be a—what’s that word again?—treat. disney.com. —Ruthie Fierberg

Changing Tides in Musical Theater

Several new musicals feature styles, source material and casting choices not commonly seen on the Great White Way.

DDLJ to Broadway

The longest-running film in Indian cinema arrives on the theatrical stage with Come Fall in Love—The DDLJ Musical, an adaptation of beloved Bollywood film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Simran, an Indian American woman, is set for an arranged marriage to a family friend. But when she meets the American Rog on a European adventure, will she be able to marry her heritage with her heart? Tony Award–winning choreographer Rob Ashford teams up with associate Shruti Merchant to create a collision of cultures in this new musical rom-com, which features book and lyrics by Nell Benjamin (Legally Blonde: The Musical) and music by Broadway newcomers Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravjiani. Merchant says the choreography integrates Indian folk styles, like the jhumar, luddi and giddha, while blending traditional and contemporary movement “served with a dash of robustness and energy galore.” Performances begin Sept. 1 at San Diego’s Old Globe ahead of an anticipated Broadway transfer. Sept. 1–Oct. 16. theoldglobe.org. —Ruthie Fierberg

Recasting the Founding Fathers

One look at the cast photo, and you know these Founding Fathers are different: not a cisgender white man in the bunch. Instead, Roundabout Theatre Company uses female-identifying, nonbinary and transgender actors to play John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and the other (white, male) delegates to the Continental Congress in its revival of Peter Stone’s and Sherman Edwards’ 1969 Tony-winning hit, 1776. This production, directed last summer at American Repertory Theater by Diane Paulus and Fela! alum Jeffrey L. Page, is different in another way, too: It pays attention to dance, replacing the original’s lone minuet with extensive choreography by Page. Sept. 16–Jan. 8 at American Airlines Theatre. roundabouttheatre.org. —Sylviane Gold

KPOP Don’t Stop

Hair brought rock to Broadway, Big River brought country, and In the Heights brought hip hop. Now it’s K-pop’s turn, with a splashy tale set in a music factory that trains and styles young hopefuls to climb the charts in South Korea and beyond. A 2017 hit off-Broadway, KPOP stars genuine K-pop diva Luna and features choreography by Hip Hop Nutcracker co-creator Jennifer Weber. Director Teddy Bergman leads the immersive theater group Woodshed Collective, which conceived the show with its author, playwright Jason Kim. Songs, in English and Korean, are by Helen Park and Max Vernon, and the bulk of the cast and creatives are making their Broadway debuts—along with the title genre. Previews Oct. 13, opens Nov. 20 at Circle in the Square. kpopbroadway.com. —Sylviane Gold

Wax On, Wax Off

Fresh off its out-of-town tryout at Stages St. Louis in Missouri, this season the musical adaptation of The Karate Kid will mark choreographic powerhouse duo Keone and Mari Madrid’s Broadway debut. With a book by the famed film’s original screenwriter, Robert Mark Kamen, The Karate Kid—The Musical follows Daniel LaRusso as he trains with solitary handyman and martial arts expert Mr. Miyagi to fight back against school bullies. The Madrids’ choreography is, they say, 80 percent their signature hard-hitting hip-hop with jazz and contemporary lyricism and 20 percent martial arts. While Keone studied karate briefly as a kid and has been training in muay thai the past few years, associate choreographer Vinh Nguyen (experienced in tae kwon do and muay thai) and karate consultant Sakura Kokumai (Olympic kata competitor) bring authenticity to the onstage martial arts. “Miyagi-do is all about defense first while also finding inspiration from his Okinawan roots to find balance in nature,” the Madrids say, while rival teacher John Kreese, “à la Cobra Kai, is straight lines, fists, eruption, offense first.” thekaratekidthemusical.com. —Ruthie Fierberg 

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This year, we’re honoring two Awardees of Distinction—Kay Mazzo, a symbol of strength and grace in the ballet world who’s preserving Balanchine’s legacy, and Risa Steinberg, a beloved dance educator who’s known for her challenging, illuminating Limón classes and for being a mentor for some of contemporary dance’s most exciting dancemakers such as Kyle Abraham, Brian Brooks and Kate Weare.

We’re also celebrating Ronald K. Alexander, who continues to open doors for young ballet dancers of color; Antonio and Kirven Douthit-Boyd, who are guiding the next generation through their Center of Creative Arts institution in St. Louis, Missouri; Kristine Elliott, who is using ballet to promote diversity and social change; Ana Nery Fragoso, who fosters community and collaboration through teaching elementary school children, leading professional-development workshops for educators, and mentoring future teachers as director of the Arnhold Graduate Dance Education Program at Hunter College; and Yvonne Gutierrez, a heralded flamenco, salsa and Spanish dance artist and educator who is renowned for her use of dance education to serve overlooked communities and promote HIV/AIDS awareness.

Attendees will also enjoy an inspiring, hour-long conversation with Francesca Harper who’ll be talking about the legacy that shaped her as a young artist and how she’s nurturing the next generation of dancers at Ailey II.

Tickets (including group tickets) are available for the ceremony only or for the ceremony with cocktail reception. Proceeds from the cocktail party fund the Dance Teacher Scholarship at MOVE|NYC|— a cause that is very dear to our hearts.

Click here to get your tickets now—we can’t wait to see you there!

Header photo credits, clockwise from top left: Photo by Rosalie O’Connor, courtesy SAB, Photo by Peter Schaaf, courtesy Steinberg; Photo by Hollis King; Photo by Peter Wochniak, courtesy Center of Creative Arts; Photo by L Kronenfield; Photo by Nel Shelby; Photo by Patricia Unterman; Photo by Peter Wochniak, courtesy COCA

The post Will We See You at the 2022 Dance Teacher Awards This Week? appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Reclaiming East-Meets-West

NEW YORK CITY  Presented as part of The Shed’s Open Call commissioning program, Benjamin Akio Kimitch’s Tiger Hands reimagines dance’s East-meets-West stereotypes as the choreographer revisits his formative training in non-Western dance and close connection to Peking opera. Aug. 4–6. theshed.org. —Courtney Escoyne

A Smorgasbord in Scotland

EDINBURGH  Scotland’s capital is positively bursting at the seams as the Edinburgh International Festival descends. Among the highlights for dance aficionados: Scottish Ballet premieres a new take on Coppélia by Jess and Morgs (Jessica Wright and Morgann Runacre-Temple), using the classic to ask questions about artificial intelligence and whether real life can compete with technology; Alan Cumming stars as Scotland’s national bard Robert Burns in the Steven Hoggett–choreographed dance-theater vehicle Burn; and several works engage with themes of migration, among them Akram Khan’s Jungle Book reimagined, Farah Saleh’s A Wee Journey and Akeim Toussaint Buck’s Windows of Displacement. Aug. 5–28. eif.co.uk. —CE

Requiems and Reunions

NEW YORK CITY  Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City comes to a close this month with a range of events, including three powerhouse dance programs. Reunions, curated by Kyle Abraham, features the work of A.I.M alums Rena Butler, Kayla Farrish, Vinson Fraley, Nicole Mannarino, Chalvar Monteiro, Jie-Hung Connie Shiau and Maleek Washington, Aug. 6–7. Current A.I.M members take the stage with the New York premiere of Abraham’s Requiem: Fire in the Air of the Earth, which explores reincarnation and Black Futurism to a reimagining of Mozart’s Requiem in D minor by electronic dance music artist Jlin, Aug. 11–13. And the BAAND Together Dance Festival, Aug. 9–13, is back after last summer’s popular initial outing, with Ballet Hispánico, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet and Dance Theatre of Harlem sharing an outdoor stage and a new commission for dancers from all five companies by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. lincolncenter.org. —CE

Doherty and Dread

HAMBURG  Oona Doherty’s critically acclaimed works, characterized by their gritty realism and visceral movement languages, have explored themes ranging from working-class masculinity to the impact of religion on her native Belfast. However, as she describes her latest, Navy Blue, as “a rebirth” and “a questioning of what to do next,” it seems the choreographer may be preparing to take a new direction. Featuring 12 dancers and a soundtrack created with British DJ and producer Jamie xx, Navy Blue promises to create an unsettling sense of dread while considering where we’ve been, where we’re going and how we can strive for societal change. The evening-length work premieres at Hamburg’s Kampnagel festival on Aug. 10 before touring Europe. oonadohertyweb.com. —Emily May

Under an Open Sky

TORONTO  National Ballet of Canada kicks off its season early with outdoor performances at the Harbourfront Centre. For Sharing the Stage, the company is joined by the soulful Holla Jazz, feminist dance theater troupe Rock Bottom Movement, kathak-trained artist Tanveer Alam and Indigenous dancer-choreographer Samantha Sutherland. NBoC’s contributions to the mixed rep will include choreography by artistic director emerita Karen Kain, Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon. Aug. 16–20. national.ballet.ca. —CE

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Sims brings two decades of dance journalism experience to her new role—and, in fact, began her career by serving as Dance Magazine’s news editor for four years, then as editorial director of Dance Spirit and Dance Teacher for seven years, and finally helping to launch Pointe magazine before becoming a freelance editor-at-large for Dance Spirit, Dance Teacher and Pointe. Sims’ freelance articles have appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, Stagebill and more.

“I’m thrilled to return to the publications where my career in dance writing and editing began more than 20 years ago,” says Sims, “and to join Dance Media in reimagining how to reflect and document the creativity and brilliance of dance in the current moment.”

Sims was most recently the senior manager of content and editorial at San Francisco Ballet, where she oversaw all communications and social media since 2016. Sims holds degrees in political science and economics from Stanford University, and will continue to be based in San Francisco.

“Caitlin is a consummate professional and an immensely talented editor and content creator, with a tremendous knowledge and passion for dance,” says Joanna Harp, who has been promoted to president of Dance Media. Harp has spent the past three and a half years leading from her position as chief revenue officer/publisher.

Now, in partnership with Sims and the Dance Media team, Harp will cultivate new opportunities for dancers, teachers, studios and students through new media and events—and will continue to produce dance journalism of the highest caliber.

The post Dance Media Announces Caitlin Sims as Dance Magazine’s New Editor in Chief and Promotes Joanna Harp to President appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Along with a warmup, you’ll learn an excerpted solo from Mr. Taylor’s Runes. The hour-long class wraps up with a 10-minute Q&A.

Class is $25, and will take place on Zoom on Wednesday, August 3, at noon Eastern. Register here to join us.

The post Take a Paul Taylor Master Class with Dancers Eran Bugge & Devon Louis appeared first on Dance Magazine.

At Juilliard, he met his wife, muse and collaborator, Dian Dong. Martha Hill, the director of the Juilliard Dance Division, insisted that Dong be Chen’s interpreter, which was the beginning of their many years of working side by side. Together they created Chen Dance Center, a vibrant cultural center in New York City’s Chinatown, which housed a dance company, theater space and the dance school H.T. Chen and Dancers, Arts Gate Center and Mulberry St. Theater, respectively. Plans for restoring the building are underway after a devastating fire, and classes and rehearsals have been relocated. Chen and Dong’s daughters continue the family tradition in the arts, with Evelyn performing with Sleep No More and Yeeli working in arts administration.

As a choreographer, Chen created contemporary dances through the lens of social justice as well as on traditional and personal themes. Laura Molzan of Broadway World wrote of Chen’s 2015 work South of Gold Mountain, a tribute to 18th- and early-19th-century Chinese immigrants to the U.S., that it “shed a light on the untold stories of immigrants that are far more common than foreign, and that light shone brilliantly.” Jennifer Dunning of The New York Times spoke more broadly: “Mr. Chen has long been one of New York dance’s most persuasive storytellers, addressing issues of acculturation well before they become fashionable in dance.”

Chen was an advocate for the performing arts, serving on numerous panels. He believed in the transformative power of the arts to lift the human spirit. His company conducted extensive educational programming and outreach in communities nationwide, as well as in Europe and Asia. He received numerous awards and recognition for his work, including a Bessie Special Citation, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Organization of Chinese Americans, and a Mid-Career Award from the Martha Hill Dance Fund. 

Chen was passionate about gardening, coin collecting and befriending every dog in sight. He possessed a childlike wonder and approach to life, which led him to see beauty and art in everything and everyone he crossed paths with. He planted seeds of art wherever he was so that the arts will continue to thrive in the next generations.

In addition to his wife and two daughters, Chen is survived by three of his siblings, numerous nieces and nephews, friends and extended family. A celebration of his life is being planned for the fall of 2022.

The post In Memory of Choreographer Hsueh-Tung Chen, 1947-2022 appeared first on Dance Magazine.

In this hourlong class, Nitting will teach a warmup and give her best tips for better petit allegro. Ten minutes at the end will be reserved for a Q&A.

Class is $25, and will take place on Zoom on Monday, June 27, at 4 pm Eastern. Register here to join us.

The post Take a Virtual Master Class with Courtney Nitting of Kansas City Ballet appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Play Date

SAN FRANCISCO  ODC Theater’s annual summer festival is back with a new name: State of Play. Co-curated by Amara Tabor-Smith and Charles Slender-White with a focus on queer and BIPOC artists, the performance lineup (live and later via livestream) includes works by Riley Watts and Heather Stewart, MK Abadoo, SAMMAY Peñaflor Dizon, Rosanna Tavarez, Megan Lowe Dances, Erin Yen | Dragons Dance, Nicole Peisl, Kim Ip and Bianca Cabrera. Works-in-progress showings and discussions, debates, and panels are also on offer. June 2–11. odc.dance. —Courtney Escoyne

Update: Rosanna Tavarez’s performances have been postponed to Nov. 11–13.

Book to Ballet

LONDON  Laura Esquivel’s novel Like Water for Chocolate tells the story of a young woman with the power to magically infuse her emotions into her cooking, and the drama that ensues when she is unable to be with the man she loves. Christopher Wheeldon collaborated with the author to bring a full-length ballet adaptation to life, set to premiere at The Royal Ballet this month. A co-production with American Ballet Theatre, the ballet reunites the choreographer with composer Joby Talbot and designer Bob Crowley, the team behind literary blockbusters Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Winter’s Tale. June 2–17. roh.org.uk. —Julia Mary Register

Hometown Tour

ON TOUR  Dancers with and without disabilities come together in the three-company, three-city National Physically Integrated Dance Festival: Beyond Barriers, Boundaries & Belief! On offer are premieres by Donald Byrd, Mark Tomasic and Brian Murphy for Cleveland’s Dancing Wheels Company, a new work by Heidi Latsky for her eponymous, New York City–based troupe, and Miami’s Karen Peterson and Dancers in an excerpt from founder Karen Peterson Corash’s 2021 Lost and Found. The festival was conceived by Dancing Wheels founding artistic director Mary Verdi-Fletcher, who says, “I felt it was important that our nation recognize the distinct talents of artists that participate in physically integrated dance.” The tour begins in Cleveland, June 10, followed by New York City, June 14, and Miami, June 25. dancingwheels.org. —Steve Sucato

ABT Comes Home

NEW YORK CITY  American Ballet Theatre returns to the Metropolitan Opera House for the first time since 2019, kicking off the season with a Don Quixote featuring a starry triple cast of leads on June 13. In addition to its usual panoply of full-lengths, the company will present the New York premieres of Alexei Ratmansky’s evening-length Of Love and Rage (postponed from 2020) and Alonzo King’s recent Single Eye, and celebrate the 75th anniversary of George Balanchine’s seminal Theme and Variations. June 13–July 16. abt.org. —CE

Closer to Taylor

NEW YORK CITY  Paul Taylor Dance Company takes a break from the grandiosity of Lincoln Center to moonlight at the more intimate Joyce Theater. Curated by artistic director Michael Novak, the programming for the company’s Joyce debut demonstrates the connection between its origins and future, pairing early Taylor pieces, like Events II (1957), Fibers(1961) and Tracer (1962), with a new work from Michelle Manzanales and the New York premiere of Peter Chu’s A Call for Softer Landings. June 14–19. joyce.org. —JMR

Ballet Is Black

WASHINGTON, DC  Black ballet dancers and choreographers are front and center during the Kennedy Center’s Reframing the Narrative week. Dance Theatre of Harlem, Ballethnic Dance Company and Collage Dance Collective perform in two programs curated by Denise Saunders Thompson and Theresa Ruth Howard, showcasing classical excerpts alongside works from the company’s leaders and commissions from recent years by Amy Hall Garner and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. The centerpiece of both programs is a Kennedy Center commission by Donald Byrd, featuring a dozen Black dancers from companies worldwide (including Precious Adams, Katlyn Addison, Jenelle Figgins and Ashley Murphy-Wilson) and a new score by Carlos Simon. June 14–19. kennedy-center.org. —CE

Liberation Meditation

NEW YORK CITY  As part of The Flea Theater’s Juneteenth programming, Urban Bush Women artistic director Chanon Judson has crafted Time’s Up! A Liberation Ritual, a public performance meditation undertaken by Judson and community participants. June 19. theflea.org. —CE

The post 7 Performance Picks We Don’t Want to Miss This June appeared first on Dance Magazine.

All genders are welcome at this inclusive, hourlong intermediate-level master class. After a pointe warmup led by Knudson, Ortiz will teach a Ballet22 repertory solo. Ten minutes at the end will be reserved for a Q&A.

Class is $25, and will take place on Zoom on Monday, May 23, at 4 pm Eastern. Register here to join us. 

The post Take a Virtual Pointe Master Class with Ballet22’s Roberto Vega Ortiz and Theresa Knudson appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Class is $28 and will take place on Zoom Monday, May 2, at 7 pm Eastern. Register here to join us.

The post Take a Virtual Master Class With Choreographer Kristin Sudeikis appeared first on Dance Magazine.

In memory of Hamilton and his unmatched contributions to dance medicine, Dance Magazine is sharing its 2011 profile of Hamilton, written by Jennifer Stahl, to celebrate his Dance Magazine Award.

Watching Dr. William Hamilton at work is almost like observing a sculptor shape his clay. Dancers come to him in their lowest moments, putting their bodies in his hands in hopes that he can help them to heal. He handles their limbs with complete authority, with an assertive yet sensitive touch that can only come from someone who’s devoted his career to fixing the broken.

Although he’s never danced professionally, Hamilton may very well be the most prolific man in Lincoln Center. His work appears every time the curtain rises on New York City Ballet or American Ballet Theatre. Mikhail Baryshnikov, Ethan Stiefel, and countless others owe years of their careers to this pioneer of dance medicine.

In 1972, Hamilton was an orthopedic surgeon at New York City’s Roosevelt Hospital when George Balanchine, while visiting a friend there one night, asked a young resident if any doctors might be interested in taking care of a ballet company. The resident recommended Hamilton, who sometimes saw dancers at his office near Lincoln Center. “I had no dance training, but I’d been to the ballet several times,” says Hamilton. “During that era, Balanchine was coming out with a new masterwork every year. I knew very little, but I knew there was magic in that theater.”

At the time, there was no such field as “dance medicine.” With no footsteps to follow or medical literature to look up, for almost five years, Hamilton regularly watched Balanchine’s classes on weekends to study the technique and how it affected the body. The NYCB dancers taught him the names of the steps and gave him exposure to their world. “From the very beginning, I learned that although they get the same injuries as athletes, dancers are artists first,” says Hamilton. He developed a close friendship with Balanchine, and later became his doctor during the choreographer’s illness and death. “He left so many legacies, and I am one of them,” Hamilton says. “His hiring me is what founded dance medicine.”

Hamilton published what he learned about dancers in medical journals. He described how unusual they were and how their injuries almost always related to the altered kinesiology of ballet technique. He saw that most of the problems occurred in the foot and ankle. He began to take a special interest in those areas, which eventually led to his becoming president of the American Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Society.

In 1975, Lincoln Kirstein asked Hamilton to also be the doctor of the School of American Ballet. In 1980, when Baryshnikov became director of ABT, he asked Hamilton to work with his company too. Through the years, Hamilton also cared for dancers at ABT’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, The Ailey School, and various Broadway shows, and has consulted for the New York Knicks and Yankees. He has implemented in-house physical therapy programs at both NYCB and ABT, where screening efforts have helped to correct the dancers’ weaknesses with the aim of preventing injuries before they occur.

“The best part of my job is just helping, in some small way, to produce the magic that goes on onstage,” Hamilton says. “The ultimate reward is seeing someone, perhaps whose career was essentially over, perhaps who was lying on my operating table, back dancing again.”

The post Remembering Dr. William Hamilton, Dance Medicine Pioneer appeared first on Dance Magazine.

In this Dance Media Live! event, Pierce will teach an excerpt from her ballet Animals & Angels, which was originally produced as a dance film by The Joyce Theater last June and is being performed during #QueerTheBallet’s appearance at Chelsea Factory April 5–6. The last 10 minutes of the hourlong session will be devoted to a Q&A.

Class is $25, and will take place on Zoom Friday, April 8, at 4 pm Eastern. Register here to join us.

The post Take a Virtual Master Class With “25 to Watch” Pick Adriana Pierce appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Learn from Woodward in this hourlong master class. Ten minutes at the end will be reserved for a Q&A.

Class is $25, and will take place on Zoom on Monday, March 21, at 4 pm Eastern Daylight Time. Register here to join us. 

The post Take a Virtual Master Class with March Cover Star Indiana Woodward appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Every year, we recognize excellence in teaching by honoring outstanding dance educators for their contributions to the field. 

We’re currently accepting nominations for the 2022 Dance Teacher Awards, and are looking for dance educators who:

• Have a unique or outsized impact on their students and/or community
• Strive to bring out the best in their students as dancers and people
• Have a thoughtful and forward-thinking approach to pedagogy
• Are dedicated to their own continued learning
• Have a body-positive teaching style
• Prioritize dancers’ mental and physical health and safety
• Are committed to anti-racism, equity and inclusion inside and outside the studio

Dance educators of all kinds are eligible to receive the Dance Teacher Award, including those working in private studios, K–12 schools, conservatories, higher education institutions and more. Nominations will be reviewed holistically based on their alignment with the above criteria. To access the full list of past Dance Teacher Awardees, click here. 

Submit your nominations via this form by Thursday, March 31. 

We can’t wait to hear about the extraordinary educators you’d like to see receive this year’s Dance Teacher award!

The post Nominate an Educator for a Dance Teacher Award! appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Learn how she does it in this hourlong session. Carminucci will focus on tap technique and musicality and how those ideas translate over to improvisation and choreography. Ten minutes at the end will be reserved for a Q&A.

Class is $25, and will take place on Zoom on Friday, February 25, at 4 pm Eastern. Register here to join us. 

The post Take a Virtual Master Class With “25 to Watch” Pick Christina Carminucci appeared first on Dance Magazine.

New Ballets in the Bay

SAN FRANCISCO  San Francisco Ballet kicks off its 2022 repertory season—the last with artistic director Helgi Tomasson at the helm—with a pair of triple bills. The first is headlined by the long-awaited premiere of Mrs. Robinson, Cathy Marston’s reimagining of The Graduate, which was originally scheduled for the 2020 season. It joins Balanchine’s Symphony in C and Tomasson’s Trio beginning Feb. 1. The second program, opening Feb. 3, boasts the company premiere of William Forsythe’s Blake Works I, set to the music of James Blake and originally created for Paris Opéra Ballet in 2016, alongside Tomasson’s Caprice and Jerome Robbins’ In the Night. Feb. 1–13. sfballet.org. —Courtney Escoyne

Bill T. Off-Broadway

NEW YORK CITY  Inspired by an Afro-futurist novel by George S. Schuyler, Black No More follows a young man during the Harlem Renaissance seeking out a scientist who claims to have created a solution to America’s race problem—a machine that will turn Black people white. Choreographer Bill T. Jones joins a wildly accomplished cast and crew to make moves for The New Group’s latest musical, which plans to officially open Feb. 8 at Pershing Square Signature Center for a limited initial run through Feb. 27. thenewgroup.org. —CE

Love Lifts Us Up

SAN FRANCISCO  Zaccho Dance Theatre’s Love, a state of grace features a half-dozen aerial artists performing in the cavernous interior of San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral. Performed in one-hour cycles, the work allows audience members to move through the space below at will, and to engage with a series of rituals and meditations, designed by artist-theologians Yohana Junkar and Claudío Cavalhaes. Directed and choreographed by Joanna Haigood, the performance installation encourages attendees to contemplate and celebrate our shared humanity, and the importance love holds across various spiritual practices. Feb. 11–12, 17–18. zaccho.org. —CE

Swan of a Different Feather

MIAMI With the North American premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s Swan Lake, Miami City Ballet unveils artistry previously lost in time. Ratmansky dug into Stepanov notation of the 1895 Petipa–Ivanov choreography and other sources, coming up with a ballet both truer to its roots and revelatory. Dance and mime, costumes and coiffure, honor the first Mariinsky Theatre production, but this brings surprises: Odette gains a more human presence, and Odile discards the Black Swan label, nary a feather on her knee-length, multitoned tutu. After debuting it in Miami, Feb. 11–13, MCB takes the work to West Palm Beach, Feb. 19–20, and Ft. Lauderdale, Feb. 26–27. miamicityballet.org. —Guillermo Perez

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Join Dance Magazine for an online master class with our “25 to Watch” cover star Ogemdi Ude on January 19. In this hourlong session, Ude will teach segments of choreography and improvisation techniques from her upcoming work I know exactly what you mean, set to premiere at Danspace Project in May. Working with weight, tension and rebound, participants will explore how to make new narratives bloom from simple phrases. All levels are welcome.

Ten minutes at the end will be reserved for a Q&A, led by Dance Magazine editor in chief Jennifer Stahl.

Class is $20, and will take place on Zoom on Wednesday, January 19, at 4 pm Eastern. Register here to join us. 

The post Take a Virtual Master Class With Our “25 to Watch” Cover Star Ogemdi Ude appeared first on Dance Magazine.

The Dancing That Made Gymnast Nia Dennis Famous

UCLA gymnast Nia Dennis was popping up all over social media in January with a floor routine that incorporated stepping and iconic social-dance moves like the Soulja Boy and the woah. Editor in chief Jennifer Stahl interviewed both Dennis and the team’s choreographer, BJ Das, about how it came together. Later in the year we looked into what was behind the overall trend of college gymnasts going viral because of their dance moves.

Our 2021 “25 to Watch”

Our annual “25 to Watch” feature, highlighting up-and-comers we believe are on the verge of breakthrough, is always a favorite, and this year was no different. After publishing the list on January 1, we spent the year watching these artists make waves throughout the field.

The Dancer Who Holds a Surprising Guinness World Record

One of our more unexpected breakout hits of 2021 was a profile of a dancer with an unexpected story: Sarah Louis-Jean took home a Guinness World Record for the most boleadoras taps made in one minute (385, if you’re curious). Our intern at the time, Breanna Mitchell (who’s now, for obvious reasons, on our roster of regular writers), wrote about how the Black Canadian woman became a master in the Argentine folk dance that’s traditionally performed by men.

A Look at What Makes a TikTok Dance Challenge Catch On

At the start of 2021, TikTok was already a major destination for dance, and it’s only grown over the course of the year. Writer Siobhan Burke looked into the unparalleled appeal of the platform, and why dance is such a natural fit for it.

Boston Dynamics’ Robot Choreographer

Who’s behind those viral music videos of robots dancing? Writer Sydney Skybetter did some investigating to track down the choreographer of Boston Dynamics’ then-latest film, “Do You Love Me?”: Monica Thomas. She shared with us the inside scoop on a creative process like no other.

The History of the Temple Dancers Who Inspired La Bayadère

Few ballet lovers these days would be surprised to hear that Petipa took, ahem, certain liberties with the cultures that inspired his famous ballets. But journalist Sarah McKenna Barry’s deep dive into the real lives of the actual women whom Nikiya is supposed to represent will make you see La Bayadère in a whole new way.

Edward Watson’s Cover Story

Just before Edward Watson retired from The Royal Ballet this fall, Laura Cappelle took a look at how he carved out a new space in ballet for male dancers who don’t fit the traditional “prince” mold.

“30 Over 30”

During a year in which time seemed to both stand still and fly by all at once, Dance Magazine decided to push back against the narrative that only the young can have dance careers. Putting our spin on the traditional power list, we choose “30 Over 30,” highlighting people who prove success can happen at any age.

The post Dance Magazine’s Top 8 Stories of 2021 appeared first on Dance Magazine.

What’s next? Our annual list of dancers, choreographers and companies on the verge of breaking through offers several answers to the question of where our field is headed. We’re betting we’ll be seeing—and hearing—more from these 25 artists not just this year, but for many more to come.

Ogemdi Ude

If there’s a throughline to the genre-bending work of choreographer Ogemdi Ude, it’s how Black folks’ experiences—especially their grief—lives in their bodies. 

It shows up in Living Relics, a collaboration with visual artist Sydney Mieko King that asks participants to locate grief in their own bodies and then physicalize it by making plaster molds of those places, and in her tour-de-force solo Nothing Like That Is Ever Going to Happen to Me Again, where she searches for memories of those she’s lost, desperately piecing together bits of movement and text.

But there’s also joy to be found in Ude’s work: Though she claims she isn’t tech-savvy, she’s been playfully exploring video and multimedia since long before virtual work became the norm, and she often sources memories from her Atlanta upbringing, where her first exposure to dance was majorettes. Ude works as a doula, as well, which she sees as deeply interconnected to her dance practice—especially in the form of AfroPeach, a collaboration with fellow dancer/doula Rochelle Jamila Wilbun that offers postpartum dance workshops.

Through a pandemic defined by collective grief, Ude has been prolific—and she’s gotten her due notice. In addition to continuing to perform with choreographers like iele paloumpis and Marion Spencer, her 2022 and 2023 are stacked with commissions and residencies, including at Abrons Arts Center, Gibney, Danspace Project, The Watermill Center and BRIC, plus more to be announced.

—Lauren Wingenroth

Adriana Pierce

Adriana Pierce’s career thus far looks like a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-many laundry list of dream gigs: dancing in Miami City Ballet, the 2018 Broadway revival of Carousel, FX’s “Fosse/Verdon” and the new West Side Story movie, plus choreographic opportunities that continue to grow in scale. Though she came out while a student at the School of American Ballet, it wasn’t until she gathered a group of fellow queer women and nonbinary dancers over Zoom in 2020 that “I really felt a sense of community about my identity and sexuality through ballet,” she says. Pierce doesn’t want the next generation of queer dancers to have to compartmentalize their identities as she did. Enter #QueerTheBallet, an ambitious producing and education initiative she launched last year to get more queer stories onstage.  

Pierce’s own choreography interrogates what equitable partnering looks like and how pointe work might be divorced from its gendered history, research she put into practice in 2021 with a piece for American Ballet Theatre dancers and a virtual commission for The Joyce Theater, both duets for two women. Next up is a Carolina Ballet commission in the spring. Odds are, Pierce will continue pushing ballet forward in ever more eclectic ways—her bucket list items include creating immersive ballet work, directing and choreographing on Broadway, and creating a full-length queer narrative ballet: “I want people to feel as used to seeing queer stories on a ballet stage as they are used to seeing Giselle.” —Lauren Wingenroth

Ballet22

There was something special about the Odalisque pas de trois that Ballet22 performed in its summer 2021 digital season. It wasn’t the crisp pointe work, the crystalline turns or the vibrant musicality, all of which were abundant. It was that the Ballet22 dancers in the traditionally all-female variation from Le Corsaire were male—and not men in drag hamming it up for laughs, but, quite simply, male dancers expressing their artistry on pointe. 

Founded as a pandemic project by artistic director Roberto­ Vega Ortiz and executive director Theresa Knudson, Ballet22 invites male, mxn, transgender and nonbinary dancers to train and perform on pointe in their authentic gender identity. The company grew out of Zoom classes offered by Vega Ortiz and his close friend Carlos Hopuy of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo in early 2020, and gained an international following so quickly that Vega Ortiz and Knudson were able to launch the performing company in December 2020. Ballet22 has drawn dancers like New York City Ballet’s Gilbert Bolden III, Boston Ballet’s Daniel R. Durrett, San Francisco Ballet soloist Diego Cruz, and the Trocks’ Duane Gosa, and commissions by choreographers like Myles Thatcher, Ramón Oller and Ben Needham-Wood. As the greater cultural conversation around gender goes on, Ballet22 is overturning ballet’s rules about who gets to dance, what they get to dance and how they get to dance. 

—Claudia Bauer

Christina Carminucci

Although the pandemic limited the in-person audience to just 25 people, when Christina Carminucci improvised to Thelonius Monk’s “Bemsha Swing” last summer as part of The Solidarity Series, she performed with as much energy as if inside a packed theater. There’s no doubt that everyone livestreaming the show also felt the joy she radiated while mimicking pianist Michael King’s playful licks or executing tight turns on a narrow tap board. But her unbridled glee wasn’t just a result of her rhythm-making: She had produced the event herself. It was the second iteration of The Solidarity Series, an evening of live tap dance and jazz music that Carminucci, 27, conceived during the pandemic. 

The New Jersey native has also performed with Dorrance Dance and Christopher Erk’s Tap Factor, and in Tap Family Reunion at The Joyce Theater. Her burgeoning popularity comes as no surprise to those who have seen how she comes alive when the first notes of a jazz tune begin to play, dancing with the ease and control of a mature practitioner. She’s as comfortable with a sinuous, sultry Latin groove full of heel drops as she is with a rhythm time-step sequence garnished with multiple turns. There’s always an infectious grin on her face, and after a challenging year in which she still managed to find new opportunities for producing and performing, she certainly has many reasons to keep smiling. —Ryan P. Casey

Courtney Nitting

Courtney Nitting attacks choreography with catlike quickness. In Kansas City Ballet artistic director Devon Carney’s 2021 work Sandhur, her rapid-paced turns and leaps electrified. “I love speed,” she says. “Petit allégro is my favorite, and I feel it can never be fast enough.”

The 24-year-old speed demon was born in Lafayette, New Jersey, and began her training at New Jersey School of Ballet. She then attended School of American Ballet before joining Pennsylvania Ballet II in 2017 and Kansas City Ballet a year later. “Courtney is a force to be reckoned with,” says Carney. “She has a diverse dynamic range with spectacularly fast footwork. Every time she enters the stage, she lights it up with intensity and joie de vivre.”

Having already danced featured roles in Sandhur and in William Forsythe’s In the middle, somewhat elevated, Nitting’s career, which has also included choreographing for Kansas City Ballet, is beginning to switch into high gear. —Steve Sucato 

Maxfield Haynes

Illuminating possibility comes naturally to Maxfield Haynes. The nonbinary phenom has carved out a brilliant career for themself, demolishing machismo stereotypes while blitzing across the stage in pointe shoes or heels, and playfully partnering their fellow dancers with aplomb.

Haynes learned to embrace their multifaceted identity early on and came to reject the binary gender presentations they encountered during their classical ballet training. This “do-everything” spirit helped them juggle apprenticing with Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo while studying at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. It continued to serve them well as they performed soloist roles with Complexions Contemporary Ballet—both on pointe and off—dispatched crisp batterie as the bird in Isaac Mizrahi’s Peter & the Wolf, and, this fall, made a triumphant return to the Trocks. But the Kentucky native had a true awakening this past summer as part of Ballez’s Giselle of Loneliness. Their solo blended bursts of traditionally feminine sweetness with soaring leaps, all while illustrating that dance is love—regardless of one’s race or gender presentation. —Juan Michael Porter II

Adriana Wagenveld

Grace, grit, athleticism and versatility are what garnered Adriana Wagenveld soloist roles in Trey McIntyre’s Wild Sweet Love and Alejandro Cerrudo’s Extremely Close in her first season as a full company member at Grand Rapids Ballet. They are also what have the 22-year-old on the cusp of company stardom.

Originally from Puerto Rico, Wagenveld began her dance training in Crete, Illinois. After attending Grand Rapids Ballet’s 2015 summer intensive on scholarship, she was asked to join the company as a trainee. She became a main company member in 2019. “There is a lot of emotion behind her eyes, and she takes on roles with verve and determination,” says artistic director James Sofranko.

Wagenveld has hypermobility in her joints from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which leads to exaggerated lines that she says are both a blessing and a curse. Countering that hypermobility with strength, she says, has made her project “more of a powerhouse-dancer vibe than a princess one.” —Steve Sucato

Imre and Marne van Opstal

Individually, siblings Imre and Marne van Opstal have accrued­ impressive performance resumés: Both danced with Nederlands Dans Theater 2, and Imre also performed with NDT1, Norwegian company Carte Blanche and Batsheva Dance Company. United, they’re an exciting brother–sister choreographic duo, creating work that is at once virtuosic and thought-provoking.

Having developed several works for NDT’s main stage, including Take Root (2019), which was nominated for a Dutch “Zwaan” award for most impressive dance production, it wasn’t until last year that the duo received their first commission from outside of the Netherlands. A piece about the politics of nudity created for London’s Rambert Dance Company, Eye Candy features eight dancers dressed in synthetic breastplates that make them look like Greco-Roman sculptures. Performing a mixture of fluid and rigid mechanical motions, the performers often look more akin to dolls, dummies or clones than thinking, feeling individuals, making a powerful statement about the paralyzing pressures of contemporary beauty standards.

The duo’s choreography is the perfect marriage of elements from the van Opstals’ respective performance careers: Notes of Ohad Naharin’s luscious Gaga movement language are infused with the classical lines and technical prowess for which NDT is known, all sprinkled with the siblings’ unique perspective and artistic flair. —Emily May

Arielle Smith

Whoops of joy greeted Arielle Smith’s Jolly Folly when it closed English National Ballet’s return to live performance in London last spring. The ballet bounced giddily along to classical pops remixed by a Cuban big-band, its tilting, tumbling ensemble dressed in black tie and tails. It was an absolute blast, delivering a genuine jolt of delight.

The Havana-born Smith, 25, previously honed a storyteller’s instinct under the mentorship of Matthew Bourne, who made her associate choreographer on his 2019 Romeo + Juliet. Smith’s early work has emerged with life-enhancing wit and assurance. Her voice is already distinctive—who knows how it will develop and where it will take her? She’s more than just a fistful of fun. —David Jays

Sienna Lalau

Sienna Lalau just turned 21, yet her “25 to Watch” nomination sparked some debate among the Dance Magazine editors: Did she qualify for this list of emerging talents? Was she already too…established?

Reasonable questions, given Lalau’s abundant choreographic credits. Born in Hawaii, she first earned national notice for her work with the Los Angeles–based creative arts studio The Lab, helping lead its junior team to victory on the TV show “World of Dance” in 2018. Since then, she has made internet-melting dances for Jennifer Lopez, Missy Elliott and Ciara, and become one of the K-pop world’s go-to choreographers. Her work for BTS’ “On” video, with its punk spin on the drumline, earned a 2020 MTV Video Music Award.

Lalau is also the first person you see in “On.” As gifted a mover as she is a maker, she often ends up sharing the stage or the screen with her famous collaborators, bringing a scene-stealing mixture of complete control and complete abandon to her own choreography. From both behind and in front of the camera, Lalau is shaping the look of the entertainment world. —Margaret Fuhrer

Bo Park

Bo Park is challenging the dichotomy between “masculine” and “feminine” with her hip-hop–inspired choreography. “What I experienced was that ‘female’ should be a certain way,” Park says. “I couldn’t really book jobs if I wasn’t giving ‘femininity,’ and I wanted to change that.” In 2017, she founded her own company to provide dancers with a safe space to express their authentic selves, unhindered by gender-­based­ expectations. The company’s name, SHINSA, is a play on Korean words. It means “gentleman” but also references the famous 16th-century artist Shin Saimdang, who left a lasting cultural legacy despite the restrictive gender roles of her time.

Pairing full-bodied and intricate movements with meticulous musicality, Park’s imaginative choreography resonates across diverse platforms. In 2019, SHINSA’s electrifying Mulan-themed number earned first place at the hip-hop competition ELEMENTS XIX. In 2020, its immersive production DAYDREAMERS was extended to a four-week run after selling out its first five shows. Park has also worked with pop music artists, such as LANKS and Loona, and choreographed theatrical productions, including Hideaway Circus’ 2021 show Stars Above. In every project, Park’s nuanced yet powerful choreography highlights the individuality of her performers—however they choose to express themselves. —Kristi Yeung

Ashley Green

Ashley Green was a standout dancer—and actor—throughout Whim W’Him’s all-digital 2020–21 season, her first with the company. Artistic director Olivier Wevers, who discovered her soon after her graduation from Point Park University, says her vitality is “a rare gift. She’s a creative soul, radiating joy, an extraordinary collaborator with an innate­ way of approaching movement that pulls you in.” The 23-year-old picked up a 2021 Princess Grace Award last summer, and shortly thereafter moved across the country to join Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. “Explosive, in a word,” describes Ailey artistic director Robert Battle. “She’s not trying on the movement, she’s living it. Even in a little Instagram improvisation, she jumps through the screen.” This unpretentious, passionate dancer has staying power, predicts Battle. “She’ll continue to grow.” —Gigi Berardi

Carter Williams

Ballroom phenom Carter Williams’ fluidity and striking stage presence have landed him accolades you don’t expect to see on a 19-year-old college student’s resumé. He’s already been a four-time World Latin Dance Finalist and a two-time National DanceSport Latin Dance Champion. On screen, his credits include the first two seasons of NBC’s “World of Dance” and three seasons of “America’s Got Talent.” His longtime private coach Afton Wilson says it’s not just Williams’ extreme versatility, but also his super-sensitive partnering and precision turns that make him stand out on a crowded floor. He’s racking up even more wins as a member of Utah Valley University’s dance team as he works towards a degree in marketing and aims for a professional career. With his easy, self-assured air and clean, quick moves, he already dances like a pro. —Gigi Berardi

Ilya Vidrin and Jessi Stegall

Ilya Vidrin and Jessi Stegall are experts both in the practice and theory of partnering. Vidrin has a doctorate in the ethics of care in relation to partnering; Stegall is an applied ethicist who works with performing arts organizations to facilitate healthy relationships among artists, directors and educators. The two collaborate frequently through the Partnering Lab, an applied research initiative that investigates emerging technologies of motion capture, art and public health projects, and creative pedagogies. The outcomes of this work range from the development of novel choreographic methods to writing in support of ethical practice. They also have individual careers: Vidrin was recently commissioned to create a new work for Ballet Des Moines, and Stegall’s dance film, Salty Dog, premiered at the Motion State Dance Film Series in the fall. Vidrin and Stegall’s shared, careful consideration of partnering seems apt for our COVID moment, wherein the relationship of our bodies to those around us is particularly fraught and tangible. Their work suggests that partnership is not an abstraction, but the embodiment of care performed repeatedly. —Sydney Skybetter

PARA.MAR Dance Theatre

PARA.MAR Dance Theatre bolted out of the gate fully ready to steamroll the status quo. Stephanie Martinez’s new contemporary ballet company debuted with performances of her fierce kiss. atop a red carpet in a Chicago parking lot in October 2020. With a cast of fearless dancers, the piece captured the restless angst of isolation and the languishing sensuality of pure explosive action, along with a hard to define quirky charm.

Martinez, who has created works for The Joffrey Ballet, Ballet Hispánico and Nashville Ballet, among others, formed her troupe in the midst of a pandemic when dancers desperately needed to work and the field desperately needed to diversify. With the motto “together, with, and for,” Martinez’s mission includes elevating BIPOC voices in contemporary ballet. PARA.MAR premiered works by Jennifer Archibald and Lucas Crandall in Chicago last spring and performed them at the inaugural Carmel Dance Festival last summer; next up are commissions by Robyn Mineko Williams and Keerati Jinakunwiphat, among others, along with a new work by Martinez. —Nancy Wozny

Baye & Asa

Dance duo Baye & Asa know how to land a surprise. It might be a droll little hip shimmy or a gentle moment of eye contact amid a whirlwind of propulsive, full-bodied movement. Using African forms and hip hop in an expansive view of “contemporary” dance theater, the pair’s choreography avoids falling into any predictable pattern.

Sam “Asa” Pratt and Amadi “Baye” Washington were both introduced to dance in their New York City grade school when African dance was offered as an alternative to gym class. They began collaborating professionally in 2015 in between jobs that have included touring with Akram Khan (Pratt), dancing with Gallim (Washington) and performing in Sleep No More (both).

Second Seed—a project responding to the 1915 silent film The Birth of a Nation and interrogating America’s white supremacist lineage—blossomed over six years from a duet into a group performance and, in 2020, a bone-chilling 15-minute film. The pandemic gave them time to delve even deeper into their partnership; now, their 2022 calendar includes commissions for BODYTRAFFIC, Martha Graham Dance Company and BlackLight Summit, plus a residency and a main-stage production at 92nd Street Y, a duet presented by Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, and more.

—Jennifer Stahl

Sierra Armstrong

Back in her ABT Studio Company days, Sierra Armstrong’s luxuriant lines and keen emotional intelligence piqued the interest of ballet fans. But after joining American Ballet Theatre’s main company in 2017, Armstrong had few chances to develop those gifts, tasked with a slate of ensemble parts that kept her both busy and in the background. 

When the pandemic shut down the ABT machine, Armstrong found space for self-discovery. “I was in the studio a lot by myself, dancing by myself, doing all these things by myself,” says Armstrong, now 22. “It was a lonely time, but a time where I really came into my own, too.”

Featured roles in a series of small-scale, COVID-friendly projects showcased that growth. Last February, she brought a new depth of artistry to Adriana Pierce’s Overlook, a tender pas de deux with fellow female ABT corps member Remy Young. Armstrong became a particular muse to ABT star and choreographer James Whiteside, originating a lead in his bubble-residency premiere City of Women, and taking on a principal part in his New American Romance during an outdoor performance at Rockefeller Center. Here’s hoping those opportunities will lead to more, at ABT and beyond it, as the world reopens. —Margaret Fuhrer

Brianna Mims

During her sophomore year at University of Southern California’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, Brianna Mims found herself at the intersection of dance and abolition. She was part of the JusticeLA Creative Action team, led by Cecilia Sweet-Coll and Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrice Cullors, where an installation work called “#jailbeddrop” was created in protest of an L.A. County jail expansion plan. Mims felt so passionately about the work that she decided to expand “#jailbeddrop” into a performance piece and interactive installation as her senior project—and it became a guiding light for her career, too. In the nearly five years since “#jailbeddrop” started, she’s presented it in venues across L.A. and moved the project online following lockdowns.

“I learned so much from my body about how to do abolition work, and so much around abolition informs the dances I’m making,” Mims says. She recently finished a Toulmin Fellowship with the NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts & National Sawdust Partnership, where she began developing a world-building game focused on abolition and community activation. Her other recent work includes a dance film called TriKe and Letters from the Etui, a digital platform and accompanying series of workshops that support abolitionist frameworks, from personal to political practice. —Sophie Bress

Simone Stevens

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago rarely hires from the Windy City’s freelance circuit. But former freelancer Simone Stevens made her company debut at Dance for Life last August, three years after moving to Chicago with her sights set on the company. Stevens grew up dancing in the Atlanta suburbs and began working with various choreographers in Chicago after graduating from Kennesaw State University. She has it all: flawless technique, impassioned emotional sensitivity and brazen versatility, the latter developed as she floated between wildly diverse projects. Katlin Bourgeois’­ contorted choreographic cryptograms suited her just as well as the full-throttled, jazzy style of Monique Haley, who created a feverish solo on her during a brief stint with Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre. Now, Stevens has gotten what she came for, and it’s Hubbard Street’s gain. 

—Lauren Warnecke

Darvensky Louis

Every move Darvensky Louis makes is multilayered and arresting. In Omar Román De Jesús’ Muerte Cotidiana, he breathes into a leisurely open stance, arms spreading as if yielding into the expansive feel of a sunset. Suddenly, he drops into rumba-flavored weight shifts, then spills to the floor and springs weightlessly to his feet. His legs restlessly turn in and out, hands wiping down his face and chest, torso rippling, as if simultaneously hating and enjoying the skin he’s in.

It’s this smoldering inner drive and visceral intelligence that have helped him secure roles in works by several of Atlanta’s leading contemporary dance groups, including staibdance, Fly on a Wall and Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre, within a year and a half of his graduation from Kennesaw State University.

The long-limbed, Haitian-born artist recently brought his electric blend of contemporary and hip hop to creating the dance movement for Bob Cratchit’s solo in Terminus’ Marley Was Dead, To Begin With. Terminus artistic director John Welker says Louis’ solo was so extraordinary they don’t know of anyone else who could perform it. “It was on another level,” Welker says. “It just blew us all away.” Louis is also creating his own company, Sequence One, intended to provide recent college graduates opportunities to perform and tour. —Cynthia Bond Perry

Johnathon Hart

“Naturally gifted” best describes Johnathon Hart. After being­ accepted to the Chicago High School for the Arts at age 15 with no formal dance training, he attended San Francisco Ballet School’s summer intensive on full scholarship, followed by two years full time at the school before joining BalletMet in 2020. “He is a huge talent,” says BalletMet­ artistic director Edwaard Liang of the 21-year-old. 

In Karen Wing’s 2021 Verbena, Hart coupled his enviable facility and squeaky-clean technique with a bold stage presence. He soared in leaps that devoured the space and swirled his body in artistic brushstrokes to riveting effect. While most at home in contemporary works, the versatile Hart says he is looking forward to dancing more classical roles in 2022. —Steve Sucato

Joya Jackson

Joya Jackson doesn’t hold back. She infuses each movement with texture and shading, never sparing a note of music. At only 21, Jackson has been featured in several performances that have made a big impact on recent pop culture conversations, including the music videos for Cardi B’s “Up” and Ariana Grande’s “34+35,” as well as the Savage X Fenty shows in 2020 and 2021. “In no way did I imagine that during the pandemic, I would receive the opportunities I did,” she says.

Her buzziest breakthrough came last summer, when Jackson was chosen to be Normani’s­ double, dancing alongside her in the music video for “Wild Side.” Appearing as an ensemble dancer in the rest of the video, Jackson shifted effortlessly between Sean Bankhead’s sleek, jazz-infused choreography and sharp, dynamic movement, her ability to absorb nuances while adding her own flavor making her a standout. —Lydia Murray

Darian Kane

Darian Kane hadn’t planned to choreograph. But when the pandemic hit, and Atlanta Ballet artistic director Gennadi Nedvigin called for company members to create works on fellow dancers, Kane stepped up and choreographed her first piece, Dr. Rainbow’s Infinity Mirror. She discovered what she lightly dubs an “indie-pop contemporary” style that’s worlds away from her regal classical ballet persona.

To nostalgic piano and eerie melodies reminiscent of early sci-fi movies, dancer Sujin Han appears in black tuxedo tails and rainbow toe socks—think Charlie Chaplin meets The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. With elastic développés,­ ­Han takes exaggerated strides forward and steps through an invisible frame. She whirls, leaps and moonwalks, her arms striking lines through the space around her as if painting a more vivid realm. Though light on the surface, Dr. Rainbow expresses a full range of human­ experience—especially struggles with mental health. 

Dr. Rainbow was so well received last spring that Atlanta Ballet is producing an expanded version, set for a February premiere. And Kane, now 25, has fallen in love with choreographing: “It’s the first time I’ve had a voice in my own industry.” —Cynthia Bond Perry

Mthuthuzeli November

Mthuthuzeli November is pushing the boundaries of whose stories are given a voice in ballet. Born and raised in Cape Town, he moved to the UK to join Ballet Black in 2015, creating his first piece for the company in 2016. The same year, he established M22 Movement Lab, his own choreographic platform, and devised Point of Collapse, an emotive solo performed by Precious Adams for English National Ballet’s Emerging Dancer Competition. It wasn’t until 2019, however, with the Olivier and Black British Theatre Award–winning work Ingoma, that November really started to attract international attention. 

Inspired by the paintings of South Africa’s Gerard Sekoto, Ingoma imagines the struggles of Black miners and their families in 1946, when 60,000 of them went on strike. Wearing a mix of wellies and pointe shoes, the dancers create percussive rhythms that drive the piece forward, their powerful motions poetically juxtaposed with moments of pleading, anxiety and vulnerability. Fusing ballet with African dance and singing, the work saw November develop a distinctive, gesture-filled movement language that is entirely his own. 

November has since been in increasing demand, even during the darkest days of the pandemic: He created an online version of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater for Cape Town Opera and a dance film for Northern Ballet. Ballet Black also returned to live performance in October with the premiere of his work The Waiting Game. With November’s unwavering motivation, abundant talent and timely topics, audiences shouldn’t have to wait long to see more from him. —Emily May

Genevieve Penn Nabity

National Ballet of Canada artistic staff, choreographers and fellow dancers alike heap praise on 21-year-old second soloist Genevieve Penn Nabity. “The joy she finds in movement is translated through every fiber of her being,” says choreographic associate Robert Binet, who has been casting her in his works ever since her days at Canada’s National Ballet School. Her full-bodied performance style and versatility have also been showcased in Skylar Campbell’s eponymous collective. He adds, “Her quality of movement, and ability to mold into any style thrown her way, is a constant source of inspiration.”

Penn Nabity joined NBoC as an apprentice in 2018, and was promoted to the corps de ballet and received the RBC Emerging Artist Award in 2019. Associate artistic director Christopher Stowell fast-tracked her career after seeing how she took possession of even minor roles in ballets like The Dream and The Nutcracker. “Genevieve connects movement with articulation and finesse while bringing a seamless ease to even the most challenging technical hurdles,” he says.

Penn Nabity has since danced in The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Études and, just before the lockdowns, Crystal Pite’s Angels’ Atlas. During the pandemic, she performed in the digital premiere of Binet’s The Dreamers Ever Leave You, reprising­ her role outdoors for a live audience last summer shortly after her promotion to second soloist. Next up is a new ballet by principal dancer Siphesihle November, set to debut in March. “I feel the stars have aligned,” Penn Nabity says. “Nothing is holding me back.”

—Deirdre Kelly

Header photo credits, left to right, top to bottom: Raina Brie, Courtesy Carminucci; Umi Akiyoshi, Courtesy Baye & Asa; Ray Nard Imagemaker, Courtesy Grand Rapids Ballet; Courtesy Mims; Kaylee Wong, Courtesy Green; Jennifer Zmuda, Courtesy BalletMet; Alexander Irwin, Courtesy Ballet22; Christina Massad, Courtesy Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre; Elizabeth Snell, Courtesy Kansas City Ballet; Brian Wallenberg, Courtesy Atlanta Ballet; Tom Clark, Courtesy English National Ballet; Frank Ishman, Courtesy Hubbard Street Dance Chicago; Sue Murad, Courtesy Vidrin; Todd Rosenberg, Courtesy PARA.MAR Dance Theatre; Banvoa, Courtesy Jackson; Skye Weiss, Courtesy November; Karolina Kuras, Courtesy National Ballet of Canada; Rose Lu, Courtesy Park; Chidozie Ekwensi, Courtesy Ude; Steven Vandervelden, Courtesy Haynes; Rosalie O’Connor, Courtesy Pierce; Alex DiMattia, Courtesy ABT; Rahi Rezvani, Courtesy the van Opstals; 24 Seven Dance Convention, Courtesy Williams; Joe Toreno                      

           

The post Introducing Our 2022 “25 to Watch” appeared first on Dance Magazine.

NEW YORK CITY
The 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon dramatizes the events of a bank robbery gone wrong and the ensuing police standoff. One of the men attempting this robbery was motivated by needing money to fund gender-affirming surgery for his partner, Elizabeth Eden. In WEDNESDAY, Raja Feather Kelly dismantles the film to center his relationship to Eden, interrogating the motivations and outcomes of the robbery while questioning whose identities have a place in popular culture—and whose still do not. Following pandemic delays, the feath3r theory debuts the dance theater “speculative documentary” at New York Live Arts. Dec. 1–4, 8–11. newyorklivearts.org. —Courtney Escoyne

All About Ailey

NEW YORK CITY
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater makes a triumphant return to New York City Center for its annual winter engagement. There are milestones to toast, from the 50th anniversary of Ailey’s iconic Cry—celebrated in a special program on Dec. 4 and 15—to artistic director (and 2021 Dance Magazine Award recipient) Robert Battle’s decade helming the company—marked by an evening of his own works, including a new production of Unfold, Dec. 7, 11 and 17. There’s a bittersweet departure to honor, as star performer Jamar Roberts bids farewell to the stage on Dec. 9. (He’ll continue as the company’s resident choreographer.) There are digital dance pieces to see in person for the first time—Roberts’ Holding Space and Battle’s For Four—alongside new productions and revivals of existing works. There is, in short, much to look forward to in the packed three-week season—a very fitting welcome home for Ailey. Dec. 1–19. alvinailey.org. —CE

For the Future

TV & ONLINE Oona Doherty takes the lead for this year’s iteration of Fly the Flag, an annual celebration in the UK of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Focused on teenagers living in a post-Brexit UK, a new film will give voice to their perspectives on the future, featuring dance crafted by Doherty in collaboration with crews from around the UK responding to the principle of freedom of expression. The film will debut on Sky Arts Dec. 10. flytheflag.org.uk. —CE

Something Old, Something New

MIAMI Dance NOW! Miami’s Masterpiece in Motion programs connect the company’s original repertory with history-making choreographies. Stories for the Holidays promises a fresh encounter with the restless spirit of Isadora Duncan thanks to scholar Andrea Mantell-Seidel’s restagings of the early-20th-century pioneer’s work. From Harp Étude and the cradling tenderness of Ave Maria to the defiance of Varshavianka and Dubinushka, the lineup embraces devotional solace and resolute solidarity. Three Moments in Time and Die Frauen, by founding directors Diego Salterini and Hannah Baumgarten, respectively, and Jon Lehrer’s Solstice join these Duncan offerings. Dec. 11. dancenowmiami.org. —Guillermo Perez

Dorrance and Dormeshia Reunite

NEW YORK CITY & ONLINE
It’s been 10 years since Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia (a 2021 Dance Magazine Award recipient) first collaborated to put together a program at Danspace. Now, the brilliant tap artists are teaming up again, this time at 92Y, for Michelle Dorrance, Dormeshia & Guests, a slate of tap dance that is sure to be every bit as effervescent, delightful and surprising as its hosts and curators. Tickets are available for both in-person attendance and livestream viewing. Dec. 16–17. 92y.org. —CE

The post 5 Non-Nutcracker Shows We Have Our Eyes on This December appeared first on Dance Magazine.

The post The 2021 Dance Magazine Awards Preshow appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Dance Magazine joined Saturday night’s sunset bonfire to capture some of the competitions, and asked Thunderbird director Louis Mofsie and company dancer Michael Taylor to share their insights on the place of dance within the powwow.

The powwow is a social gathering where we get together to dance and sing, to meet old friends and make new ones. Originally a Western/Great Plains tradition, it does not have any religious or ceremonial significance—our religious and ceremonial dances and songs are restricted and closed to outsiders.

Women’s fancy shawl dance Linda Dutan

An old-style traditional men’s dance Linda Dutan

The post Capturing Some of America’s Original Dances: Inside the Thunderbird American Indian Dancers’  Powwow appeared first on Dance Magazine.

From Chorus Girl to Leading Lady: Angie Schworer

Jayme Thornton

It’s the classic story—a chorus girl steps in for a star and becomes an instant leading lady. But for Angie Schworer, who starred in The Prom after 27 years on Broadway, it wasn’t quite that simple. Sure, it was a dream come true, especially since she was playing a veteran ensemble dancer named Angie waiting for a long-overdue break. But Schworer’s big moment had come 16 years earlier, when, after 16 months dancing in the ensemble and understudying Ulla in the 2001 phenomenon The Producers, she did the role in the first national tour, and then, already into her 30s, played the Scandinavian sexpot on Broadway for the musical’s last four years.

“Had I been that person saying ‘I only do roles now,’ I would have missed out on probably five more shows,” she says. Instead, she went back into the chorus—when Susan Stroman asked if she’d be a replacement in the Young Frankenstein ensemble, she said, “S-u-u-u-re. If my body can do it, I’ll do it.”

Tall and lanky, Schworer had been doing it since the age of 5, when she began classes at the Ziegler Studio of Dance in Covington, Kentucky. Her road to Broadway included theme parks and Atlantic City stage shows, and her showgirl chops—not to mention those showgirl legs—landed her an ensemble slot in The Will Rogers Follies in 1991. The body feels “creakier” now, but she credits Debbie Roshe’s jazz classes at Steps on Broadway, and regular swimming, for maintaining it. She didn’t warm up in her 20s—”I didn’t need to,” she says—but in The Prom she spent the whole intermission warming up for her big Fosse-style number. She imagines the young dancers in the company wondered why, going ” ‘Pffft—she’s barely doing anything.’ But I had to warm up to do it,” she says, “because you’re using your pelvis, you’re using your lower back.”

Much has changed over her three decades on Broadway, but one thing has stayed the same: “That joy and excitement of someone wanting you to be a part of their Broadway show.” —Sylviane Gold

Inviting More to Dance: Antoine Hunter

RJ Muna, Courtesy Hunter

“Dance saved my life,” says Antoine Hunter, who was sometimes made to feel alienated growing up Deaf in Oakland, California. But in his high-school dance class, “I realized that through dance, I could communicate.” Dance became a spiritual and artistic mission that led him to found Urban Jazz Dance Company in 2007 and the Bay Area International Deaf Dance Festival in 2013.

Now in his mid-30s, Hunter is seeing his endeavors flourish in choreographic commissions; company tours to the UK, Turkey, Russia and Africa; speaking engagements at Harvard University, the Kennedy Center and APAP; and honors like a 2019 Dance/USA Fellowship. He has helped start international Deaf dance festivals as far afield as Turkey and Hong Kong. He’s even collaborated on an invention that allows dancers to feel music through their shoes. Most satisfying of all, he says, is “teaching people how to use dance to save their own life.” —Claudia Bauer

Finding Fresh Potential in Flamenco: Olga Pericet

Olga Pericet in Pisadas. Photo by Paco Villalta, Courtesy Pericet

Although she’d long been a key collaborator in other choreographers’ works, flamenco dancer Olga Pericet didn’t see her solo career take shape until her mid-30s. “I chose a difficult career path,” she says, “slower but surer.”

At 32 she won the Pilar López Dance Prize, which opened the door to present her first solo work, Rosa, Metal, Ceniza at the Jerez Festival, where she was awarded the Revelation Artist Award at age 35. Since then, Pericet has enjoyed a whirlwind of global engagements and yearly recognition, garnering top dance prizes such as the 2018 Spanish National Dance Award. Pericet masterfully recontextualizes flamenco’s past repertoire with humor, sensitivity and skill, fueled by her boundless imagination to challenge and meet our times head-on.

Now in her mid-40s, she says that with more maturity, “I am able to love every detail of my work and appreciate the people working alongside me, free of insecurities. I have confidence in myself because I know who I am as a creator and performer.” —Bridgit Lujan

He’s Not Done: Miguel Gutierrez

Miguel Gutierrez in This Bridge Called My Ass. Photo by Ian Douglas, Courtesy Gutierrez

Ever since his 2005 Retrospective Exhibitionist/Difficult Bodies earned him critical acclaim and his first big tour, Miguel Gutierrez has been a darling of the downtown New York City dance scene. But that designation doesn’t always come with the typical trappings of success (read: broad recognition and money). For Gutierrez, those came five years later, when at ages 38 and 39, he won a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award, a United States Artists Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. (He used much of the funding to pay off credit card debt and five years of owed taxes.) His name has since become synonymous with making it big as an experimental artist, as he continues to create and tour and rake in awards—including four Bessies.

“Don’t forget about us middle-aged artists,” he says. “There’s such an emphasis on youth. Artists get to a certain spot and it feels like the field turns on them. Why should I feel like I have to clamor for relevance at this age? There’s this sense of dismissal, of ‘Oh, you had this experience and you’re done.’ I am not done.” —Lauren Wingenroth

Questioning, Yet Assured: Leslie Cuyjet

Leslie Cuyjet in A Salient Theme. Photo by Scott Shaw, Courtesy Cuyjet

Though Leslie Cuyjet has built a career out of dancing for seemingly everyone in the experimental New York dance scene—she won a Bessie Award in 2019 for her work with Jane Comfort, Juliana F. May, Niall Jones, Cynthia Oliver and Will Rawls—it’s only in the last four years that she’s felt her own choreographic career blossom.

Cuyjet considers her 2017–18 stint as a Movement Research artist in residence, begun when she was 36, as transformative. “I’d been getting little things independently, here and there,” she says, “but this was the first time an organization said, ‘We support you as an artist, and we’ll give you the resources you need.’ ” Having the space to mine questions of identity and what it means to be a Black woman—both hallmarks of her assured, character-driven work—gave her permission to fail, to experiment, to listen.

When the pandemic struck, Cuyjet, like many other artists, watched as opportunities dried up. “Everybody was faced with what artists have been facing all the time,” she says, “which is: You make something out of nothing.” She ended up creating virtual works for the EstroGenius Festival and The Kitchen. Now, The Kitchen is bringing her previously canceled show back, and she is working on a new piece for The Shed. —Rachel Rizzuto

From Dancer to Activist: Theresa Ruth Howard

Saya Hishikawa, Courtesy Howard

After retiring from a successful career dancing with Dance Theatre of Harlem and Armitage Gone! Dance, and guesting with Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Theresa Ruth Howard came into her own as an activist. It started in 2015 when she wrote a viral blog post calling for information on Black ballerinas who came before Misty Copeland. The outpouring of data organically evolved into Howard’s Memoirs of Blacks in Ballet (MoBBallet.org), which includes a “roll call” of more than 560 Black ballet dancers. Today, at 50, Howard is an in-demand diversity strategist for ballet companies dealing with issues like colorism, implicit bias and systemic racism.

She encourages dancers today to “broaden their aperture,” she says. “Your value does not hinge on a tendu; your intellect is as important as your développé.” —Nancy Wozny

Lifelong and Steady: Ryan Heffington

Courtesy Heffington

Choreography titan Ryan Heffington describes his success in the dance industry as a slow burn. When he began creating work in his mid-20s, he was embraced only by the art world. His major breakthrough didn’t come until he hit 40 and landed Sia’s “Chandelier” music video—which instantly went viral. “I’m quite thankful that happened when it did,” he says. “I felt like I put in the work and laid the foundation for this success. Now, I’m looking forward to a lifelong and steady relationship with dance.”

So far that steady relationship looks more like a passionate romance. As one of the most in-demand choreographers in Hollywood, his resumé includes two Grammy nominations; feature films, like Baby Driver; Netflix’s “The OA”; commercials for Target, Nike and Under Armour; and collaborations with Paul McCartney, Lorde, Florence + the Machine and Arcade Fire. Still, he admits to moments of doubt: “The voice that says, ‘Will I ever work again?’ is still there when I have a few months of downtime.”

One of the biggest things he’s learned with experience? The power of cultivating his own voice. “When I was younger, ‘doing me’ meant being more of an outcast,” he says. “My friends and I were more punk—creatives who gained inspiration from clubs, rock music, fashion and partying. We didn’t need money, just an outlet. Eventually, I started working more because my work was unique. Directors and clients now want ‘Heffington’ instead of re-creating something that has been done before.” —Haley Hilton

In It for the Long Haul: Pam Tanowitz

Pam Tanowitz in rehearsal at NYCB. Photo by Erin Baiano, Courtesy Tanowitz

Pam Tanowitz keeps a folder full of her rejection letters. “A thick folder,” she says. Although she began choreographing during her junior year at Ohio State University, she didn’t receive a single grant until age 40. For about 15 years, she held a day job as the studio manager at New York City Center so she could have a steady income and access to studio space while making just one new work per year. “A choreographer came to rent space once and was like, ‘Did you know there’s a choreographer with your same exact name?’ ” Tanowitz says, laughing.

Then, just before she turned 50, her intricate, technique-driven works were suddenly in demand. In 2019 alone, she got commissions from New York City Ballet and The Royal Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company and Paul Taylor American Modern Dance, and booked an international tour with her eponymous company. “Looking back, not being noticed for 15 years was a gift,” she says. “Once I realized my career path would not be that of the hot, young choreographer, I just blocked out the noise of who was getting what, and focused on making good dances.” —Jennifer Stahl

Expanding Across Borders: Rosy Simas

 Rosy Simas performs Skin(s) Uche Iroegbu, Courtesy Simas

Rosy Simas, 54, has lived, worked and danced in Minneapolis, Montreal, New York City and Santa Cruz, yet western New York state is also an area she considers home, as a Heron Clan Seneca within the six nations of the Haudenosaunee. Simas occasionally answers questions about place with stories of artist displacement: “When I was 30, I was living in Santa Cruz and running a dance studio I started. We ended up closing because of the dot-com boom that priced us out.” Later, she ended up in Montreal, drawn in by the city’s dance improvisation community. “There was no way for me to get grants, though people were generous about letting me teach and present my work,” she says.

Eighteen years passed between the sunset of her California studio and the incorporation of Rosy Simas Danse in Minnesota in 2017. In the meantime, she primarily worked as an independent choreographer and artist. In recent years, she’s focused specifically on building long-term relationships in the field, and expanding the mission of her organization beyond producing her own shows. “This is really the first time I’m doing it in a way where we’re directly supporting other artists,” she says. —Zachary Whittenburg

Arriving in One Leap: Abby Zbikowski

Abby Zbikowski teaching at Focus Records. Photo by Focus Films, Courtesy Festival Un Pas Vers l’Avant

Abby Zbikowski seemingly burst onto the contemporary dance scene in 2017 with abandoned playground, a work drenched in her signature style: aggressive, punishing somersaults and thwacked kicks that wouldn’t look out of place at a sports meet. It won her a Juried Bessie Award, and toured throughout the country. But Zbikowski had actually formed her company, Abby Z and the New Utility, five years earlier. This was just the first time people were paying attention.

Zbikowski, now 37, didn’t let that bother her. “For as many heartaches I might’ve felt at not being recognized at an earlier age, I think it helped me really create and hone this movement out of the public eye,” she says. “By the time people came to know my work, it was ripe—there had already been a lot of research, a lot of trial and error. And understanding.” —Rachel Rizzuto

Galvanizing Ballet: Jennifer Homans

NYU Photo Bureau: Hollenshead, Courtesy Homans

Little did Jennifer Homans know, in 2010, when she wrote the anguished words “I now feel sure that ballet is dying” at the end of her nearly 700-page ballet history Apollo’s Angels, what a galvanizing effect that sentence would have. Ever since, the matter has been discussed, rejected, invoked as gospel truth and used as a springboard for creation. Four years later, Homans channeled her energies into the founding of the Center for Ballet and the Arts, a think tank and artistic laboratory based at New York University that brings together writers, dancers, set designers, choreographers and scholars of all types to think, discuss and create.

Homans, 60, started out as a dancer with companies including Pacific Northwest Ballet. She retired at 26 following an injury. “When I stopped, I had a serious crisis of identity, and a couple of years of real depression,” she says. But after completing a PhD in modern European history, she found her way back to dance. “I reconciled writing and dancing through the study of history,” says Homans, who is now The New Yorker‘s dance critic. But all her activities and achievements have been driven by the same thing. “I just love dance,” she says. “It is a life force.” —Marina Harss

Never Too Late to Be a Principal: Stella Abrera

Quinn Wharton, Courtesy Kaatsbaan

It took Stella Abrera 14 years to rise from soloist to principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre, at the age of 37. But nothing really changed on the day of her promotion. For years, she had been dancing with the grace and integrity of someone who puts in the work not for accolades but for its own sake. “I knew that I had a finite number of years to enjoy this enormous gift,” she says of her five years as a principal, “and I also knew that every single time I went out onstage, I was giving my absolute best.”

After retiring from performing in 2020, she seamlessly transitioned to her new role as artistic director at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, an institution in upstate New York devoted to dance instruction, creative residencies and performances. It was her idea to create an outdoor dance festival so that her fellow dancers, sidelined for months by the pandemic, could get back to what they loved best. Her approach to leading Kaatsbaan, she says, is similar to how she danced: “I feel like I was always a good worker, and I know how to work efficiently,” she says. “I’m learning to translate those processes, which I used as a dancer, to my new role.” —Marina Harss

Finding Freedom as a Freelancer: Bijayini Satpathy

Allan Mathew, Courtesy Satpathy

Bijayini Satpathy’s dancing encompasses all the qualities of great dance: musicality, incisiveness, focus and something larger, a kind of cosmic flow. For 25 years, as a member of Nrityagram and as the director of its unique training program—which she developed—Satpathy was one of the most distinguished dancers and pedagogues of the Indian classical dance form Odissi.

But, she says, in the last two years, since setting out as a soloist and choreographer at the age of 45, she has felt empowered to apply her research on expanding the limits of the Odissi language within her own work. “I see how my body moves,” she says, “and it tells me that I have a command of this language that I have studied and performed for so many years. I know the nuances of it, and yet I move in my own way. I’m writing my own story.” —Marina Harss

Exposing the Underrepresented: Raimund Hoghe

Raimund Hoghe (downstage left) in Si je meurs laissez le balcon ouvert. Photo by Rosa Frank, Courtesy Hoghe

Based in northwest Germany, Raimund Hoghe began his professional life as a journalist. His articles brought visibility to marginalized communities; recurring subjects included sex work and the human impact of the AIDS crisis. Though as a child he appeared in plays by Brecht and Shakespeare, he was in his 30s when he began working professionally in the performing arts, as a dramaturg for Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. Only in his early 40s did Hoghe begin making his own dances, guided by advice he said came from the soprano Maria Callas: “Keep going in your own way, not with fireworks and not for easy applause, but with real feeling.”

In addition to creating and performing solos, Hoghe collaborated with artists such as Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula and Japanese dancer Takashi Ueno until his death in May, at age 72, just as the issue in which this feature originally appeared went to print. His lifelong sympathy for the underrepresented, whether on paper or onstage, stemmed in part from living with a congenital deformity of his spine he simply called a hunchback. He was always mindful about stepping into other people’s shoes and vice versa. “A solo for me is always more political than a solo for another dancer, because I can’t ask someone else to perform my political statement,” he said. —Zachary Whittenburg

The Dance Theater Whisperer: Annie-B Parson

 Andrea Messana, Courtesy Parson

Choreographer Annie-B Parson co-founded Big Dance Theater in 1991, and she’s been making clever, inventive and critically acclaimed genre-pushing work since. But about a decade ago, when Parson was in her 50s, that work was introduced to a much larger audience through collaborations with an ever-growing list of performing arts celebrities, including David Byrne (for whom she recently choreographed a Broadway-concert-turned-Spike-Lee–directed HBO special), Mikhail Baryshnikov and St. Vincent.

“Forget about your career for a good long while, and get in the studio and choreograph,” Parson suggests. “Choreography is a lot like being a pianist—you have to sit down and do your scales every day. That could be taking a walk and looking at the compositional elements around you. It might mean I look at my kitchen table and restage the salt and pepper. It’s a practice that needs to be attended to daily.” —Lauren Wingenroth

Growing Humor, Sparkle and Grit: Monica Bill Barnes

Monica Bill Barnes performing with Hunter College dancers at Fall for Dance. Photo by Paula Lobo, Courtesy Monica Bill Barnes & Company

Though Monica Bill Barnes founded her troupe, Monica Bill Barnes & Company, in 1997 and has steadily choreographed and performed ever since, the past decade has brought with it attention on a much larger scale. Touring to more than 100 cities worldwide, Barnes and her close-knit team have collaborated with luminaries including radio host Ira Glass and illustrator Maira Kalman. In 2019, Barnes made the leap to the silver screen, choreographing Greta Gerwig’s Little Women.

In line with her company’s mission to “bring dance where it doesn’t belong,” Barnes approaches each project—whether it’s working out at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or dancing to Neil Diamond at a luxury mall—with her trademark blend of humor and compassion, sparkle and grit.

“The day-in-and-day-out work that I did in my 20s was very similar to how I worked in my 30s and now my 40s,” says Barnes. “I think being in such a constant practice is the reason why I’ve really been able to understand myself as an artist.” —Chava Pearl Lansky

Making Life Into a Dance: Michelle Boulé

Audrey Hall, Courtesy Boulé

At 43, Michelle Boulé finds that one of the greatest gifts to come with age is clarity. “What really started to happen in my 30s is that I got clearer on who I am and what I want to do. I’m not living with this external notion of who I should be,” she says. “I’ve learned how to turn everything that seemed like a disappointment into an opportunity.”

Shortly after turning 30, she won a Bessie Award for her performance as James Dean in Last Meadow, a collaboration with Miguel Gutierrez. Since then, critics have hailed her as a “force of nature” in collaborations with Bebe Miller, John Jasperse, Doug Varone and Deborah Hay, among others. Meanwhile, her contemporary choreography has graced stages at Baryshnikov Arts Center, Movement Research at Judson Church, and The Chocolate Factory, and toured internationally.

Today Boulé also channels the creativity, tenacity, compassion and collaborative spirit she’s gained from her illustrious dance career into work as a life coach. “I am harvesting the gifts that my 40-year practice in dancing has given me,” she says. “How can I help other people feel like their life is dance?” —Rachel Caldwell

Capturing the Moment: Nel Shelby

Christopher Duggan, Courtesy Shelby

A sturdy braid of dance, filmmaking and entrepreneurship runs through the center of Nel Shelby’s story, from training in ballet, jazz and tap during her Colorado childhood, to studying broadcast media at Stephens College in Missouri, to her arrival at Jacob’s Pillow as a videography intern. Nel Shelby Productions opened for business in 2004; four years later, she stopped teaching Pilates part-time to focus on her company and two kids.

Today Shelby manages 40-some concurrent projects, with help from up to a dozen employees and contractors. The pandemic-inspired shifts to virtual led to greater demand than ever before. Fall for Dance, Jacob’s Pillow and Vail Dance Festival are just three of her company’s nearly 100 clients.

With movement in her bones, she’s developed a unique approach to dance documentation that can capture the moment as well as communicate at the speed of contemporary culture. “Words like ‘archivist’ and ‘documentation’ can feel dry, so it’s taken me a while to see myself as an artist,” says Shelby, now 44. “I love being in my 40s and I love having been around the dance world for a while, realizing that we all did grow up together,” she says. —Zachary Whittenburg

An Eternal Evolution: Mia Michaels

Courtesy Michaels

Today, Mia Michaels is basically a household name. But she was mostly working unnoticed until she was 32, when she founded her company, RAW, in New York City. At age 35, she was creating work for Madonna, and two years later, she earned an Emmy nomination for her work on “Celine in Las Vegas: Opening Night Live.” What has followed is a nearly two-decade boom that includes three Emmy Awards for her work on “So You Think You Can Dance”; choreographing Broadway’s Finding Neverland; directing/choreographing the 2016 New York Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes; writing a memoir; and teaching dancers around the world. At 55, she is still embracing each new opportunity.

“The ebbs and flows of a long career are real and intense,” she admits. “Jobs come and go—I’ll experience long periods without work, followed by a stretch of being double-booked. So I set my life up as a master teacher. It brings in consistent money and keeps me in the studio. I’m always working on movement for class so I don’t get stale, stuck or afraid.” —Haley Hilton

Creating What Tap—and the U.S.—Is Calling For: Dormeshia

Jayme Thornton

When a New York Times headline in 2019 proclaimed Dormeshia the “Queen of Tap” and asked “Is Her Moment Now?”, the question seemed both rhetorical and prescient. Sure, she’d appeared in the star-studded Imagine Tap!, toured the international tap festival circuit and earned a 2014 Astaire Award for Outstanding Female Dancer in After Midnight—no doubt in recognition of the Fosse-like combination of highly technical dancing and unflappable grace for which she is known. But it’s her choreographic talent that’s garnered recent acclaim. In addition to co-creating The Blues Project with

Michelle Dorrance, Derick K. Grant and Toshi Reagon, in 2016 she debuted And Still You Must Swing, which enjoyed successful runs at Jacob’s Pillow and The Joyce Theater. A tribute to Black excellence and to tap’s cultural and musical roots, it was the show that the art form itself, and the country’s sociopolitical context, had been crying out for.

Her advice for those stuck in a rut? “When tap dancers aren’t working, they need to be shedding, listening to music, building their stamina and keeping their tools nice and sharp, so when the phone rings they’re ready to go,” says Dormeshia, 45. “Your actions in the ebb will determine the flow.” —Ryan P. Casey

The Chameleon: Sonya Tayeh

Jayme Thornton

Though she became a favorite choreographer on “So You Think You Can Dance,” Sonya Tayeh doesn’t think of the show as her breakthrough. Rather, it was a cross-country leap in her mid-30s, when she moved away from her West Coast commercial career for an unknown future in New York City, after getting hired to choreograph Signature Theatre’s Kung Fu, a play about Bruce Lee.

“To be an evolved artist involves taking big chances,” she says. In the years since, Tayeh’s kept opening doors with commissions from Jacob’s Pillow, Fall for Dance and the Martha Graham Dance Company. At 42, she earned her first Broadway credit with Moulin Rouge!, and in 2020, she snagged a Best Choreography Tony nomination for the show. Earlier this year, she choreographed a digital premiere for American Ballet Theatre.

Next up, her choreography for Sing Street is Broadway bound, and she’s working on a major motion picture. “I’ve never thought, I dream of this. I want to do this,” she says. “I have a dream of having a versatile, consistent career that holds true to my artistic integrity—whatever room I’m in.” —Madeline Schrock

Crafting Singular Projects: Gesel Mason

Joe Frantz, Courtesy Mason

Over the last two decades, Gesel Mason’s power as a kinetic storyteller has ramped up with a string of strikingly original projects, including her ongoing No Boundaries: Dancing the Visions of Contemporary Black Choreographers. In this one-of-a-kind performance and web-based archive of prominent African-American choreographers’ works, Mason uses dance to explore both resilience and the ongoing history of silencing, erasure and appropriation. Last year, she was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant worth just under $100,000 to support the project.

Her most recent opus, Yes, And, poses the question, “Who would you be and what would you do (or make) if, as a Black woman, you had nothing to worry about?”

As an associate professor of dance at the University of Texas at Austin, Mason, 50, encourages her students to trust that their paths will be unique. “No one has the voice that you have,” she says. “Follow your heart, intuition and curiosity. Dancing is more than being onstage; it’s how you are in the world.” —Nancy Wozny

From Sports to Dance: Kris Lenzo

Kris Lenzo with Mei-Kuang Chen in Insomnia, Photo by Sarah Najera Tanya Schmidt, Courtesy Lenzo

Until 2003, Kris Lenzo says he only danced “once or twice a year at a party.” More an athlete, Lenzo swam and played basketball, football and softball growing up. He followed his brother into long-distance cycling, completing his first thousand-mile ride at age 16. After a work accident three years later, both of Lenzo’s legs were amputated. Within months of his recovery he was practicing with the Detroit Sparks, then a highly ranked wheelchair basketball team, and shortly after that he began wheelchair racing.

Around 2002, he asked for accessibility improvements at his daughter’s Oak Park, Illinois, preschool, also home to the Academy of Movement and Music and the dance company MOMENTA. To celebrate the completion of the building’s retrofit, Lenzo made his debut as part of a physically integrated cast that included disability dance advocate Ginger Lane. Since then, Lenzo has performed 34 works by 18 choreographers and participated in workshops with AXIS Dance Company. “I was 43 when I started performing. Most dancers are at the tail end at that point, if not finished,” says Lenzo, now 61. “I’m really grateful for it. Dance has brought me a lot of joy.” —Zachary Whittenburg

With the Diligence of a Dramaturg: Melanie George

JD Urban, Courtesy George

On the surface, it may seem like Melanie George suddenly arrived in 2020. The founder of Jazz Is… Dance Project (dedicated to raising the visibility of jazz and its roots), she’s a new associate curator at Jacob’s Pillow, an in-demand teacher, a speaker and a facilitator for digital events at such venues as Jacob’s Pillow, SummerStage NYC, the Guggenheim and more.

But according to George, 48, her rise to national prominence was a result of “strategy, diligence, hustle and determination.” She attributes her current career momentum to a confluence of events, including her former job as the full-time dance dramaturg at Lumberyard in Catskill, New York, from 2016–20 and her (spectacular) contribution to the 2020 documentary Uprooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance.

“You will have a lot of careers in dance, so have multiple visions for your life,” she tells younger artists. “If you want it, do the work.” —Nancy Wozny

Intercontinental Storyteller: Cathy Marston

Cathy Marston at Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal. Photo by Sasha Onyshchenko, Courtesy Marston

Drawn to telling stories and bringing literature to life onstage, Cathy Marston gleans inspiration from everything from Greek mythology to Ibsen to Nabokov. She created her first piece, for The Royal Ballet’s UK tour, while still dancing and barely in her 20s, and has worked continuously across Europe since, including stints as associate artist at The Royal Opera House and director of Bern Ballett.

In 2018, Marston entered a new chapter of her career, making a name for herself in the U.S. A San Francisco Ballet commission was followed by the American debut of her full-length Jane Eyre by American Ballet Theatre. Marston’s newest ballets, Mrs. Robinson for SFB and Of Mice and Men for The Joffrey Ballet, will premiere next year. Now, she will become the next director of Ballet Zurich, starting summer 2023.

“Don’t feel that you need to have achieved x, y and z by the time you’re 25,” says Marston, now in her mid-40s. “I’m so glad that didn’t happen to me. You need to allow yourself time to explore and slowly digest the things that you discover, and distill your own voice.” —Chava Pearl Lansky

Still a Muse: Jodi Melnick

Paula Court, Courtesy Melnick

From the minute she graduated SUNY Purchase, Jodi Melnick got a string of gigs with postmodern choreographers. Her stylish, nuanced dancing turned heads. She enjoyed being a catalyst to help choreographers realize their vision. Melnick remembers a moment when, working quietly one-on-one with the legendary Sara Rudner, “I understood something physically, philosophically, mentally, cerebrally, enzymically, molecularly that became mine in my body that allowed me to step into her essence—like capturing what light is,” she says. She’s also served as muse for Trisha Brown, Vicky Shick, Twyla Tharp and Susan Rethorst.

Melnick didn’t choreograph in earnest until 20 years ago, when she was 37. Now she is sought after by some of New York City’s starriest dancers. Sara Mearns, Taylor Stanley and Lloyd Knight, among others, want to soak up her mind–body process, and she’s been working collaboratively with Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener. Melnick, who teaches at Barnard College and Sarah Lawrence College, has not left her muse identity behind. “I’m proud to be called a dancer,” she says. —Wendy Perron

Multidisciplinary Late Starter: Onye Ozuzu

Onye Ozuzu and Qudus Onikeku improvise as part of danceGATHERING in Lagos. Photo by Jovan Landry, Courtesy Ozuzu

Growing up, Onye Ozuzu would dance in the living room with her father, a behavioral psychologist and Nigerian civil war survivor who loved music. She also remembers hearing him say, ” ‘You have a chance to get an education that can guarantee income. Don’t throw that away on dance lessons,’ ” she says. “My dad did give us tennis lessons. ‘If you’re that much of a talent at something physical, you’ll be able to win Wimbledon.’ “

Free to choose her own classes at Florida State University, Ozuzu caught up in dance quickly thanks to Darrell Jones and Trebien Pollard, her castmates in works by Nia Love, then a graduate student. “I didn’t decide I was going to be a dancer until I was 20,” she says. “I was majoring in English literature and economics and setting myself up to become a lawyer.” Ozuzu, now 50, has been active in academia ever since, in leadership at Columbia College Chicago and the University of Colorado Boulder prior to her current role as dean at the University of Florida College of the Arts. All the while, she’s advanced her multidisciplinary creative career, convening collaborators from practices as diverse as urban farming and woodworking.

“I don’t think of myself as a ‘late bloomer’ so much as I was a late starter, so I focused on influences like Les Ballets Africains, where it’s very clearly women in their 40s dancing the lead roles,” says Ozuzu. “Those images helped reorient me.” —Zachary Whittenburg

Raising Latina, Chicana and Indigenous Voices: Vanessa Sanchez

Kelly Whalen, Courtesy KQED Arts

Shortly before turning 30, Vanessa Sanchez founded her San Francisco–based ensemble, La Mezcla, as a platform for the voices of Latina, Chicana and Indigenous women and youth. In 2019, the Chicana-Native percussive artist—whose main forms include tap, traditional Mexican Zapateado Jarocho, and Afro-Caribbean traditions from Brazil and Cuba—won both a Dance/USA Artist fellowship and an Isadora Duncan Award.

But her national profile skyrocketed the following year when the Bay Area public media outlet KQED highlighted the company in its “If Cities Could Dance” series, with excerpts of Pachuquísmo, Sanchez’s signature work chronicling women of the 1940’s Zoot Suit era. Since then, the gigs keep coming, including livestreams from The Joyce Theater and Lincoln Center’s virtual #ConcertsForKids. Most recently, a 2020 Hewlett 50 Arts Commission grant helped fund her new work, Ghostly Labor, which explores the exploitation of female labor in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.

Her advice? “Learn, research and train with the long game in mind,” says Sanchez, 36. “Never let society tell you how to express yourself. Never stop being a student.” —Nancy Wozny

Never Not Expanding: Camille A. Brown

Whitney Browne, Courtesy LSG Public Relations

Camille A. Brown’s career is like its own universe, steadily expanding. A year after joining Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence, she began choreographing for an ever-growing list of companies and, in 2006, she started her own. Ten years ago, she branched out into theater and opera. Mainstream recognition came with her choreography for Broadway’s Once On This Island, and recently she’s also picked up film credits.

It may seem like a swift progression, but “to me,” says Brown, “it was a 20-year climb.” Now 41, she’s about to become the Metropolitan Opera’s first Black director to create a main-stage production, Fire Shut Up in My Bones, and is slated to be the first Black woman to direct and choreograph on Broadway, with the revival of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf.

“People don’t see defeat; they just see the successes,” she says. “The same day that Once On This Island was announced, I got a call from another theater saying they weren’t going to move forward with me on a show because I didn’t have enough musical experience. In the ‘nos,’ I go through my hurt, but then I have to look ahead and see ‘Well, what opportunity does this provide?’ Because you’re released to do something else.” —Madeline Schrock

Creating With a Reason: Kenny Ortega

Kenny Ortega (right) on set. Photo by Kailey Schwerman, Courtesy Netflix

Kenny Ortega attributes much of his career to a night in his mid-20s spent on the dance floor of a club in San Francisco, where he was discovered by the art-punk band The Tubes. The group invited him to choreograph their shows for the next 10 years, and his work caught the eye of artists like Madonna, Cher, Bette Midler and The Pointer Sisters. In his mid-30s, Ortega capitalized on these connections with seemingly endless national and world tours. He booked the 1980 roller-skating movie Xanadu, where Gene Kelly mentored him in creating movement for the screen. That’s where he found his sweet spot, choreographing some of the most iconic dance movie scenes of all time: the “Twist and Shout” sequence from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off; “Try a Little Tenderness,” from Pretty in Pink; and “The Time of My Life,” from Dirty Dancing. He’s choreographed for Michael Jackson, the Super Bowl, the Olympics and the Academy Awards. He directed a 2006 Disney TV movie which would eventually become the mammoth High School Musical franchise. In 2019, at 69 years old, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

“The first night I had dinner with Gene Kelly, he asked me, ‘What is your raison d’être?’—my reason for being,” Ortega remembers. “I had to think about it really hard and long. From then on, I made sure there was something significant about opportunities that made them worth getting up every day and putting my all in. With that came the success.” —Haley Hilton

The post 30 Over 30: Dance Pros Who Prove Success Can Happen at Any Age appeared first on Dance Magazine.

The 2021 Dance Teacher Awards will take place virtually on Wednesday, October 6, at 6 pm Eastern/3 pm Pacific. Tickets are $25. All net proceeds from ticket sales for this year’s event will go to fund the Dance Teacher Scholarship at MOVE|NYC. Register here.

Ahead of the ceremony, get to know the 2021 Dance Teacher Award recipients:

Eva Encinias

Antoine Hunter

Karisma Jay

Dr. Nyama McCarthy-Brown

Dr. Doug Risner

Alice Teirstein

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar

Register here
for the 2021 Dance Teacher Awards, taking place Wednesday, October 6, at 6 pm Eastern/3 pm Pacific. The awards will premiere on YouTube. You will receive a link to the event one hour in advance of show time.

Header photo credits, clockwise from top left: Courtesy Risner; Christopher Summers, Courtesy McCarthy-Brown; Courtesy Young Dancemakers Company; Courtesy AbunDance Academy of the Arts; Kyle Froman; Gregg Segal, Courtesy Hunter; Douglas Kent Hall, Courtesy National Institute of Flamenco

The post Celebrate the 2021 Dance Teacher Awards! appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Updated 12/20/2021

New York City Ballet star Tiler Peck is unstoppable, whether she’s performing, choreographing or teaching class. Now you can have a chance to learn from Peck directly, and then join her for an exclusive conversation.

We are thrilled to present Dance Media Live! with Tiler Peck, a virtual master class series streamed live on Zoom from the historic studios at New York City Center. In each hour-long session, Peck will tackle a subject like turns, injury prevention, musicality and speed, or a variation, teaching combinations, choreography and exercises to help you improve. Every class will end with an interactive Q&A, allowing students to ask Peck all of their burning questions.

Classes will take place on Zoom, offering opportunities for personal feedback and corrections. The lineup includes:

Variation from William Forsythe’s The Barre Project: April 16, 10:30 am Eastern/7:30 am Pacific
Learn excerpts from William Forsythe’s The Barre Project, recently performed for live audiences for the first time ever at New York City Center as part of Peck’s inaugural presentation of “Artists at the Center.”  (The Barre Project was financed by Forsythe and CLI Studios.)

The class costs $100. All proceeds will go to Ballet Tech: The NYC Public School for Dance. To register, click here.

The post Take Our Master Classes With Tiler Peck on Dance Media Live! appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Hello, Goodbye

NEW YORK CITY
Back onstage in its home theater at last, New York City Ballet premieres new works by contemporary dance darlings Sidra Bell and Andrea Miller at the Fall Fashion Gala Sept. 30, with repeat performances Oct. 1–3, 6 and 12. But it’s also a season of goodbyes: Abi Stafford gives her final bow Sept. 26, then fellow principals Lauren Lovette and Ask La Cour on Oct. 9. Veteran star Maria Kowroski—the last dancer currently in the company to have worked with Jerome Robbins—follows on Oct. 17. nycballet.com. —Courtney Escoyne

Vivid Versatility

LOS ANGELES
Versa-Style Dance Company brings its high-octane blend of hip-hop and Afro-Latin styles to The Ford as the troupe premieres its latest work. Largely improvised, Freemind Freestyle draws inspiration from battling while exploring freedom—both what restricts it and what allows it to flourish. Oct. 1. theford.com. —CE

Hear Them Roar

NEW YORK CITY AND ONLINE
Women Defining Butoh, a series from New York Butoh Institute, pays homage to the women pioneers of the form Oct. 1–30. The series kicks off with virtual performances from early practitioners Natsu Nakajima, Saga Kobayashi, Hiroko Tamano, Yumiko Yoshioka, Minako Seki and Yuko Kaseki, continues with Eugenia Vargas, Cristal Sabbagh, Joan Laage/Kogut Butoh, DAIPANbutoh Collective and Anzu Furukawa, and builds to in-person shows from Vangeline at Brooklyn’s Triskelion Arts Oct. 27–30. Digital and in-person master classes will take place throughout the month. vangeline.com. —CE

Beyond Borders

NEW YORK CITY
Poets, filmmakers, musicians, visual artists and, yes, dancers come together at Judson Memorial Church for Movement Without Borders, a day of performance celebrating four organizations dedicated to humanizing the U.S. immigration system. Dance artists scheduled to perform include Ernesto Breton (in a work by Rudy Perez), Francisco Cordova, Edivaldo Ernesto, Francesca Harper, Horacio Macuacua, Jimena Paz, Shamel Pitts and Mariana Valencia. Oct. 2. movementwithoutborders.com. —CE

Back At It In The Bay

SAN FRANCISCO

ODC Theater welcomes back live audiences with a head-turning slate of shows. The season kicks off on Oct. 2 with the premiere of Funsch Dance Experience’s 12-hour EPOCH, a defiance of Doris Humphrey’s “all dances are too long” edict. Kathak troupe Chitresh Das Institute premieres Mantram, exploring resonance and connection, Oct. 15–17. Kinetech Arts debuts Passage, a multimedia, immersive performance work that explores the relationship between entropy and time, Oct. 23–24. Physical theater company inkBoat premieres Ann Carlson’s These Are the Ones We Fell Among, Nov. 5–7, taking audiences from circuses to alternate universes in a work inspired by the behavior, movement and mythology of elephants. Virtual productions from Amy Seiwert’s Imagery (SKETCH 11: Interrupted, featuring new works by Seiwert and Ben Needham-Wood, Oct. 22–24) and RAWdance (premiering a film version of Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein’s Shadow (part 1) alongside Katerina Wong’s The Healer, Oct. 29–30) will join simulcasts of many of the in-person performances online. odc.dance. —CE

Gwen Gets Her Due

NEW YORK CITY 

Fall for Dance, New York City Center’s annual grab bag of a dance festival, has a knack for piquing dance lovers’ curiosity. One titillating treat on the table: a trio of made-for-television dances originally performed by Gwen Verdon, now being taken on by New York City Ballet soloist and Broadway vet Georgina Pazcoguin, as reconstructed by Linda Haberman. While the dances were ori­ginally credited to Bob Fosse, Fosse’s and Verdon’s daughter, Nicole Fosse, believes them to have been actually choreographed by Verdon herself, with assistance from Fosse, and has dubbed the collection Sweet Gwen Suite, in her mother’s honor. nycitycenter.org. —CE

The Politics of Dancing

PITTSBURGH
In the other shoe, veteran dancemaker Beth Corning and noted actor/director Kay Cummings take a deep dive into political and social commentary. “It is one of the most puzzle-pieced works I have ever done,” Corning says. Both deliver incisive monologues on the turbulent state of current events, paired with solos for Corning by award-winning choreographers Donald Byrd, Martha Clarke, Li Chiao-Ping and Max Stone, in this humor-tinged, thought-provoking dance theater work. Oct. 20–24. corningworks.org. —Steve Sucato

The post The Performances We're Penciling Into Our Calendars Over the Next Month appeared first on Dance Magazine.

A ceremony to recognize this year’s honorees will be held in New York City at Works & Process at the Guggenheim and simultaneously livestreamed at 7:30 pm Eastern on Monday, December 6, with performances and presentations for each recipient. For ticket information, visit dancemediafoundation.org.

Here are the artists we’re celebrating this year.

The post Announcing the 2021 Dance Magazine Award Honorees appeared first on Dance Magazine.

But your dance training doesn’t have to be completely virtual or completely in person. In fact, finding the sweet spot between in-studio and online training could be exactly what takes your dancing to the next level.

Here are five reasons online dance training should stay in your tool kit post-pandemic.

The post 5 Reasons to Keep Taking Online Dance Classes Post-Pandemic appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Who Was It For?

RJ Muna, Courtesy Joe Goode Performance Group

Are you ready to revisit the Summer of Love? With Time of Change, the Joe Goode Performance Group takes over San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, known as the birthplace of the 1960s counterculture movement, with site-specific pop-up moments of song, monologue and goosebump-raising movement, all laced with Goode’s signature sense of humor. But don’t expect to land in a hippie flower-child nirvana. With the help of collaborators and community, Goode delves into the iconic neighborhood’s racial history by asking, “Who was the dream for? Was it just for middle-class white kids like myself?” One thing you can expect is stunning aerial work at the Doolan-Larson Residence, as directed by BANDALOOP’s Melecio Estrella, as well as contributions from queer Black choreographic duo OYSTERKNIFE, featuring Chibueze Crouch and Gabriel Christian. Sept. 1–12. joegoode.org. —Karen Hildebrand

A Pandemic Partnership Blossoms

Keda Sharber, Images by Papillon, Courtesy Collymore

With their crisp and leggy finesse, Kayla Collymore and Donna Crump possess a sizzling kinetic rapport. Collymore, who’s performed with Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, and Crump, director of Good Dance Since 1984, move as if they have been performing together for decades, but they actually met during the pandemic. Their first digital collaboration, Gend[H]er at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, examined what it would mean to bring divine femininity to a world dominated by masculine energy. It proved a rousing success, and audiences will finally be able to witness their creative chemistry in person when the duo premieres the live version of Gend[H]er along with a new work on Sept. 17 in Houston at Ronin 2, followed by a Sept. 25 performance at First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans. linearfunction.net. —Nancy Wozny

Bringing History Back to Life

Courtesy Audrey Ross

Denishawn, the company founded in 1914 by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, might seem relegated to the annals of dance history. But this fall, producer Audrey Ross breathes new life into some of St. Denis and Shawn’s groundbreaking works. Modern Dance 101 is the first major reconstruction of Denishawn repertoire since Jane Sherman, the last living member of the original company, passed away in 2010. These rarely seen dances will be performed by a roster of distinguished artists, including former Martha Graham Dance Company principals PeiJu Chien-Pott and Christine Dakin, for­mer New York City Ballet and Bolshoi star Valentina Kozlova, former Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane
Company standout Arthur Aviles, and the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble. Sept. 30–Oct. 3 at New York City’s Theatre at St. Jean’s.
audreyrosspublicity.com. —Chava Pearl Lansky

When Inspiration Strikes

Tobin Del Cuore, Courtesy Lar Lubovitch Dance Company

Dancing Directors

Stephane Tasse, Courtesy Barbeito

Los Angeles dance maven Lillian Barbeito continues to put older dancers front and center. For the second iteration of the Wisdom Project, which honors dancers ages “40 or better” and combats ageism in the field, she’s commissioned a new work from Clémentine Deluy, a muse of both Pina Bausch and Sasha Waltz. Barbeito will be performing along with Stephanie Martinez of PARA.MAR Dance Theatre; Alex Ketley, director of The Foundry; Cheryl Mann, a former dancer with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and owner of Cheryl Mann Productions; Jennifer McQuiston Lott, on faculty at the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance; former Hubbard Street and Nederlands Dans Theater leader Jim Vincent; and others. It will premiere at California’s Hidden Valley Institute of the Arts, Nov. 20, as part of Barbeito’s newly formed Carmel Dance Festival. carmeldancefestival.org. —Nancy Wozny

Centering Black Ballet Dancers

Rachel Neville, Courtesy Kennedy Center

“It’s time to normalize the conversation about the Black ballet dancer in the field,”
Denise Saunders Thompson, president and CEO of the International Association of
Blacks in Dance, declares. She and Theresa Ruth Howard, founder of Memoirs of Blacks in Ballet, are co-curating the Kennedy Center’s Reframing the Narrative, a week of programming centering Black ballet artists. The nation’s performing arts center will present programs featuring Dance Theatre of Harlem alongside two companies co-founded by DTH alums: Memphis’ Collage Dance Collective, led by artistic director Kevin Thomas, and Atlanta’s Ballethnic, co-directed by alum Nena Gilreath and Waverly T. Lucas II.

While the events of summer 2020 served as a catalyst for Reframing the Narrative, Kennedy Center director of dance programming Jane Rabinovitz says addressing racial equity in ballet has long been on her mind. She hopes Reframing the Narrative will spur future performances that focus on Black ballet dancers, choreographers and companies. As Saunders Thompson says, “This is a step in the right direction.” June 14–19. kennedy-center.org. —Lisa Traiger

The post 2021–22 Season Preview: The Shows We Can't Wait to See appeared first on Dance Magazine.

The post Learn a Piece of Choreography from Cover Star Rauf "RubberLegz" Yasit appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Twenty-six artists participated, drawing, writing, collaging and/or painting submissions. Some are based on actual scores or artifacts from previous works; some are road maps to new projects; others are notes for pieces that were interrupted by COVID-19. Each is available for purchase as a limited-edition fine-art print, with sales benefitting the choreographers themselves and funding future live dance performances at CAP UCLA.

“I was beginning to organize my archival materials early in the pandemic, and this one paper landed on my floor. It was a sketch from the ’80s, of a very early work I made at PS 122 called Friends. Looking back, I came out as a lesbian shortly after that work—from my perspective, it kind of marks that, though I don’t think you’d look at the work and go, ‘Oh, a coming-out piece.’ The black lines were the spatial illustration of where the 15 performers went, what their options were. All the women—a wide net of friends I’d brought together to do this piece—had their toes on it at the start, then moved out from there.

“At the same time, I started thinking about my own footprint, and how it was somehow also like standing on an edge, this precipice, while sheltering in place in L.A. So I got some gold paint for the bottom of my foot.” —Ann Carlson, interdisciplinary artist

“I don’t make scores like this. I’ve never had a drawing practice. I’ve never had a writing practice. Dance has been it. Then I stopped dancing, and that felt incredibly intense. The lines in the middle, those two rings, say, ‘My last dance is the last dance I will ever make. This dance is the last dance I will ever make.’ It’s very much what I was feeling. The spokes are from a project I’d started in January 2020 in India with Kapila Venu that was supposed to be a two-year process, and then it just ended. They’re snippets, timings, directions, notes, selections of our three and a half weeks together. It holds that piece. It holds us. Maybe this is our duet. I hope it’s not going to be the only artifact of it, but right now, it is.” —Wally Cardona, contemporary choreographer

“I considered a score as a set of directions, or what to do. And so the set of directions I made are trying to tell people to get moving. The step is just something I made in my living room that felt good to do to a lot of different pieces of music. It probably would be described as a ‘line dance.’

“When I think about work that’s collaborative, it’s always in a move-y or sounds-y kind of way. There’s nothing that moves or makes sounds about a print. I also just have the most horrid visual art skills. But I was hoping someone would hang this on their wall someday—specifically a pediatrician, or someone who works with kids. So I enlisted Isabela Dos Santos as an animator and illustrator. I said, ‘Here’s what I’m thinking,’ and she kind of went to town with it, drawing lots of footsteps.” —Caleb Teicher, tap and Lindy hop choreographer

“You know when you’re looking at the dance in a two-dimensional form from an overhead point of view—which is what the score is—there’s no time element, so you’re seeing everything kind of in a flash. I’m able to see options that I wouldn’t necessarily see in rehearsal with the dancers. It’s another way of looking at the piece, and thinking about the piece.” —Lucinda Childs, postmodern choreographer

“I spend a lot of time drawing what I imagine could happen, which in most instances is all wrong because I can’t understand what the forces or the acceleration or the power that gets generated with centripetal force, etc., might be.

“Once I get a few hunks of action together, I draw them out and try to eliminate the things that I’m not going to spend rehearsal time trying. ‘Cause I have a sense that they are probably going to be not interesting, not cogent. My company members get the drawings and they can read some of them.” —Elizabeth Streb, founder of STREB Extreme Action

“I was so self-conscious about making a score. And whenever I feel that way, like, ‘Oh, my god, I’m not capable or skilled or prepared for this,’ I go back to vulnerability. And I think, ‘Okay, the deeper I dig, the more sincere the expression will feel.’

“My creative mind went to working with these two women, Leah Verier-Dunn and Loren Davidson, who are collaborators and dear friends. I ripped out those two pages from a journal for a process that’s coming up. I’m one of three sisters, and we all wore that same Communion veil. So I felt like, you know, me and my two sisters, and these two women—it felt related in some way. I saw this as texture and color and memory and personal history and cultural history, which are such a major part of how I process and create work. I thought of this veil as sort of the place where these ideas live.” —Rosie Herrera, dance theater choreographer

The post When Dance Scores Become Fine Art Prints appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Jennifer Stahl, Content Director & Editor In Chief

Jennifer Stahl is Dance Magazine‘s editor in chief. A former senior editor of Pointe, she has also written for The Atlantic, Runner’s World and other publications. She holds a BFA in dance and journalism from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she danced work by such choreographers as Karole Armitage and David Dorfman. As a dancer, she’s performed for California’s Peninsula Ballet Theatre, Israeli choreographer Gali Hod and Cirque du Soleil’s 25th-anniversary celebration. She has also served as a judge for Youth America Grand Prix, the Capezio A.C.E. Awards, the Future Dance Festival, on the panel of the New York City Dance Alliance Foundation and as an adjudicator for the American College Dance Association. She has spoken at such events as the Women in Dance Leadership Conference, and has been honored for her work championing diversity in dance by A.I.M. Contact her at: jstahl@dancemedia.com

Raymond Mingst, Vice President/Creative Director

Raymond Mingst discovered his earliest dance inspiration in print in the photographs of Barbara Morgan, specifically her collaborations with Martha Graham. As an art and creative director he has been recognized with numerous awards. Raymond is an interdisciplinary artist, curator and cofounder of the contemporary art gallery Curious Matter. Contact him at: rmingst@dancemedia.com

Madeline Schrock, Senior Managing Editor

A native of Floyds Knobs, Indiana, Madeline Schrock studied ballet at Southern Indiana School for the Arts and was later introduced to modern dance by Bill Evans. While completing her BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography at Ohio University’s Honors Tutorial College, she was cast in a historical reconstruction of Alwin Nikolais’ Noumenon celebrating the 100th anniversary of his birth. As an avid dance videographer and editor, she has worked on video projects for Bates Dance Festival and the Regina Klenjoski Dance Company in Southern California. She later served as a marketing and education manager for Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. She is currently Dance Media’s senior managing editor. Contact her at: mschrock@dancemedia.com

Courtney Escoyne, Senior Editor

A native of Lafayette, Louisiana, Courtney Escoyne danced with Lafayette Ballet Theatre before matriculating to New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she graduated with a BFA in dance. She has performed in works by Karole Armitage, Netta Yerushalmy, Septime Webre, Vita Osojnik, Cherylyn Lavagnino, Giada Ferrone and Fairul Zahid, among others. She continues to take class, create and perform in the city. Contact her at: cescoyne@dancemedia.com

Nyamekye Smith, Assistant Editor

Nyamekye Smith is an assistant editor at Dance Magazine. She competed on school dance teams from middle school through college, dabbling in styles from hip hop and jazz to modern and contemporary. She graduated from Florida Atlantic University, where she majored in communications, and was one of the first students in the history of the college to minor in dance. Contact her at: nsmith@dancemedia.com.

The post Meet The Editors appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Join Dance Magazine cover star Angie Schworer for a free master class on “Zazz,” her knockout number from the Broadway musical The Prom. Hear first-hand about what went into its creation, try out the number’s signature Fosse-style moves, and even learn some of the lyrics to sing along with Schworer at home.

All levels are welcome—no experience is necessary.

Register to join us on Monday, July 26, at 4 pm Eastern here. As she sings in the show, “there’s no contest for a girl” (or anyone) “who has some zazzmatazz.”

The post Take Our Free Master Class on "Zazz" With Cover Star Angie Schworer appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Join Dance Magazine cover star Angie Schworer for a free master class on “Zazz,” her knockout number from the Broadway musical The Prom. Hear first-hand about what went into its creation, try out the number’s signature Fosse-style moves, and even learn some of the lyrics to sing along with Schworer at home.

All levels are welcome—no experience is necessary.

Register to join us on Monday, July 26, at 4 pm Eastern here. As she sings in the show, “there’s no contest for a girl” (or anyone) “who has some zazzmatazz.”

The post Take Our Free Master Class on "Zazz" With Cover Star Angie Schworer appeared first on Dance Magazine.

INSIDE LOOK: misty copeland + dada masilo/changing narratives in dance was curated and produced by The Music Center exclusively for premiere by Dance Magazine. You can save your spot to watch it for free on May 6, at 8 pm Eastern here.

With the artists themselves acting as the interviewers, asking each other questions based on their personal experiences, the two compare their schedules and struggles, and the differences in their journeys as Black women in dance in the U.S. versus South Africa. They share vulnerable insights on stage fright and how that’s evolved unexpectedly with age. Most of all, they talk about their love for ballet, particularly the classics.

Clips of performances and rehearsals are interspersed with footage of their video chat—including glimpses of each performing their very different versions of Swan Lake and Giselle.

We hope you’ll join us.

Update: You can now watch this program at
musiccenter.org.

The post Join Us to Watch Misty Copeland Chat With Dada Masilo appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Your go-to guide for resources across the field has arrived: The 2021–22 Dance Annual Directory is now available. Categories include dance companies, education, events, artist development, resources and service providers, merchandise, and studio and stage equipment.

If you’d like to add your company to the guide, email Amy Jones at ajones@dancemedia.com.

The post The 2021-22 Dance Annual Directory Is Now Available appeared first on Dance Magazine.

As a bonus: The event will also include a short show-and-tell with Roberts sharing his artistic inspirations and other artistic works he keeps in his home. From jazz music to drawing to fashion design, Roberts’ interests and influences are wide-ranging, and sure to surprise and delight.

Register to join us and submit your questions for Roberts here. This event is sponsored by New World School of the Arts.

The post Join Dance Magazine for an "Ask Me Anything" With June Cover Star Jamar Roberts appeared first on Dance Magazine.