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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Have you ever seen Bronislava Nijinska’s Les Noces?

It was on my radar as a moment of dance history, but I hadn’t seen the ballet. I spent a lot of time at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts catching up. Thankfully, Lynn Garafola came out with her Bible-sized Nijinska book, La Nijinska: Choreographer of the Modern.

Les Noces is a dark story: a forced wedding that puts an end to the bride’s innocence.

Marriage is a vast and complex issue, but it didn’t translate as a choreographic impetus for me. I had to let it go and say, “What if I just listen to this music; what does it stir in me?” As I was doing my research, I learned that Stravinsky had actually written some of Les Noces prior to TheRite of Spring. In both, the mass ritual is brutal, but it’s also part of a perspective on survival. So I started seeing a link between the two ballets. I thought, Wouldn’t it be interesting if this piece took off from where The Rite of Spring ended? What happened right after the Chosen One is killed and everyone’s facing the reality of what happened? How are they going to swallow that? What if this ritual looks less like a ritual and more like murder? 

Is this your first time working with Stravinsky’s music?

Yes. It’s very challenging for me because I come from a Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman background—that’s my main training prior to Juilliard. Stravinsky’s music started pulling out of me some very modernist movement from the 1930s, and the same kind of relationship to the music that I know from my Humphrey training: This sound is strong and I make a strong arm with the sound. Then it goes low and I drop to the floor. I have it so deep in my system! It was confusing. I value and love where I come from, but I also want to find who I am today inside that music.

What have you learned from working with other ballet companies that you can take with you into ENB?

I learned a lot about the hierarchy system. That’s a real dynamic in ballet that is not so explicit in modern dance, where I think everyone’s available for the idea that people are going to shine at different times. That was a wild learning curve. 

What are some of the challenges when you work with another company? 

I find it a little scary. Their training doesn’t necessarily prepare them for my rehearsals, and there is so little time for them to absorb my way of working. So I worry about injuries. A lot of it is playful and fun, and a lot of it is pressured and nerve-racking. I find their technique and virtuosity delicious. We all sometimes have a little bit of crisis moments. Sometimes I can’t see myself entirely in the work and have to remember that I’m transitioning to a new language—we’re making a third language together. 

Do you give them sessions to get them used to your approach?

I always struggle with that because I think it’s a valuable use of time, but at the same time I have to make an epic ballet in three weeks! Actually, ENB dancers are well prepared in terms of their experience and perspective. They’re available to try new things, to expose themselves to other kinds of movement challenges. 

Can you point to anything specific that they have to get used to in order to do your work?

There’s a lot of sequencing of the body. Sequencing gets so ingrained when you train primarily in ballet. That repatterning is a big challenge. Sometimes they can feel like the movement is “out of control.” I’m not asking them to be thrashy and wild; the movements are still really designed and intentional. But for them, I think it feels like wildness or abandonment. Maybe we aren’t letting go at all; we’re just holding and shifting tension in a new way. Softness could be confused with letting everything go. So it takes some time to become fluent in these new shades of experience and expression in the body.

It’s been 100 years since Nijinska made Les Noces. Do you feel any responsibility to that timeline?

Nijinska was such an unsung hero of dance. Reading Lynn’s book, I saw how she constantly struggled to get support and get her art seen. It breaks my heart because she clearly was a master in her field. I guess there’s a responsibility to not mess this up, and also to see that there’s more modern dance choreographers and women getting these kinds of opportunities. 

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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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National Ballet of Canada

Entering: Hope Muir

“If you ask any choreographer or friend I’ve known for years, they all say I’ve wanted to be an artistic director since I was 5 years old,” says Toronto native Hope Muir, age 51. And now she is, having begun her tenure as artistic director of NBoC in January 2022. Even after five years as artistic director of Charlotte Ballet and two years as assistant artistic director for the Scottish Ballet, Muir harbored self-doubts during her all-Zoom interviews for the role at NBoC. “I think like a lot of women working in dance at this level, there is a bit of the imposter syndrome—you can’t quite believe it when it happens to you,” she says. “But I’ve learned to really trust my experience and the work that I put into doing this job.”

Muir absorbed directing skills from those she worked with: Peter Schaufuss’ “tenacity and pioneering spirit” at English National Ballet; Christopher Bruce’s leadership, creativity and curatorial abracadabra at Rambert; and Christopher Hampson at the Scottish Ballet, who taught her “about the nuts and bolts of the job.”

Muir views NBoC as a hybrid company that balances classical and contemporary work that mirrors her eclectic dance career. In contemporary choreographers she looks for diverse, distinct voices with a “clarity of choreographic language,” similar to those she has engaged: David Dawson, Rena Butler and Alonzo King. She plans to continue longtime relationships with choreographers Helen Pickett, Christian Spuck, Crystal Pite and Dawson and to promote young Canadian talents, such as Ethan Colangelo and Emma Portner, and the company’s Choreographic Associates.

Recognizing the classics as essential to the company’s legacy, Muir feels a responsibility to stage both traditional and unconventionally original versions. Reaching out to new communities is vital, as is telling new stories, connecting digitally with younger people and continuing online engagement. Muir is drawn to dancers with musicality and stylistic diversity, those who are “brave in showing themselves onstage.”

The pandemic took a toll, but Muir is building NBoC back by hiring 15 new corps de ballet dancers and seven musicians. “We need to get back up to our fighting weight,” she says.

Directing NBoC, she says, is “a dream job. Everyone asks me how it’s going—I love it, I love coming to work every single day, love my dancers. This is just the best job in the world. I couldn’t be happier.”

Exiting: Karen Kain

Became artistic director of NBoC in 2005 and stepped down in 2021. Kain started her dance career with NBoC in 1969 and retired in 1997.

Proudest Accomplishments: Returning the company to the international stage, working with the very best Canadian and international choreographers and attracting top-notch dancers.

Most Challenging Aspect of the Job: “With so much time consumed by fundraising and planning, there are less opportunities to be in the studio,” says Kain. “You must balance what you want to do artistically with the reality of the financial pressures.” Although the pandemic delayed her retirement, NBoC presented its first digital season and continued to pay the dancers and staff through the support of donors and the Canadian government.

Regrets: None.

On Hope Muir as the New Director: “I could not be handing the reins to a more talented and capable leader,” says Kain. “I’m excited to see the new choreographic voices being introduced to the company.”

American Ballet Theatre

Entering: Susan Jaffe

“I love this company,” says Susan Jaffe, of ABT. “It’s really my home and I’ve been there for half my life.” Jaffe has experience in most facets of the company: She danced there for 22 years, 19 as a principal dancer, then served as an advisor to the board, taught in ABT’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School and worked as director of repertoire for two years. Jaffe was dean of dance at University of North Carolina School of the Arts until 2020, when she was recruited as artistic director of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.

At age 60, Jaffe is confident about her resumé. At UNCSA, she says, “I had to learn a lot about administration, business, fundraising and strategy. It expanded my mind as to what it really means to be an arts organization. I brought those skills with me to PBT.”

What she loves most about ABT—and why she wants to direct the company—are the story ballets, which stole her heart at a young age. “We at ABT have the capacity every year to tell these great stories,” she says. “It’s where you go when you want to be taken away through a story, where you’ll feel a lot of great emotion.” Jaffe also says she likes risk-taking in curating repertory, commissioning work from more women and artists of color, and telling new stories through contemporary ballet vocabulary. She mentions Alexei Ratmansky’s recent full-length Of Love and Rage and Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate, making its North American premiere at ABT in 2023, as examples of ballets with new narratives that excite her. Jaffe wants to preserve the classics, but says “there are a few I’d like to give a facelift, give a redo,” as well as addressing cultural misappropriation in ballets like La Bayadère.

A focus on audience education, performing opportunities and digital media may count as Jaffe’s most significant departures from ABT’s current direction. “Digital programs are a place for people who’ve never seen ABT,” she says. “I’m excited to do shorter stories or ballets that are specifically for film.”

More touring, particularly bringing the ABT Studio Company to universities, would educate new audiences, through lectures and residencies. “The Studio Company and the main company could work together as we tour a city,” she says. “We’d have a longer and bigger presence.” Jaffe also envisions more repertory programs with innovative works at smaller venues like The Joyce Theater and university theaters. “It would be a good place to get a little bit more experimental than in a Met season,” she says.

And the dancers? Jaffe desires exciting performers and great movers, technically sound, clean, strong and coordinated, and comfortable dancing classical and contemporary ballets with “absolute precision, depth and musicality,” she says. “But on top of that, they have to be artists.” In short, combine the best of everything—just as Jaffe did.

Exiting: Kevin McKenzie

Leaving ABT on December 31, 2022, after 30 years as artistic director and 12 years as a principal dancer.

Proudest Accomplishments: Securing Ratmansky as artist in residence in 2009; overseeing the creation of the ABT JKO School with a curriculum suitable for the company’s repertory; boosting the technical proficiency and artistic level of the dancers.

Toughest Challenge: Battling with some executive directors not to downsize the company or productions in order to save money.

Regrets: “I wish that we could have had a presence in theaters all around the world in far greater numbers,” says McKenzie. “That for me is a disappointment.”

On Susan Jaffe as the Incoming Artistic Director: “You’ve got someone who had a major career as a performer, is a great teacher and coach, has experience in academia and the ballet world, has choreographed and has established relationships with choreographers,” McKenzie told The New York Times. “She worked under three directors at Ballet Theatre. It feels like the organic continuation of a line.”

San Francisco Ballet

Entering: Tamara Rojo

In October, Tamara Rojo bid farewell to her dancing career in Akram Khan’s Giselle with English National Ballet at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris. On December 1, she relinquishes her role as artistic director at ENB and, 11 days later, starts as artistic director of San Francisco Ballet. Throughout the summer and fall, she has conducted both in-person and video meetings with SFB dancers and staff.

“I have achieved more than I imagined I could,” the 48-year-old Rojo says of her decade directing ENB. “When the opportunity of SFB arrived, I realized our mission is very similar—to bring the highest possible quality of dance to the widest possible audience. Helgi has consistently commissioned so many new choreographers, and I felt that was a very exciting opportunity to follow in his steps.”

Rojo has fixed her focus, as she did at ENB, on acquiring the works of female choreographers like Aszure Barton, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and Arielle Smith (Crystal Pite is on her wish list), as well as welcoming masters like William Forsythe and Khan and young, promising American choreographers.

Mounting full-length classical ballets requires substantial investment, and Rojo prefers a hybrid approach. “Sometimes you need to balance whether you want to redo something that already exists and everybody knows,” says Rojo, “or do you want to invest those resources in new stories, new choreographers, newly commissioned scores?” She has found inspiration in the UK theater scene’s often unconventional approach to classics, allowing Shakespeare to speak to new generations; rethinking whose stories are told and what the people onstage represent as a company; and reaching out to diverse communities.

At ENB, Rojo acquired Pina Bausch’s gritty, primal Rite of Spring and would like to do similarly bold works at SFB. “I think she is an extraordinary choreographer that is not very often presented in America,” says Rojo. “There is a lot of groundwork to do in working with choreographers to get the company to understand a more European contemporary language.”

Apart from her husband, Isaac Hernández, who is returning to SFB, will she import dancers from ENB? “No, I am going to San Francisco to direct SFB,” she states. She will also not dance with the company.

Rojo encourages collaboration with her artistic team. “It takes a while to get to know and trust each other, but that’s something I would like to develop with the team at SFB. I don’t believe only one person has all the answers,” she says. “I am looking forward to getting to know the organization and starting slow so that when we run, we can run together.”

Exiting: Helgi Tomasson

Began as artistic director of SFB in 1985 after 15 years as a principal dancer with New York City Ballet. Retired as artistic director and principal choreographer in May 2022.

Proudest Accomplishments: Transforming SFB from a good regional troupe to a world-class company, touring to New York, Paris, Tokyo and London to show off superb dancers and repertory.

Where He Learned to Direct: “At NYCB, I saw how Mr. B did things. That sinks in,” says Tomasson. “I learned on the job what’s logical and what works, and to trust your artistic vision. From Robert Joffrey I took in a curiosity about what was possible in ballet, bringing in choreographers from the modern dance community.”

Regrets: “I felt like I had accomplished everything I set out to do, more than I ever dreamed,” he says. “But I would like to have choreographed an original full-length story ballet with a new theme.”

On Incoming Artistic Director Tamara Rojo; “She has done remarkably well with ENB. She has brought in choreographers that have enhanced the company and the dancing. I have no doubt that she will continue in that vein. She is a very smart, intelligent person and I really do think she will do well.”

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Comings & Goings

Melissa Barak has been appointed artistic director of Los Angeles Ballet, succeeding co-founders Thordal Christensen and Colleen Neary, who have left the company. Barak Ballet has merged with Los Angeles Ballet, and works in progress will be integrated into LAB’s new season.

Gili Navot has stepped down from her post as artistic director of Batsheva Dance Company. She has been succeeded by the company’s former school director Lior Avizoor.

Nashville Ballet artistic director Paul Vasterling will retire at the end of the 2022–23 season. Associate artistic director Nick Mullikin has been named CEO, and will succeed Vasterling as artistic director in June 2023.

Dresden Semperoper Ballet artistic director Aaron S. Watkin will be the next artistic director of English National Ballet, commencing in August 2023. He succeeds Tamara Rojo, who will depart for San Francisco Ballet in November.

Danni Gee has been named director of programming at The Joyce Theater, succeeding Aaron Mattocks on September 12.

Current Kaatsbaan Cultural Park chief executive and artistic officer Sonja Kostich has been named executive director of Baryshnikov Arts Center, succeeding Cora Cahan in October.

Rachel Fine will depart her post as executive director and CEO of The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts to become executive director of the Schwarzman Center at Yale University in October.

Erin Alarcón has been named ballet master at American Midwest Ballet.

Hope Mohr Dance has been renamed Bridge Live Arts. Cherie Hill, Karla Quintero and Hope Mohr have been named co-leaders of the organization, and Mohr has shifted from artistic director to resident choreographer.

Shaun Keylock Company has acquired Conduit Dance, Inc., effective in September.

Micaela Taylor has been named artist in residence at BODYTRAFFIC.

At Philadelphia Ballet, Austin Eyler, Alexandra Heier and Pau Pujol have been promoted to soloist, Isaac Hollis, Gabriela Mesa and Nick Patterson to demi-soloist.

Rasmus Ahlgren has joined Boston Ballet as a principal.

Xander Parish has joined Norwegian National Ballet.

Brooklyn Mack will join English National Ballet as a guest artist for its autumn/winter season.

Awards & Honors

Recipients of 2022 Fini Awards include Louise Cantrell (Lifetime Achievement Award), Lloyd Knight (Extraordinary Dancer Award) and Bianca Delli Priscoli (Rising Star Award).

Jacqulyn Buglisi has been awarded the Juilliard President’s Medal.

Dance historian Dr. Honey Crawford is one of the inaugural fellows of the Rebuild Foundation’s Mellon Archive Fellowship Program.

The post News of Note: What You Might Have Missed in August 2022 appeared first on Dance Magazine.

Circus Meets Cunningham

LONDON  What happens when a contemporary circus troupe dives into the work of Merce Cunningham? Attendees of the London International Mime Festival will have the chance to see for themselves with the premiere of Gandini Juggling’s LIFE, a work rooted in Cunningham’s choreographic oeuvre created by Sean Gandini and Kati Ylä-Hokkala, at Sadler’s Wells’ Lilian Baylis Studio. Jan. 12–15. sadlerswells.com.

Rojo Reimagines Raymonda

LONDON  English National Ballet artistic director Tamara Rojo makes her choreographic and directorial debut with a new twist on Raymonda. Taking inspiration from Florence Nightingale, Rojo shifts the action of the Petipa classic to the Crimean War, during which the titular heroine becomes embroiled in a love triangle while serving as a nurse. ENB will become the only UK-based company to have a full-length Raymonda in its repertory upon its premiere, planned for Jan. 18–23 at the London Coliseum after the pandemic halted its originally scheduled debut during the 2020–21 season. ballet.org.uk.

Winter at Whim W’Him

SEATTLE  Whim W’Him is betting on premieres from two young, L.A.-based choreographers: recent USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance grad Jakevis Thomason and BODYTRAFFIC dancer Ethan Colangelo. The double bill will debut at Seattle’s Cornish Playhouse, Jan. 21–22 and 28–29, with additional performances just a ferry ride away at Vashon Center for the Arts (Jan. 26) and Whidbey Island Center for the Arts (Jan. 27). whimwhim.org.

Blank Space

SALT LAKE CITY  Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company brings a trio of new and new-to-the-company works to the Regent Street Black Box Theatre with its Fill in the Blank program. In Stefanie Batten Bland’s 2018 Look Who’s Coming to Dinner, inspired by the Stanley Kramer film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, dancers seek to take their figurative seats at the set’s literal table. The unabridged iteration of Andrea Miller’s I can see myself makes its local in-person debut following the premiere of a virtual iteration last spring. A new work from company alum Jo Blake rounds out the program, planned for Jan. 27–29. ririewoodbury.com.

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Rojo comes to SFB from English National Ballet, where she has been widely acclaimed for her leadership; since 2012 she has served as both artistic director and lead principal. Dance Magazine honored her with a Dance Magazine Award last month, and she was recently referred to as “the most powerful woman in ballet” by the UK newspaper The Times in a news story about her reconstruction of the Petipa classic Raymonda, premiering January 18.

According to Dance Data Project, SFB has the second largest budget of any U.S. ballet company (behind only New York City Ballet), and will now become the biggest with a sole female artistic director. As DDP research lead Michayla Kelly points out in response to Rojo’s appointment, “This has the potential to lessen the gender wage gap in U.S. ballet artistic directors and shift the landscape of ballet in the U.S.”

A former star of The Royal Ballet, the Spanish ballerina initially made a name for herself with her impeccable technique and magnetic performances. At ENB, Rojo has made the company a major player on the world stage by commissioning such works as a reimagining of Giselle by Akram Khan, and bringing in international stars like Hernández and Jeffrey Cirio. She’s also been an advocate for female choreographers, commissioning more than 40 works by women over the course of her tenure.

In a press release, Rojo said, “I’ve long admired San Francisco Ballet as one of the most creative dance companies in America, offering so many different artistic voices the opportunity to create works for some of the best dancers in the world. I’m excited to join SF Ballet to add to the innovative spirit of the company as we reassess what the future of ballet can and should look like, opening the best of what our art form can offer to the widest possible audience.”

ENB is currently forming an advisory committee to assist the board in a search for Rojo’s replacement.

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One of my favorite things about the Dance Magazine Awards has always been the sense of worlds colliding—the way luminaries from different corners of our industry who you’d likely never see sharing a stage or a program come together for this celebration of dance’s living legends. This year’s edition, which combined pre-recorded and live, in-person speeches and performances, was no different. (Seeing 2021 Honoree Andy Blankenbuehler chatting with 1991 honoree Mark Morris before the ceremony was a particularly wonderful sort of surreal.) But more than ever, I was reminded that our field can be—and is—one big community held together by our shared devotion to dance.

This year’s event was held at the Guggenheim Museum, so a pre-show panel with past honorees Lar Lubovitch, Wendy Whelan and Mark Morris, moderated by Dance Magazine editor in chief Jennifer Stahl, fittingly centered on the relationship between dance and the visual arts. Morris pointed out that dance is a visual art (the first of his many quips throughout the evening), a sentiment Lubovitch echoed when he praised Whelan as a tremendous graphic artist in her own right “because of the exactitude of the drawings that she made” with her body as a dancer. Whelan noted that understanding what kind of brush you are as a dance artist (“A felt tip pen? Or a big, fat paintbrush?”) is an important part of being able to work well with choreographers.

In closing, Lubovitch remarked: “The biggest difference, and why our art is so precious, is because it’s the only art that really only exists while it’s happening, and that gives it a special kind of magic, as far as I’m concerned. The grace and integrity that it requires to commit yourself to something that is basically invisible except when you’re doing it requires a kind person and a kind character.” Leave it to Lubovitch to deliver a mic drop with such eloquence.

Sean Jones, Malik Kitchen, Adrian Lee and Thayne Jasperson in Andy Blankenbuehler’s Possibilities. Photo by Christopher Duggan

The importance of not just what our honorees have accomplished but how they’ve conducted themselves as they did so proved to be a key theme of the evening. Susan Stroman, presenting to Tony Award–winning choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, recalled encountering him first as a performer who was always interested in what was happening on both sides of the table, a curiosity that has served him as both a choreographer and a director: “Regardless of where Andy is in the rehearsal room, he is a true collaborator. Always fearless, always approaching from a place of love, and always there to serve the work.”

Andy Blankenbuehler. Photo by Christopher Duggan

Blankenbuehler in turn thanked Stroman for leading by example, saying, “Choreographers have a tendency to turn into a mad scientist, tunnel vision person. Darkness can come easily because of the fear of not being able to make the sculpture move. My single hugest takeaway from my time with Stro is that she leads with generosity every step of the way. If there’s ever a time where I am good to the people around me, it is because there’s a Susan Stroman on my shoulder saying there is a better way to do it than to fall victim to the fear.” He continued to speak about how movie musicals and Dance Magazine were his sources of inspiration growing up in Ohio, giving him “a window to dream” of the possibilities of a life in dance. The piece he choreographed for the occasion was, fittingly, named Possibilities.

Tamara Rojo. Photo by Christopher Duggan

A video excerpt of Dormeshia in And Still You Must Swing drew whoops of delight from the audience. As Dianne Walker told the tap star in her presentation, “You swing like no one else.” She praised Dormeshia for the generosity of her teaching and the integrity she brings to the numerous artistic roles she fulfills, as well as in the rest of her life, where “her beautiful character and strength as a woman shines through.” She spoke of how they came from the same tap lineage, the importance of which was echoed by Dormeshia in her acceptance speech as she dedicated the award to the artists who paved the way for her. “This dance has truly been a blessing,” she said. “A blessing because it’s been everything I needed, when I needed it. It’s my friend, my therapy, my voice, my passport. The dance has always been there for me, so I do my best to show up for it.”

Alethea Pace and Richard Rivera in Pace’s Here goes the neighborhood… Photo by Christopher Duggan

The recipients of this year’s Harkness Promise Awards let their dancing do the talking. Alethea Pace performed a smart, exacting excerpt from her Here Goes the Neighborhood… with Richard Rivera, while Yin Yue showed a piece of her FoCo, dancing in sweeping unison with Grace Whitworth. Harkness Foundation for Dance executive director Joan Finkelstein presented each with their awards, which include grants and studio space (funded in large part by the net proceeds from the Dance Magazine Awards), and announced that the two of them would be back at the Guggenheim for a shared evening through Works & Process in March.

Grace Whitworth and Yin Yue in Yue’s FoCo. Photo by Christopher Duggan

Presenting to Akram Khan, Wendy Whelan spoke of how his work directs attention to finding shared humanity through collaboration: “He is a choreographer built for questioning and reinventing classical dance traditions for the 21st century.” The removing of cultural silos was echoed in his acceptance speech, during which Khan mused, “Something that my mother always told me as a child was, If some of us are unwell, then all of us are unwell. That is the context I apply to the themes I work on. I’m very interested in stories of the other, the ones that happen in the shadows. It’s really special for me that there is a recognition, to put a spotlight on the stories that are in shadow.”

Yannick Lebrun in Robert Battle’s In/Side. Photo by Christopher Duggan

Robert Battle. Photo by Christopher Duggan

Battle’s wide-ranging, laughter-inducing speech (“You know he can preach,” Jamison drawled) was dedicated to the unsung heroes of his career. He told the story of his childhood piano teacher who was diagnosed with cancer while he was studying at Juilliard, and how he would help her with errands and chores when he was home on break. One day she took him to a department store and bought him five suits; when his mother asked her why, she said, “Someday he’ll be meeting kings and queens and presidents, and that boy’s going to need a suit.” He shared that all he could think of when, years later, he was at President Obama’s White House, was his fortune in being there: “What did I have? Courage and a suit. I don’t feel that much different tonight.”

Duke Dang and Caroline Cronson. Photo by Christopher Duggan

Virginia Johnson joked that Battle was “a tough act to follow” when she presented our Chairman’s Award to Works & Process. Johnson praised the presenter for how it “bursts with a sense of adventure” and continues to lead the way for dance performance through the pandemic. Works & Process producer Caroline Cronson and executive director Duke Dang used their acceptance speech as an opportunity to announce a new facet of its support for dance artists: LaunchPAD, a new initiative that will put $2 million towards providing “process as destination” fully-funded residencies over the next two years. As Dance Media CEO Frederic Seegal put it in his opening remarks, “I can’t imagine anyone has done more for dance than Duke and his team.”

Dancer-turned-medical-professional Dr. Wendy Ziecheck was also on hand to receive a special citation for her groundbreaking work in helping Works & Process develop safety protocols for its “bubble residencies” to allow dance artists to safely gather and work together during the course of the pandemic. She closed her speech with a plea for the leaders of the dance field, as experts in what they do, to look to the experts in medicine and science as we continue to navigate the challenges of COVID-19: “One of the themes that I’ve noticed in tonight’s program is, None of us are safe until everybody is safe.”

Nicholas Van Young (right) in an excerpt from his and Michelle Dorrance’s 2017 Works & Process Rotunda Project. Photo by Christopher Duggan

The evening closed with the fruits of a pre-pandemic Works & Process initiative: an excerpt from Michelle Dorrance and Nicholas Van Young’s 2017 Rotunda Project, which made clever (and humorous) use of the sonic possibilities of the museum’s famous architecture.

The joy of sharing that performance with the audience scattered around the rotunda’s ramp brought to mind a remark made by Judith Jamison earlier in the evening: “How precious this is, this thing we call dance. Sometimes you need that space to know how valuable your presence is in the world—not just to fulfill your ego, but to do it for others.”

Missed the livestream? Get access to the 2021 Dance Magazine Awards on demand
here.

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A former star of The Royal Ballet, Spanish ballerina Tamara Rojo is known for her spotless technique and impassioned performances that are—to quote a review by dance critic Judith Mackrell—”etched in raw emotion.” Despite her magnificent performance career, however, it is as a leadership figure that Rojo has had the most influence on the ballet world. Since 2012, she has straddled stage and office in the dual role of artistic director and lead principal of English National Ballet.

Under Rojo’s leadership, ENB has shed its reputation as a lesser cousin to The Royal Ballet. Instead, it has become the epitome of an innovative, forward-thinking ballet company equipped for the 21st century. Based in a new award-winning, state-of-the-art home, Rojo’s ENB presents classical repertoire alongside premieres by contemporary choreographers, and now digital creations via the company’s bespoke streaming platform.

Some of Rojo’s boldest moves over the past 10 years have included commissioning a reimagining of Giselle by celebrated British-Bangladeshi choreographer Akram Khan and staging surprising pieces of repertoire, such as Pina Bausch’s inimitable Le Sacre du printemps. She’s also brought in international ballet stars—such as lead principals Isaac Hernández and Jeffrey Cirio—and brought back Maria Kochetkova, making the company a major player on the global dance scene.

Throughout her tenure, Rojo has been a staunch advocate of female choreographers. Motivated by the shocking fact that she never danced in a work by a woman during her 20-year performance career prior to joining ENB, Rojo has now commissioned more than 40 works by women across the company’s programming. One of the most outstanding is Broken Wings, created by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa in 2016. With Rojo in the lead role, the ballet brought to life the colorful, surreal narratives of Frida Kahlo’s paintings, alongside emotional scenes depicting her struggles with debilitating health conditions.

Rojo has also been instrumental in shifting how female narratives are presented onstage. The lack of depth in many classical female roles recently motivated her to restage Petipa’s Raymonda, which will be her choreographic and directorial debut. Set to premiere in January 2022, Rojo’s version will depict a heroine in charge of her own destiny, recasting Raymonda as a nurse who runs away to support the Crimean War.

It’s no wonder that Rojo holds Spain’s three highest honors and a CBE, from the Order of the British Empire. Yet despite a career in the spotlight, Rojo is now preoccupied with shining it on others: She’s in the process of setting up a new ENB pipeline project aiming to help young dancers from underrepresented communities get professional ballet training, and is encouraging female artists to apply for ENB’s Dance Leaders of the Future program. “Enabling other dancers and artists to reach their potential is the most beautiful thing I could have chosen to do with my life,” she says.

Join Dance Magazine in celebrating Tamara Rojo at the December 6 Dance Magazine Awards ceremony. Tickets are now available here.

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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.

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It may seem like a simple change, but this could be a watershed moment—one where the aesthetics of ballet begin to expand to include the presence of people of color.

With all the work being done worldwide to increase the number of black dancers in ballet, it was only a matter of time before we got here. Bare legs and flesh tone shoes are commonplace in contemporary ballet but in classical and neoclassical ballet, pink tights and shoes remain a linchpin.

Dance Theatre of Harlem first debuted flesh-tone tights and shoes in 1974 on the back leg of a European tour. Dancer Llanchie Stevenson was the catalyst: From her first days in the company, she consistently implored Arthur Mitchell to allow them to wear tights and shoes that matched their skin color. Stevenson explains, “One day I noticed that my arms were a different color than my legs, I thought that I looked so disjointed. I started wearing brown tights over my pink tights.” Mitchell liked it so much he decided that all dancers had to wear tights to match their skin. The decision was a declaration of ownership of the art form, and a redefinition of classism.

Where did the tradition of pink tights come from anyway? In the 1790s, Austrian ballet dancer Maria Viganó shocked Parisian audiences when she and her brother Salvatore performed in sheer white muslin tunics, her legs covered by flesh pink hosiery that gave the appearance of nakedness. At the time, the Paris Opéra banned “nude pink” due to social concerns, but by the end of the 19th century, pink tights were the norm. The intent was to have both the hosiery and shoes disappear, and back then, pink was as tastefully close to nude as they could get without having the theaters burned down in scandal.

Since then, little thought has been given to this tradition, but it is safe to say that the sole reason ballet tights and shoes are pink is because at the time the tradition started, all of the dancers were white. As racial uniformity decreases, should we not reevaluate the relevance of pink tights and shoes? Could it not be argued that the actual “tradition” is that the tights and shoes should match the dancer’s complexion?

Most of the arguments against flesh-tone tights center around the preservation of the classical aesthetic of uniformity. It could be said that brown tights work for DTH because they are a group of dancers of color, therefore the brown tights are in a sense uniform. But when there are only one or two dancers in the corps wearing brown tights, some believe that it “breaks the line.”

This begs the question: How much difference is there between a brown arm and head and a brown leg in a line? Not much. But there are directors who still see discernible brownness in the corps to be problematic.

In the mid-1980s when Houston Ballet’s Ben Stevenson (not related to Llanchie) cast an up-and-coming Lauren Anderson in his ballet Peer Gynt, it was the first time her skin tone was artistically discussed. “The costume was a unitard that went from (white) flesh tone to green, when I put it on it didn’t look right, so they dyed the legs to match my skin, and that was the first time that it was done,” says Anderson. Stevenson was also open to her wearing her natural hair in the role so long as it was thematically tied-in.

Later, during a Nutcracker tech rehearsal, Stevenson found that Anderson’s legs in pink tights as Sugarplum appeared grey under the lights. They decided to test a few shades of brown but none looked right. “Finally, Ben said, ‘Call Dance Theatre of Harlem and find out what they use.’ That was music to my ears,” Anderson recalls.

Once she had done Sugarplum with brown tights and shoes, she says, “It didn’t make sense for me to go back.” As she rose through the ranks to principal, Anderson wore a variety of shades depending on the role: pink if she was in the corps or in a Balanchine work, tan for classical ballets or a richer brown—more her real complexion—in her principal roles.

Tights are just the beginning when companies are seeking to truly honor diversity. The myriad technical considerations for dancers of color extends to costuming, hair, make-up and lighting. “You light the set and costumes perfectly, you have to light the dancers as well,” says Anderson. “All of my partners had to contend with an extra spot on them when they danced with me.”

If companies want to be inclusive, artistic teams can no longer be on auto-pilot. It requires seeing productions with fresh eyes, possibly reconsidering the blonde wigs, certain hair hairstyles, and even scenery (when Anderson danced Cinderella, Houston Ballet created new portrait of a black mother). “As part of my artistic vision, I wanted to find a natural look for all my dancers. Pink tights are traditional, but it was important to me that we found something that was natural for Lauren,” says Ben Stevenson.

Pacific Northwest’s artistic director Peter Boal learned the impact of having an open dialogue with dancers of color when he asked student Samrawit Saleem how she wanted to wear her natural hair for the role of Clara. The Nutcracker photo of her double strand twist went viral.

Samrawit Saleem, photo by Angela Sterling, courtesy PNB

A by-product of inviting others in is that you have to engage with them and take their feelings and experiences into consideration. You must ask people what would make them feel included, not assume you know. It requires that you authentically, with empathy and compassion, examine the conditions that you have been operating out of and be willing to let go of some and redesign others.

When you are seeking change, you can’t expect things to stay the same. When ballet organizations started their journey toward diversity, most were solely focused on increasing the number of brown bodies on stage. However, it is becoming clear that the issues run far deeper. Inclusion requires integration. Ballet is learning that you can’t just add brown bodies, you have to change the culture. But we can start can start to rebuild from the ground up with shoes and tights.

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While that might be a slight exaggeration, there’s no denying that keeping track of all the major collaborations and musicals and movie adaptations and premieres can get overwhelming. So, we’re compiling a list of the buzziest new endeavors that have been announced over the last month. They might be weeks, months or even years away, but here are some of the things the dance world has in the works that we’ll most definitely be keeping an eye on:

Karolina Kuras, Courtesy ENB

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The film finally had its New York premiere earlier this week at the closing night of the 20th Havana Film Festival New York. In addition to raising funds for The International Performing Arts Foundation, which works closely with Acosta on his philanthropic efforts, the event also gave us a chance to finally catch the film. (We’re still awaiting word on a wider U.S. release.)

Spoiler alert: You’re going to want to see it. Here’s why.

5: It’s more than just a dance movie.

Denise Guerra, Courtesy Janet Stapleton

Impressive dance sequences aside, the film has a rock-solid emotional core, largely thanks to former Cuban ballet star Santiago Alfonso’s performance as Pedro Acosta, Carlos’ father. (Fun fact: Alfonso was Acosta’s fourth grade teacher!) That the film manages to get at wider themes—about Cuba, about race, about filial responsibility—while digging deep into the interpersonal conflicts and choices that shape the central characters is a hallmark of screenwriter Paul Laverty’s work, and it makes this “dance film” far more relatable to a general audience.

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But the story didn’t end there. After a surprise offer from Tamara Rojo, artistic director of English National Ballet, Johnsey has found a temporary artistic home with the company, joining as a guest at the rank of first artist for its run of The Sleeping Beauty, which continues this week. After weeks of working and rehearsing with the company, last week Johnsey quietly marked a new milestone: He performed with ENB’s corps de ballet as one of the ladies in the prince’s court.

We caught up with Johnsey to find out how it happened.

How he found his way to English National Ballet

Chase Johnsey received critical acclaim for his interpretations of traditionally female roles at Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. Photo courtesy Johnsey

I had resigned from Trockadero. I assumed my dancing career was over, because I’m a ballerina and there’s only one Trockadero. A month went by, and I got a random email from Tamara Rojo asking if I wanted to take class. I don’t even know how she got my email! I went and took class for a week, and then we had a meeting. She said she liked the way I danced, and that she sees me as a ballerina and would love to have me in Sleeping Beauty. She wanted to help me take a small step towards being seen as a ballerina.

On being himself in the studio and onstage

One of the first things they told me was to be sincere. I had hidden behind my Trocks persona for so long; I was doing an homage to great ballerinas, and I was sort of impersonating one. When I got to ENB, they wanted me to be myself. Not more masculine or more feminine—they wanted me to be honest. It was liberating, but an artistic struggle.

Re-learning technique from a woman’s perspective

I take class with the girls en pointe every day. I didn’t realize how hard they actually work! And how much strength goes into it. They’re killing themselves every day to get stronger and stronger, and on top of that they have to make it look beautiful and easy.

A lot of the pointework I did with the Trocks wasn’t necessarily correct; I had to work on my lines and my feet, especially the small transitions. I’m so inspired and have so much to chew on, and now I have material to work on for years and years to come when I leave ENB at the end of this production.

What he’s been rehearsing and performing for The Sleeping Beauty

I worked on Carabosse, which was really fun! I performed as a Marchioness in the Hunt Scene, and I was one of the girls in the mazurka every night. I was also able to put on a tutu and pointe shoes to understudy a nymph in the dream sequence, and got a lot of good feedback from that.

I’m only contracted through Sleeping Beauty, which closes June 16, but I definitely feel at home at ENB. I don’t know when the possibility for me to come back will be, but Lord knows if they call I’m running back!

How the dancers at English National Ballet reacted

I was in an all-gay company, and I walked into this diverse company—gay, straight, men, women, from this country or that country, and everybody was so natural about it. They didn’t see me as something different, they saw me as a dancer. They believed in me and helped me, and on days when I was hard on myself they picked me up and encouraged me. Without the support of the dancers I wouldn’t have made it onstage.

His new goals involve subverting ballet’s gender binary

Johnsey performing in English National Ballet’s The Sleeping Beauty. Photo by Elliot Franks, Courtesy In the Lights PR

One goal would be to perform en pointe, in the corps, and have nobody know or comment on it. I’ve done principal roles my entire career, but being able to blend in as a swan or a shade is more impressive.

The other goal is to dance as a ballerina with a female who is doing the male role. Of course the Trocks have done guy-to-girl for years, but there hasn’t been much attention to the female side of that, or the trans side. With the visibility I now have, I want to fight for those people, too.

Why he wants to dance as a ballerina—but not transition

Wendy Whelan mentioned this in The New York Times: I’m not doing this to take away jobs from women. I was born a ballerina.

I’ve had people question why I want to dance as a ballerina, but not transition. Women have been my heroes my whole life, from my mom to my sister to my ballet teachers, to Tamara Rojo, who saved my career, and who has given me a huge platform to make a change in the world. Strong ballet women are my superheroes, and that’s what I want to portray.

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If it’s a conversation we’re going to have, we can’t only point the finger at ENB.

The line provoked a pretty strong response. Professional dancers, students and administrators reached out to me, making it clear that it’s a conversation they want to have. Several shared their personal stories of experiencing abusive behavior.

Christopher Hampson, artistic director of the Scottish Ballet, wrote his thoughts about the issue on his company’s website on Monday:

I have…witnessed dancers humiliated, harassed and threatened, sometimes overtly, but often covertly. This conduct is despicable and belongs in the past….

Those that consistently shout at people or deprive them of guidance to gain respect should know this is the fools’ way. It may deliver a short, burst of focus to some dancers, but it evaporates shortly thereafter. This type of behaviour guarantees resentment, perpetuates mistrust, generates fear and compliance; it is uncreative and it is damaging.

His admirable statement is especially powerful coming from an artistic director.

But what will it take for more dance leaders to take action? Ideals are fantastic, but we have to be realistic. When there are hordes of young dancers waiting to take the place of anyone who complains or cracks under the pressure, will public shaming be enough to inspire real change?

If the bad PR scares away ticket buyers or donors, it just might.

Aside from sheer decency—and living up to 21st-century HR standards—there are many reasons why treating dancers fairly is actually in companies’ best interest, both artistically and financially.

Don’t We Want to Develop Mature Artists?

According to research conducted by Dance Magazine‘s own advice columnist, psychologist Linda Hamilton, screaming at dancers comes with a whole host of negative consequences: It encourages them to dance injured, it can cause stage fright and it can thwart their career aspirations. That doesn’t exactly sound like a setup for a thriving dance company.

Just because dance is physically challenging doesn’t mean that making the environment mentally challenging creates better dancers. True discipline doesn’t come from fear; it comes from drive.

Some older dancers might complain that today’s generation is “weak” for not wanting to deal with shouting and demanding directors. But there are some traditions that don’t need to be passed down from generation to generation. Sure, some personalities may thrive under demoralizing threats. But most dancers will never feel safe enough to take creative risks or confident enough to develop into mature artists under those conditions.

True discipline doesn’t come from fear; it comes from drive. Photo by Matthew Murphy for Pointe.

A Healthy Dancer Performs Better Than An Injured One

In my opinion, the most serious allegations raised against Tamara Rojo were that she ignored the staff’s medical advice and pressured her dancers to perform while injured. Rojo clearly invested a lot in her dancer’s health. But if these accusations were in fact true, this kind of behavior is not only foolishly dangerous and abusive, but also a terrible business plan.

Any medical professional will tell you that treating injury and resting early are key to healing quickly. Sure, it’s annoying to re-cast dancers or have someone miss rehearsal, but letting dancers take the time they need to heal will get them back to full health sooner. Wouldn’t it be more strategic in the long-term to encourage injured dancers not to perform when they can’t do it to the best of their ability? Risking dancers’ health risks their career.

The Fat Phobia Needs To Stop

Speaking of health, it’s time to ditch the idea that dancers—particularly female ballet dancers—need to be stick thin.

There is no reason that a dancer has to look prepubescent in order to do her job. Having a healthy level of body fat does not make it dangerous to dance on pointe. Nor does it mean that a woman can’t be partnered—her strength and skill are more important for that.

We all know the dangers involved when you pressure dancers to strive for extreme thinness. Just this week in The Huffington Post, Miami City Ballet’s Lauren Fadeley details how frequent “fat talks” led her to obsessive dieting and, eventually, to quit New York City Ballet. In the same article, another dancer, formerly with Pennsylvania Ballet (under a previous director), shared that she was ordered to go off birth control in order to lose weight—which ended just as badly as you could imagine.

Lauren Fadeley in rehearsal at Pennsylvania Ballet. Photo by Alexander Izilaev, courtesy Pennsylvania Ballet

How much stronger could dancers be if we made room for more than one body type? And could having more diverse shapes onstage actually make dance more relatable to a mainstream audience?

Obviously, this conversation about how we treat dancers is a wide-ranging one that needs to encompass everything from dancer pay to sexual harassment. Tell me: What issues do you feel need to be addressed first? Share your thoughts in the comments or shoot me a note at jstahl@dancemedia.com. It’s time to have an honest conversation.

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Last month, a number of current and former English National Ballet dancers made anonymous claims of mismanagement to The Times, blaming Rojo for the fact that a third of the company’s dancers have left over the past two years. The blog Ballet Position followed up earlier this month with further accusations, and Rojo responded in a feature in the Evening Standard yesterday.

Until this all came out, Rojo had really only been covered in recent press as someone who’d transformed ENB into a darling of the ballet world with her forward-thinking repertoire.

So what’s all the drama about? We broke it down:

Accusation:
Company members say they felt uncomfortable about Rojo’s relationship with lead principal Isaac Hernández—who’s 16 years younger—and some say it played a part in their decision to leave.

Rojo’s Response:

The Evening Standard reports that Rojo seems a little bemused, if hurt, by these claims. She told the writer that Hernández arrived in London in 2015 as “a fully fledged star” and that there’s “not even a possibility” of conflict because “he has won all the awards you can possibly win, so there was nowhere I could promote him.” Also, she added, “I don’t deal with contracts.” She said the pair never made a secret of their relationship, which began a year and a half ago. “All I can say is that we’ve always been honest and I hoped there was no animosity towards us.”

Our Take:
Rojo neglected to mention the sudden departure of Cesar Corrales to The Royal Ballet in December. It’s not hard to imagine that competing with the boss’s boyfriend would have grown tiresome, and might have been part of the rising star’s motivation to look for opportunities elsewhere.

Accusation:
Sources say Rojo perpetuated a culture of intimidation by screaming at dancers in front of other company members. Others say they were given the silent treatment by both Rojo and assistant artistic director Loipa Araújo, never receiving corrections. Decisions also felt capricious: Dancers say roles and opportunities would be taken away with no explanation.

Rojo’s Response:
“We couldn’t recognize our company in that description,” she told the Evening Standard. “People had left, yes, but we felt it was explicable because a lot of change had been going on. We didn’t feel it was unnatural, that there was anything to be concerned about.” She said she’s gone through all the issues raised with the ENB board, as well as the UK Arts Council (which funds 40 percent of the company’s income) and the unions, and reports that “they were satisfied.” ENB has since added new channels of communication.

Our Take:
Of course, behaviors like screaming and silence aren’t examples of great people skills. But they don’t seem all that unusual in the ballet world. Not that that’s an excuse, but if it’s a conversation we’re going to have, we can’t only point the finger at ENB.

Also, we can’t help asking: Rojo is known to be an exacting director, and not exactly the warmest personality—but would those qualities be taken differently in a male director? And would her relationship with someone 16 years younger seem as scandalous, for that matter?

Accusation:
Dancers say they felt pressured to perform despite injury. One told Ballet Position that they hid their condition after Rojo said asking for more recovery time showed “a lack of commitment to the company.” Ballet Position also reports that advice from the medical staff was consistently ignored.

Rojo’s Response:
When Rojo arrived as artistic director in 2012, she immediately invested in the dancers’ health: She replaced the studios’ sprung floors; she brought on a sports scientist, nutritionist and psychologist; and she increased physical therapy hours for the dancers.

Our Take:
In the same Evening Standard feature where she lists what she’s done for the dancers, Rojo appears to boast about performing even when her appendix burst while she was onstage, and how ignoring a sprained ankle led to her big break at The Royal Ballet. We need to stop glorifying these kinds of decisions. Sure, almost all dancers have performed in some level of pain at some point. But if they are being pushed—whether explicitly or implicitly—despite medical advice to rest, that needs to be addressed seriously.

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Actually, every single dance was a “best moment.” In the first half of the YAGP gala, dubbed the “Stars of Tomorrow,” 11 young dancers from the United States, Argentina, Portugal, Czech Republic, Japan and China displayed their outsized talents in solo variations. The young audience responded to the astounding turns and jumps that kept coming and coming.

The Grand Défilé, choreographed by Carlos dos Santos, Jr.

The Grand Défilé, that amazing annual parade of 300 dancers ages 9 to 19, filled the stage with clever patterns and bursts of virtuosity as arranged by the ingenious Carlos dos Santos, Jr.

Completing the first half was a tribute to director/choreographer/mentor Bruce Marks, who was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Nina Ananiashvili, with her usual charm and verve, introduced him, enumerating a few of his many accomplishments. She expressed personal gratitude for his uniting the Boston Ballet and Russian ballet stars in 1990, which gave her a rare opportunity to perform in the United States. Marks spoke about the artistry of dance. Then he raised his voice in defense of the National Endowment for the Arts, which is currently on the chopping block in the latest national budget proposal. He asked us all to stand with him in the effort to keep the NEA up and running and helping the arts. Long live the NEA and YAGP!

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Crystal Pite

Crystal Pite
and actor/playwright Jonathon Young won Best New Dance Production for Betroffenheit, their harrowing exploration of loss and grief. (It premiered in 2015, but it made its way to London’s Sadler’s Wells, and therefore Olivier consideration, last summer.) Pite told us in our February issue, “I’m interested in offering an audience a variety of ways to get into a piece. Some people can connect in a visceral way to pure movement, and others connect more to language. I like to be able to use anything to get people in the same world as each other.”

English National Ballet

Tamara Rojo has made some gutsy choices since becoming artistic director in 2012, and ENB’s Best Achievement in Dance Olivier “for expanding the variety of their repertoire with Giselle and She Said at Sadler’s Wells” is just one more spot of validation. The Giselle in question is, of course, Akram Khan’s contemporary retelling that premiered in the fall; She Said was a diverse triple bill with new commissions from Azsure Barton, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and Yabin Wang. As Khan said in our September cover story, “She has transformed the entire way the company works…The most interesting work right now is coming out of ENB.”

Matthew Bourne

Not only did he garner the Best Theatre Choreographer award for his production of The Red Shoes (based on the 1948 feature film starring Moira Shearer), Bourne also got to accept the award for Best Entertainment and Family, again for The Red Shoes. Anglophiles, get excited about this one: The work is making its U.S. premiere this fall on the west coast.

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“We are a disruptive brand: We look at things in a different way. We see women athletes as coming in all shapes and sizes, and Misty, to us, is part of that,” says Under Armour vice president of marketing for its women’s division, Heidi Sandreuter. “She doesn’t fit a traditional mold. She allows us to represent a broader spectrum of athleticism.”

Under Armour is just one of several companies harnessing the power of dance to promote their products. The past few years have seen an explosion of ads and marketing campaigns featuring top concert dancers from the ballet and modern dance worlds. And dance isn’t just adding some zest to a background to sell Old Navy jeans; it’s often the subject of the ad itself—as seen in Diesel’s Jogg jeans ads, showcasing an alphabet of dance; Christmas ads for Baileys, based on The Nutcracker; the Gap’s “Denim Moves You” ads with street dancer Lil Buck; and even the misguided Free People commercial, starring an inexperienced dancer with sickled feet talking about what dancing means to her.

Dance is having a global moment right now, between reality TV shows and viral music videos, and advertisers are eager to get in on the act. Dance, like sex, sells. It’s both potently emotional and visual. And it appeals to a wide range of tastes, cultures, age groups and experiences. Brands are benefiting greatly from the association—and dancers are getting a gazillion new consumer eyes greedily feasting upon them.

Of course, dance in advertising isn’t new. But the way it’s used has shifted. When Anna Pavlova lent her image to endorse Pond’s Vanishing Cream in 1914, the connection was that she, like the product, was a thing of ephemeral beauty. A 1976 “What becomes a Legend most?” ad for Blackglama mink coats showed Martha Graham, Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev draped in luxurious furs. They looked like members of the aristocracy—dancers only a rich patron could love. In Rolex ads from the ’80s and ’90s, Cynthia Gregory and Sylvie Guillem were also presented as objects of connoisseurship, admired for their elegance, but at a remove from the common touch.

Today, remote and delicately scented ballerinas are no longer the fashion. Advertisers now look for dancers who can move boldly without inhibition, who are strong in body and also in mind, and who are not at all reticent about revealing the grit behind their glamorous onstage image.

Rag & Bone’s commercial featuring contemporary dancer/choreographer Kyle Abraham, for instance, alternates between footage of a sexy duet in a dirty warehouse with images of pigeons flying off a Brooklyn rooftop. The film, by acclaimed music video director Wendy Morgan, capitalizes on Abraham’s edgy, rugged aesthetic. “Hopefully people are seeing real people, real bodies moving in space and having a connection to one another,” Abraham says of the choreography.

The Under Armour ads also present a more realistic image of a dancer, showcasing Copeland as a powerhouse: muscular, driven, strong. Gone is the stick-thin ballerina of yesterday. “It’s killing that perception that we’re just pretty, that being feminine means you’re not also powerful, in control and a leader,” says the American Ballet Theatre principal. “Having a brand as big and as respected in the sports arena wanting to endorse a ballerina is something that has never been done before.” Copeland feels the campaign is challenging preconceived notions of what a dancer is—or isn’t.

The ads have raised Under Armour’s profile while also fattening its bottom line. “We’ve definitely seen an uptick in sales,” Sandreuter reports. Significantly, it is a ballerina who is helping Under Armour re-brand itself as a company that caters to women who spin, kickbox, lift weights and run. The video’s theme of overcoming obstacles is something that everyone—not just dancers—can relate to.

But if dance is helping the advertisers, the advertisers are also helping dance. “When dance is seen more in the media it demystifies it as something distant and unattainable,” says Tina Rasmussen, director of performing arts at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre, who has witnessed an increase in attendance for dance events over the last two years. “It’s a democratization of dance that’s really helping to deliver the message that bodies communicate.”

Lexus took advantage of that idea in 2013 with a TV ad that artfully juxtaposes the power and speed of its entry-level luxury car, the IS, with the strength and velocity of English National Ballet’s Tamara Rojo. Featuring solo choreography by Russell Maliphant, the black-and-white video shows Rojo with arrested port de bras and split leaps in slow motion. Her rapid-fire bourrées merge with images of fast-turning wheels on a ribbon of open highway. Her back arches, showing sinew and bone, and blends with an image of a beautifully sculpted car. The tagline is “Amazing in Motion.”

The ad campaign won a silver medal at the 2014 Euro Effie Awards (the advertising industry’s Academy Awards), as well as scores of new ballet lovers. The message Lexus wanted to communicate, a stronger body with control, felt perfectly expressed through dance. “You can’t get a better physical representative than the ballerina,” says Christopher Taylor, senior manager for brand and marketing communications for Lexus Europe. “There is a perception of ballet as a premium art form. Extolling the virtues of ballet expresses the virtues of the automobile.”

From Rojo’s perspective, the ad also delivers a message about ballet that she finds refreshing: “I like the fact it presents the dynamism of ballerinas,” she says. “It gives a strong image of dance and dancers that is different from the conventional frail ballerina.”

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