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

Something to Talk About

Sarah Lancashire, Shobna Gulati and Max Harwood in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie

Courtesy Amazon Prime Video

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
began as a television documentary about a teenage boy in northern England determined to attend his school prom in drag. Jamie and his mother, both figures of boundless heart and iron will, inspired a 2017 musical that sashayed into the West End. Now, it returns to the screen with a movie adaptation on Amazon Prime Video directed by Jonathan Butterell and starring newcomer Max Harwood, with Richard E. Grant as Jamie’s drag mentor Loco Chanelle.

An irrepressible coming-of-age tale, both stage and film versions feature rollicking choreography by Kate Prince. Her theatrical hip hop can embrace both Jamie’s unquench­able fantasy life and his teetering first steps in scarlet heels. Its songs by Dan Gillespie Sells and Tom MacRae range from fizzy pop to heart-wrenching ballads. If it lands like it did onstage, prepare to grin your face off and sob like a baby. Sept. 17. primevideo.com. —David Jays

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

Athletics in Akron

Robbie Saenz de Viteri and Monica Bill Barnes (center) co-created The Running Show

David Wilson Barnes, Courtesy Monica Bill Barnes & Company

Running shoes, race bibs and baseball-uniform pants create the atmosphere of a sporting event in Monica Bill Barnes & Company’s The Running Show. Yet the full-throttle, humor-infused dance-theater work documents not the life of an ordinary athlete, but of a dancer. The community-tailorable production features a local multigenerational cast, incorporating their personal stories, along with the show’s co-creators Monica Bill Barnes and Robbie Saenz de Viteri. Co-presented by DANCECleveland and The University of Akron Dance Program, The Running Show dashes to Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall for its post-COVID premiere Sept. 25. monicabillbarnes.com. —Steve Sucato

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

When Lar Lubovitch celebrated the 50th anniversary of his dance company in 2018, he saw the occasion as a chance to consider stepping back from full-time dancemaking. “I don’t believe in repeating myself,” he said recently. Instead, he would work less often and wait for special situations that fired his imagination. One of those came last year. After setting his most famous duet, from Concerto Six Twenty-Two, on Adrian Danchig-Waring and his partner, Joseph Gordon, both New York City Ballet principals, for New York City Center’s Fall for Dance, Lubovitch felt so inspired that he couldn’t resist making something new for the pair. The dance, tentatively titled To Each in His Own Time, is set to three Brahms piano pieces; it will premiere at this year’s FFD. “It was built around the idea of each dancer paying respect to the other by stepping aside and allowing him to express himself,” says Lubovitch. It is also rhapsodic, rigorous and athletic. Pure Lubovitch. Oct. 13–24. nycitycenter.org. —Marina Harss

Dancing Back to Broadway

Rob McClure in Mrs. Doubtfire

Joan Marcus, Courtesy Boneau/Bryan-Brown

As the swivel-hipped Peter Allen, Hugh Jackman danced his way to a Tony in The Boy From Oz. Gaga technique informed Katrina Lenk’s sinuous, Tony-winning performance in The Band’s Visit. High-kicking tap dancer Sutton Foster won two Tonys starring in Anything Goes and Thoroughly Modern Millie. Tony Yazbeck earned a Tony nomination for his soaring sailor in On the Town. And the super-agile actor Rob McClure brought his kinetic comedy to the title role of Chaplin and won a Tony nomination in the process.

Yes, it’s all old news. But these extraordinary movers are new news, too, headlining four incoming musicals this season—the first time in years that Broadway has promised so much off-the-charts-brilliant dancing from its leading men and women.

Katrina Lenk with the cast of Company

Brinkhoff-Moegenburg, Courtesy DKC/O&M

First up is McClure, in the title role of Mrs. Doubtfire, which on Oct. 21 resumes the previews so rudely interrupted in spring

of 2020. Next, Yazbeck will show us what Michelle Dorrance’s Broadway choreography debut looks and sounds like, playing Cary Grant in Flying Over Sunset, starting Nov. 11. Stephen Sondheim’s seminal 1970 musical Company gets a newly female protagonist—Lenk—on Nov. 15. And closing out the roster are Foster and Jackman, as the reluctant-but-made-for-each-other lovers in the Broadway classic The Music Man, returning on Dec. 20. Take your pick—you’re going to see a dance star wherever you end up. mrsdoubtfirebroadway.com, flyingoversunset.com, companymusical.com and musicmanonbroadway.com. —Sylviane Gold

Tempest and Slaughter

Open Dance Project’s All the Devils Are Here: A Tempest in the Galapagos

Lynn Lane, Courtesy Open Dance Project

In the early 1930s, three European families migrated to Floreana Island in the Galapagos. Murder and mayhem ensued, making the largely unknown true tale—interwoven with a reimagining of Shakespeare’s The Tempest—perfect fodder for Open Dance Project’s newest immersive opus. In All the Devils Are Here: A Tempest in the Galapagos, Annie Arnoult and her savvy dancing actors drop us into a world of colonial power structures and conflicting visions of paradise. Arnoult leaves plenty of space for the audience to decipher this wild story on their own terms in an enveloping, sensuous environment crafted by Ryan McGettigan. After a digital premiere in May 2020, the show, co-commissioned by DiverseWorks with Studio5 and National Performance Network, looks to finally get its in-person debut Nov. 5–6 in Evanston, IL. opendanceproject.org. —Nancy Wozny

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

Now You See It…

Mayur Dance Company in Maya: The Illusionist

Saikat Chakraborty, Courtesy Mayur Dance Company

Mixing both abstract and lyrical pieces, Maya: The Illusionist focuses on the character of Maya, the creative force behind illusions in Hindu philosophy. The virtual production, performed by Washington, DC–area Odissi troupe Mayur Dance Company, incorporates ideas from the Bhagavad Gita, one of the main holy scriptures from India, as well as Western poetry. Throughout the performance, Zoom polls will ask viewers about their understanding of the South Asian perspective on illusion; after, the audience will be invited to engage in a discussion about what illusion means in today’s world. Dec. 5. mayurdance.org. —Shriya Bhattacharya

Major Moves From Claudia Schreier

Miami City Ballet in Claudia Schreier’s Places

Alexander Iziliaev, Courtesy MCB

Claudia Schreier has been steadily making work and getting commissions since she emerged onto the ballet scene several years ago. But this season, her choreography is finally making it to major companies’ main stages. First up is a planned ensemble work for Boston Ballet’s ChoreograpHER program, March 3–13, set to composer Tanner Porter’s “Six Sides from the Shape of Us.” Next is a commission for stage and film for Miami City Ballet. She first worked with the company last year on Places, which was released digitally in November. This season, together with her filmmaker husband, Adam Barish, Schreier is creating a new ballet for the stage that incorporates digital elements, as well as a film adaptation of the work, April 29–May 22. And at Atlanta Ballet, where Schreier has been choreographer in residence since last season, her Pleiades Dances returns to the main stage May 13–15 after marking the company’s live-performance comeback last spring. bostonballet.org, miamicityballet.org and atlantaballet.com. —Estefania Garcia

Akram Khan Reimagines Kipling

Akram Khan, age 10, in Akademi’s The Adventures of Mowgli, 1984

Alan Dilly, Courtesy Akram Khan Company

Written from a colonial perspective, Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book may seem like a problematic inspiration for a dance show. However, British-Bangladeshi choreographer Akram Khan—who, when he was 10, danced the central role of Mowgli in an interpretation by Akademi, a London-based South Asian dance organization—is keen to approach the story with fresh eyes. In his upcoming production Jungle Book reimagined, Khan will recast Mowgli as an Indian climate refugee who arrives in London to find the streets reclaimed by nature, hoping to remind audiences of the interdependence between humans, animals and the environment in the process.

Animation, lighting and projection—developed by a creative team including Khan’s frequent collaborators Michael Hulls and Yeast Culture—will not only create arresting environments, but will also remove the need to produce and transport large sets, making the production more sustainable. Premiering at the Curve Theatre in Leicester on April 2, ahead of an international tour, it offers a prototype of how dance can respond to the climate crisis, both through its content and means of production. akramkhancompany.net. —Emily May

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

Not the Same Old Song and Dance

Three fresh stories aiming for the Great White Way

Paradise Square at Berkeley Rep

Alessandra Mello, Courtesy Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Broadway’s back, and, boy, are we glad. But we’ve also got our sights set on three shows that aren’t quite there yet. These out-of-town tryouts have enticed us with their brand-new narratives that place bygone eras and disparate cultures center stage, making them stand out amongst the genre’s usual suspects. —Madeline Schrock

Paradise Square

Paradise Square

illuminates a little-known pocket of American history: As the country was divided by the Civil War, free-born Black Americans, escaped enslaved people and Irish immigrants were living alongside one another in New York City’s Five Points neighborhood. Bars erupted with spirited dance contests, playfully pitting Black American juba against Irish step dancing, and saw the early days of tap dancing. But in July 1863, the deadly New York Draft Riots burst this idyllic bubble. With choreography by the masterful Bill T. Jones and additional musical staging by Graciela Daniele and director Moisés Kaufman, Paradise Square will have its pre-Broadway run in Chicago Nov. 2–Dec. 5, followed by a planned Broadway opening March 20. broadwayinchicago.com and paradisesquaremusical.com.

Swept Away

Before #ShantyTok made waves on social media, an IRL sea-faring musical had long been in the works. Swept Away, set in 1888 off the Massachusetts coast, tells the tale of four men who survive a shipwreck. Who better than David Neumann, the choreographer responsible for Hadestown‘s gritty, mechanistic Workers Chorus, to capture the harsh aesthetic of life at sea? And who better to provide the harmonically layered music and lyrics than Grammy-nominated folk-rock band The Avett Brothers? Starts Jan. 9, at the Bay Area’s Berkeley Rep. berkeleyrep.org.

Bhangin’ It

Rujuta Vaidya has injected Bollywood moves into the Oscars, Disney’s Cheetah Girls: One World, Britney Spears’ The Circus tour and more. Now, along with bhangra consultant Anushka Pushpala, Vaidya is aiming to add Broadway to her resumé with a new musical mixing Eastern and Western dance styles. Bhangin’ It follows a young biracial woman into the world of competitive bhangra dancing as she seeks her own identity. After its 2018 turn at Project Springboard, an incubator for dance musicals, and with a Richard Rodgers Award under its belt, Bhangin’ It premieres at Southern California’s famed La Jolla Playhouse March 8–April 17. lajollaplayhouse.org.

When technique and choreography classes return this fall, the disruption and trauma of this pandemic will require more than a syllabus and a getting-to-know-you exercise to foster trust and vulnerability. This documentary can serve as a resource for dance educators welcoming students back. Can You Bring It is a source of radical empathy, a testament to the power of dance during great adversity.

D-Man in the Waters
, widely regarded as Jones’ masterpiece, originally premiered in 1989, one year after the death of Arnie Zane, co-founder of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company and Jones’ partner. “D-Man” is Demian Acquavella, a company dancer who had contracted HIV/AIDS shortly before the making of the work. The documentary intercuts archival footage of the original cast with an intimate filming of current company members dancing. The urgency of D-Man in the Waters is present 32 years later.

Make Space to Talk About Trauma

In 2016 LeBlanc staged the work on the students of Loyola Marymount University. During the process, shown in the film, she and the cast confront questions that are still urgent for classrooms in 2021. While teaching the choreography LeBlanc makes space to talk with the students about trauma. What are the pressing issues for this generation? She and Jones listen to them talk about gun violence and social divisions. The conversations allow the students to find ownership in the dance and respect its original intent.

Use Dance to Grieve

Life during COVID-19 will be a source of inspiration for many choreography students. Can You Bring It shows today’s young makers that they are not alone. Pandemics are unique but not new. The pain and despair of the AIDS epidemic are shared in interviews with the original cast. The Jones/Zane company dancers describe D-Man as a place to grieve. Dances are containers for feeling.

Build Community

In response to the question of desperation, one student answers with a personal conflict. LeBlanc pushes back, asking them to think about the “we,” not the “me.” Being part of a “we,” being in community, is something many students and teachers may need to relearn after 17 months of isolation. Sharing space means something different in 2021. Dancemaking post-coronavirus feels less lonely after watching the Loyola Marymount students learn and embody the high stakes of Jones’ work.

The D-Man in the Waters choreography evolved out of group improvisations. As the company mourned the death of Zane, they came together, danced together, created together. Jones describes the dance as an exploration of “what it takes to live.” Movement succeeds where words fail. Dancing together will continue whether it’s online, in person or hybrid. This documentary is a master class on dance as a way to process grief. Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters teaches that what it takes to live is being together.

Now playing in theaters and virtual cinemas. Find showtimes near you

here.

The Martha Graham Dance Company Collection

Martha Graham, Erick Hawkins, Merce Cunningham and May O’Donnell in Appalachian Spring

Cris Alexander, Courtesy Jerome Robbins Dance Division

NYPL’s acquisition of the Martha Graham archives was announced last May, on the 126th anniversary of the celebrated choreographer’s birth. The Martha Graham Dance Company has been involved with the NYPL since the launch of its video documentation program in the 1960s, and the company’s leadership spent nearly 15 years working on a plan to ensure the longevity of its collection. “Martha was a New Yorker for 70 years,” says artistic director Janet Eilber. The Dance Division “is so accessible and curating things so creatively that people will be able to access the materials in all different ways.”

The collection features over 400 audio and moving-image items, covering Graham’s childhood, performance career, choreographic oeuvre and company. Highlights include tintype family photographs, Isamu Noguchi’s set drawings for Seraphic Dialogue and forgotten correspondence between Graham and composer William Schuman, regarding his Night Journey score and the ballet’s character descriptions.

The Dance Division’s holdings already included materials from Isadora Duncan, Loïe Fuller, Charles Weidman, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. “Graham was the final missing piece in building out our archive of the legacy of early American modern dance,” says Linda Murray, curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division. Though public programming is delayed due to COVID-19, the collection is in the process of being catalogued. The library hopes the papers will be fully available to researchers by spring 2022.

The Trisha Brown Archives

Brown’s Foray Forêt

Elian Bachini, Courtesy Jerome Robbins Dance Division

Though postmodern matriarch Trisha Brown passed away in 2017, her company had been working since 2015 to find a home for her archive. “While Trisha was interested in what could be gleaned from the study of her past, she was equally concerned with how her archives could be activated to create something new,” says Trisha Brown Dance Company executive director Barbara Dufty. Brown’s archive will join the collections of Judson Dance Theater peers like Deborah Hay and David Gordon, helping to flesh out researchers’ understanding of New York City’s downtown dance scene.

Brown’s collection includes correspondence, musical scores, dance notation, photographs and more, but its centerpiece is the Building Tapes. Starting in 1990, Brown filmed the entirety of each of her rehearsals, a practice uncommon at the time. She and her choreographic assistant, Carolyn Lucas, now the company’s associate artistic director, would then write down everything that had happened. This footage, spanning from 1994 to 2011, and its corresponding notebooks offer rich material for dancemakers and scholars alike. “It’s going to illuminate her body of work in ways we can’t imagine,” says Murray.

A lesser-known highlight of the archive is a long-forgotten video of Brown, dressed in a tutu, making her way across a tightrope. “The day I saw it I was absolutely charmed,” says Murray. “And that’s what I love about archives.”

Plus: The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company Archive Goes Online

Acquired in the summer of 2019, The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company Archive is another of the Dance Division’s newer collections, and the papers are now available for remote access upon request. “I feel like Bill has always been an artist of our time,” says Murray. “So much of his body of work is about trauma, and race is also central to what Bill makes. I’m very glad the papers are available, even while our reading room is closed.”

It’s good to reconnect—we last spoke in 2011.

Right. Life goes on.

It seems auspicious that today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as his speech “I Have a Dream” is among the source material you’ve referenced for
Deep Blue Sea. How does it appear in the work?

I perform it backwards, with the words in retrograde, so it sounds like a bit of Dada poetry. I suppose it’s too late for a spoiler alert now. That speech, though, is an American icon and, for me and for a lot of people, it’s as important as the United States Constitution. I grew up in a Martin Luther King–loving household. My parents were very religious people, and I always thought I agreed wholeheartedly with this notion that we shall overcome. Now it’s very much an open question.

“
Will we overcome?”

Don’t you ask the same question?

At times.

Right. And why is that? There is a very sticky and potentially explosive conversation that, along with the election, is going to ask us, “Are we really still this beacon, this light on a hill, this conglomerate of disparate groups and stakeholders that we call American democracy?” This work deals with that ambiguity.

Your sources also include
Moby-Dick. Where does Melville intersect with Dr. King?

Well, in Moby-Dick there was a little black boy on the boat whose name is Pip. He is an unlikely character among the macho, cantankerous and combative population of the Pequod, which Melville has artfully used as a metaphor for modern society. He is the least powerful person on the boat, and this is what attracted me to him. The fact is, I turned an accusing eye on myself: I remembered so much about the book, but I didn’t remember this character! And I suppose reading the book in the wake of Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, trans rights, all those things: We look at the under-observed in our society with newfound respect now—at least some of us do. Martin Luther King and Pip come together in that poetic, though tenuous and metaphorical, association.

Is this a first time for you collaborating on production design with an architect?

Hm. Yes, it is. And Liz Diller says, “I don’t do décor; I’m involved in dramaturgy.”

So much of her and her partners’ work is about movement. The High Line isn’t really a building at all, but a path; The Shed has movable components; The Juilliard School renovation is about circulation and space…

What you say about movement in their work is very true. Is Deep Blue Sea an architectural project? Yes, it is, and no, it is not.

You once said to me that “creation, when you’re in the heat of it, is a near-sacred thing that you don’t really control. It controls you.” Do you still feel that way, or do you feel more in control now? Do you even want more control?

I don’t think it’s changed much. I don’t think that I have the ultimate agency, particularly when you’re working with persons who come from very distant disciplines like architecture, and they are very accomplished artists who have strong senses of their own voices. I am not more free. Am I more diplomatic? I don’t know. Am I better at working through problems? Not really, but I do have people around me who are, like Janet Wong, my associate who is an extremely politic and kind person, and yet she’s very strong. Whereas I might scream, she has other ways of getting what she wants.

What besides dance interests you today?

I’m reading the work of Octavia Butler, who is in some ways the grande dame of Afro-Futurism, before it even had a name. Now, of course, it’s a visual art movement; there is a version that is coming literally from Africa. We are now in the post–Black Panther era, and the black community is not the only community that is interested in speculative space. Native American people, Asian people, queer people, are all in some ways using speculative fiction.

Along with their main objectives, it seems social movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo aim to remind us we have physical bodies, as opposed to just virtual identities. Is that another association for you as a choreographer?

I appreciate your framing of the question, but some of us have lived our whole lives, our whole creative lives… [pauses] If you are a black man of my description, and you’re working in the white avant-garde, you know these things deep in your bones. Maybe there was no language or no appetite for discussing them as there is now, but it’s not like it was a revelation for many of us. I would say to you as a writer, when you say “we,” who are you talking about? Who is the “we” that makes aesthetic judgments and defines art movements?

You said earlier that the idea of “we” was a central question of
Deep Blue Sea.

That is a central question of my life right now. Because I have been the cool black guy in a room full of cool white people. There was a time when I could count on one hand, Ralph Lemon, Bebe Miller, Blondell Cummings, Ishmael Houston-Jones: There were only a handful of us. Why was that? Let’s talk about our history—even in the avant-garde. Let’s talk about our history in light of what we have discovered about our society. On that note, I think I have to go because I have to be upstairs in one minute.

I appreciate your time.

Thank you. There is a lot more here we can be talking about. These are questions about the field that I think are crying out for serious attention.

Comings & Goings

Karolina Kuras, Courtesy National Ballet of Canada

Karen Kain
will retire as artistic director of National Ballet of Canada in January 2021, at which time she will be named artistic director emeritus. A search for her successor is underway.

Stella Abrera
will retire from American Ballet Theatre after this season. Her final performance will be in Giselle, scheduled for June 13. Longtime corps member Melanie Hamrick gave her final performance with the company during its fall season.

Dmitri Dovgoselets
will retire from Royal Winnipeg Ballet this season. His final performance will be during the company’s run of Moulin Rouge February 26–March 1.

At Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Nicole Clarke-Springer will begin serving as artistic director in December. Kevin Iega Jeff will shift to creative director of Deeply Rooted Productions. Jacquelyn Smiley Robinson has been appointed managing director.

Remi Harris
has been appointed programs manager at Center for Performance Research.

Raymond Rodriguez
has been named director of the Joffrey Academy of Dance.

Erin Lally
has been appointed director of the 92Y Dance Education Laboratory.

At Oregon Ballet Theatre, Jessica Lind and Thomas Baker have been promoted to soloist.

Awards & Honors

The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage awarded
Dinita Clark a Pew Fellowship, worth $75,000. Christ Church Preservation Trust received a project grant for David Gordon‘s upcoming THE PHILADELPHIA MATTER/2020.

At the New York Dance and Performance Awards (the “Bessies”), Leslie Cuyjet, Gabrielle Hamilton, Taylor Stanley and Shamar Watt received Outstanding Performer awards; Yvonne Rainer, Deborah Hay, Lucinda Childs, David Gordon, Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown, Simone Forti and curator Ana Janevski, the team behind “Judson Dance Theater: The Work is Never Done” at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art, received the award for Outstanding Revival; Nick Cave (The Let Go at Park Avenue Armory), nora chipaumire (#Punk 100% Pop* N!GGA at The Kitchen and Crossing the Line Festival), Merce Cunningham with stager Patricia Lent and the Merce Cunningham Trust (Night of 100 Solos: A Centennial Event), and Tania El Khoury (As Far As My Fingertips Take Me at Under the Radar/The Public Theater) were recognized in the Outstanding Production category.

Jayme Thornton

The Prix de la Danse de Montréal prizewinners for 2019 are Paul-André Fortier (Grand Prix, worth $25,000 CAD), dancer Brianna Lombardo (Prix Interprète, $10,000), choreographer Hélène Langevin (Prix du CALQ, $10,000), urban dance trailblazer Alexandra “Spicey” Landé (Prix Découverte, $5,000), companies Destins Croisés and Tentacle Tribe (Envol Award for Cultural Diversity and Inclusive Practices in Dance, $10,000), ice dancing troupe Le Patin Libre (Prix Diffusion Internationale, $5,000), cultural manager Marie-Andrée Gougeon (Prix Gestionnaire Culturelle, $5,000), and administrative director Jack Udashkin (Prix Contribution Exceptionnelle).

Chanel DaSilva
, Tsai Hsi Hung, Pablo Sánchez and Durante Verzola are the winners of The Joffrey Ballet’s 2020 Winning Works Choreographic Competition, which includes a $5,000 stipend.

Mark Morris
will be named a Living Landmark by The New York Landmarks Conservancy at a ceremony on November 6.

Bill T. Jones
has been named the associate artist of the 2020 Holland Festival.

Prumsodun Ok: Artists are magicians

Founder of Cambodia’s first gay dance company, Prumsodun Ok gives a hybrid dance/speech about Khmer dance and how genocide wiped out 90 percent of its practitioners. But rather than focus only on the devastation, he delivers a message about beauty’s ability to grow anywhere.

Miko Fogarty: It’s never too late to reinvent yourself

Former prodigy Miko Fogarty opens up about her decision to leave the world of ballet, and the courage it takes to listen to your gut and pursue what you actually want.

Michaela DePrince: It’s okay to be different 

Dutch National Ballet soloist Michaela DePrince shares her story of growing up as an orphan in Sierra Leone, where she was shunned due to her vitiligo, and talks about how finding ballet helped her discover a sense of self-worth.

Wayne McGregor: Creativity is something you can teach

Choreographer Wayne McGregor is obsessed with technology—first and foremost the technology of the human body. In this presentation, he describes choreography as “physical thinking,” and introduces his creative process to the audience by making a dance from scratch in real-time.

Camille A. Brown: Social dance is an expression that emerges from a community

In this viral video lesson on social dance, presented by TED-Ed, Camille A. Brown talks us through some of the biggest popular dance styles that have emerged from the African-American community throughout history.

Charlie Hodges: Every day starts with space to get better

Sharing his stories of being body shamed over and over again in the dance world, Charlie Hodges talks about how he overcame the challenge of having an atypical dancer’s body to become a professional with Twyla Tharp and L.A. Dance Project, among other companies.

Merritt Moore: Share your energy

A ballet dancer who doubles as a physicist, Merritt Moore explains how her time in the lab has changed her perspective on connecting to an audience—then she shows exactly what she means in a duet with Adam Kirkham from BalletBoyz.

Bill T. Jones: Wait

In 2015, Bill T. Jones teamed up with TED Fellows Joshua Roman and Somi to improvise together as a way of offering the audience the chance to see their creative collaboration in action. They call it, “The Red Circle and the Blue Curtain,” referencing the iconic red TED stage and Isadora Duncan’s iconic blue backdrop. There’s more dancing than talking in this TED talk, but we don’t mind that one bit.

Charles Weidman leading a rehearsal of Lynchtown

John Daughtry, Courtesy DM Archives

Lynchtown (1936)

Charles Weidman’s Lynchtown depicts a mob hunting an outsider and surrounding him like vultures, an experience that Weidman himself witnessed as a child. The piece was part of a larger suite of works entitled Atavisms.

How Long Brethren? (1937)

Helen Tamiris choreographed a suite of eight pieces called Negro Spirituals, a protest of the discrimination against African Americans. The most famous was How Long Brethren?, which shed light on the lives of unemployed Southern blacks.

Strange Fruit (1945)

Pearl Primus’ Strange Fruit is a commentary on the panicked culture of lynching as seen through the eyes of a woman who witnesses the brutal event.

Southland (1951)

A two-part work about lynchings in America, Katherine Dunham’s Southland premiered in Chile, shocking the American embassy. It had only one other performance, in Paris. The U.S. government denied funding for future works by Dunham for her negative portrayal of the U.S. at the height of the Cold War.

Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulder (1959)

Donald McKayle’s dramatic masterwork reveals the frustration of oppression and aspirations for freedom of a chain gang toiling in the American South.

Eleo Pomare’s Blues for the Jungle

Courtesy DM Archives

Blues for the Jungle (1966)

A signature work that came to the stage in the Civil Rights era, Eleo Pomare’s Blues for the Jungle shed light on struggles like the Harlem riot of 1964.

Ceremony of Us (1969)

Following the Watts race riots in Los Angeles, Anna Halprin choreographed Ceremony of Us. She developed choreography for dancers from Studio Watts, an African-American arts organization, and separately for her all-white dance company, the San Francisco Dancer’s Workshop. The groups came together for a short rehearsal period before performing.

Cry (1971)

Alvin Ailey created Cry for “all black women everywhere—especially our mothers.” Judith Jamison, who originated the role, wrote: “She represented those women…who came from the hardships of slavery, through the pain of losing loved ones, through overcoming extraordinary depressions and tribulations…she has found her way and triumphed.”

Deep South Suite (1976)

Dianne McIntyre’s Deep South Suite shares realities of the 1940s South, set to Duke Ellington’s music.

Dance Theatre of Harlem in Creole Giselle

Leslie E. Spatt, Courtesy DM Archives

Creole Giselle (1984)

Frederic Franklin’s restaging of Giselle for Dance Theatre of Harlem sets the work in antebellum Louisiana, where Giselle can’t marry Albrecht because of her family ties to slavery.

Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land (1990)

In this three-hour work, Bill T. Jones, then known mostly for pushing the avant-garde, dealt directly with his black heritage, confronting slavery and racism.

Minstrel Show (1991)

Donald Byrd created Minstrel Show in light of the slaying of Yusef Hawkins, a Brooklyn teenager killed by a white mob. Byrd reworked the piece in 2014 as The Minstrel Show Revisited after Trayvon Martin’s death and George Zimmerman’s acquittal.

Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk (1996)

Savion Glover’s musical revue showcased a history of African-American men from slavery to present day (the mid-’90s), with numbers like “The Chicago Riot Rag,” “The Lynching Blues” and “Slave Ships,” as well as a parody of Shirley Temple and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.

Zaccho Dance Theatre in Invisible Wings

Alan E. Solomon, Courtesy Jacob’s Pillow

Invisible Wings (1998)

Joanna Haigood’s site-specific Invisible Wings is set on the grounds of Jacob’s Pillow, illuminating its history as a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Come home Charley Patton (2004)

In the third part of The Geography Trilogy, Ralph Lemon focused on various sites from the Civil Rights period, with a recording of a James Baldwin lecture about race.

Urban Bush Women in Walking with Pearl

Aryano Hisa, Courtesy UBW

Walking with Pearl (2004–05)

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, founder of Urban Bush Women, created an homage to Pearl Primus in Walking with Pearl…African Diaries and Walking with Pearl…Southern Diaries, which received a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie).

Mr. TOL E. RAncE (2012)

Camille A. Brown’s Mr. TOL E. RAncE looks at intolerance and the modern dance minstrelsy.

What did we miss?

Share which historic dance works about racism and social injustice have spoken to you. Write to us on Facebook or Twitter @Dance_Magazine.

What do choreographers see in their dancers’ physiques?

 

Ballet BC dancer Darren Devaney. Photo by Michael Slobodian, Courtesy Ballet BC.

 

Inspiration can come from anywhere, but for choreographers, the body itself is a rich source. Some dancemakers may be drawn to specific physical traits: lanky limbs, an articulate spine, a muscular build. But those features can’t move on their own. There’s always a heart, a mind, a spirit, a psyche—some form of inner life propelling what we see externally, animating what the body can do. Dance Magazine asked four choreographers: What body inspires you?

 

 

Bill T. Jones

Artistic director, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company

We’re a company that started out with very eccentric bodies: Larry Goldhuber, Arthur Aviles, people like that. Some of the repertory has such a strong imprint from those dancers that you’re always looking for some version of it, though you don’t want to be shameless about trying to reproduce it. Of course, there aren’t many Larry Goldhubers with 300 pounds, but my company must always have a very large man, somebody with stature. Larry always made me feel small when I danced with him.

For the kind of movement we do, it’s good to have long arms, a supple back, to be able to find stillness in a way that’s hopefully not dead. We talk about the skeleton as rock-and-roll: the bones of the skeleton, the way you let your backbone slip. It’s first got to be strong, like a marionette, so you can articulate from some central point.

Shayla-Vie Jenkins is one example of that. I love her beauty. When Arnie and I started out, we never had a regal black woman with training. They were going to Mr. Ailey or somewhere else. But Shayla was attracted to my movement. Because of the length of her limbs, the way there’s something aloof about her, she can deliver abstract movement convincingly. That’s more about the quality of interpretation than the body, but the two work together in my mind.

 

Photo of Bill T. Jones, Courtesy NYLA.

Emily Molnar

Artistic director, Ballet BC

There’s not one body type that interests me. What interests me is a dancer who is fully engaged inside of their body. There’s no blockage, no insecurity. They’re confident in who they are, and you can sense it in the way they dance. That usually leads, for me, to a body that is strong, agile, vulnerable, expressive and can really move through three-dimensional space.

Ballet BC is reflective of that. Every one of the dancers looks very different. They’re not the same height; some are more muscular. What’s interesting to me is how a group of individuals works as a collective. I think that when everybody is a carbon copy it misses the point of what artistic expression is.

There’s a dancer in Ballet BC, Darren Devaney, who is very slight. One would think on first observation that he wouldn’t be able to partner, but he’s one of the strongest and most supple dancers I’ve seen. Some of the greatest artists I’ve seen are the dancers with more difficult bodies: Maybe they don’t have the greatest arched feet, or the most flexibility, or an enormous amount of rotation or that fabulous arabesque. But it can be more interesting to watch, because they’ve had to create a real understanding of how their body works and what they’re saying with it.

 

Photo of Emily Molnar courtesy Ballet BC.

Michelle Dorrance

Artistic director, Dorrance Dance

I like working with a diverse range of individuals. A great example is Ryan Casey, who’s 6′ 8″ and really lanky. He stands out the second he’s onstage. That’s not just another body to me. It’s a body that inspires character work specifically. I centered a lot of scenes around him. I liked playing with the idea that he could look totally gangly, almost absurd, and still execute every sound with utmost precision and clarity and tone and nuance. You’d never think that someone with feet that big and a body that long could wield it with the same efficiency as a smaller, more compact dancer. I love that paradox and the character that comes from it.

I don’t mind if a dancer has some extra weight, some extra meat, a lot of muscle or barely any, as long as they have control. I want dancers who are strong and sharp but also capable of great subtlety. Of course, they have to have incredibly intelligent feet. The music and the integrity of our technique comes first. I want that clarity. But I do ask for more.

 

Dorrance (left) rehearsing a Petite Suite, with Ryan Casey (right). Photo by Joni Lohr, Courtesy Dorrance
.

 

Andrea Miller

Artistic director, Gallim Dance

I could tell you everything that’s physically beautiful about any of my dancers. But if someone didn’t have the soul or the imagination or the depth to try something new and be bold, I don’t think those physical features would matter.

I see the body in its most inspiring state when a dancer lets their imagination change the makeup of their structure from one moment to the next, like the softness or thickness of their skin. One of my dancers, Dan Walczak, has really transformed in that way. He came from an approach that was more release-based, I think. There was something hesitant in his movement. We really had to get him to engage: engage his fire, his muscles, his focus, his jump. And he completely changed. He has a huge range of expressivity. You can feel his soul, his compassion, his sadness or his silliness. His heart is all over his body.

 

Miller watching Gallim’s Gwyneth Mackenzie and Matthew Perez. Photo by Carey Kirkella.

 

Siobhan Burke, a former
Dance Magazine associate editor, is a dance critic for The New York Times.

The new Ailey repertoire
is going to knock your socks off. In a recent rehearsal of Aszure Barton’s new piece, I was blown away by the searing, pulsing vitality of it. The company is also taking on Wayne McGregor’s hyperactive, strangely clinical, kinetically powerful Chroma. Plus there’s Bill T. Jones’ hard-driving, exhilarating D-Man in the Waters. These three works are technically confounding for dancers—and will bring the audience at Ailey’s City Center season up to the minute in currency.

Our cover story reveals Ailey artistic director Robert Battle’s thinking behind his choices, as well as the challenges that two of his most stunning dancers, Jamar Roberts and Rachael McLaren, face with these new works. In Kina Poon’s “The New Ailey,” you’ll get a sense of how much the company has changed, and yet how much the Ailey spirit has remained an anchor.

On the other side
of the dance universe, I got to see the legendary Lyudmila Kovaleva teach class at the Vaganova Academy in St. Petersburg last June. Apparently, Kovaleva still, to this day, coaches her former student Diana Vishneva on certain roles. That gave me the idea to ask Vishneva, as well as other top dancers, about their favorite teachers, the ones who really made a difference. Read “They Taught Me To…” to learn who Ashley Bouder, Kathleen Breen Combes, Desmond Richardson, and Jason Samuels Smith cherish as the mentors who changed their lives.

 

Right: Rachel McLaren and Jamar Roberts in Barton’s
LIFT. By Jayme Thornton

While I watched class and rehearsals at the old Mariinsky theater, I was surprised to encounter a British dancer. I had no idea that Xander Parish had left The Royal Ballet and joined the Mariinsky. He guided me from one studio to another, and I soon realized that his story could be told quite nicely in a “Why I Dance”—which appears on our back page this month.

Lastly,
this is my final “Curtain Up” because I have transitioned into a role as editor at large. As you will see in “DM Recommends,” a book of my writings has just come out, and it has opened up some new opportunities for me. I am leaving the magazine in good hands, those of the very capable Jennifer Stahl. I have enjoyed working on Dance Magazine immensely.

 

Wendy Perron, Editor in Chief

wendyperron@dancemedia.com

dancemagazine.com/blogs/wendy

twitter.com/wperrondancemag

Swimming Upstream

 

Bill T. Jones fills brainy group structures with hurtling, full-out dancing in D-Man in the Waters. A tribute to the courageous spirit of Demian Acquavella, a dancer in the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company who fought the ravages of AIDS, the piece is exuberantly performed to the music of Mendelssohn. We’ll have another chance to see this 1989 masterwork March 26–April 7 at the Joyce, along with other works to classical music—Mozart, Schubert, and Ravel. The Orion String Quartet plays live. See www.joyce.org.