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July 31st: Community Engagement Artists and Creatives Grant, December 31st: New England Presenter Travel Fund, December 31st: Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet Scholarship, December 31st: 24 Seven Dance Convention, December 31st: National Theater Project Presenter Travel Grant, December 31st: Breck Creek Artist-in-Residence Program

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DDP Talks To

"The Devil Ties My Tongue" by Amy Seiwert performed for the SKETCH Series, 2013. Photo by David DeSilva. Courtesy of Amy Seiwert's Imagery

Up to date announcements of company seasons, featured artists and special programming as well as grant of awards such as Princess Grace, or artistic appointments

New York Times: Frida Kahlo Could Barely Walk. In This Ballet, She Dances.

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By Nina Siegal

17 January 2019

AMSTERDAM — Frida Kahlo’s vibrant art, turbulent life and tragic death at age 47 are certainly operatic. But the Mexican surrealist painter, who was left disabled by polio and a bus accident, might seem an unlikely subject for a ballet.

But that’s the medium Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, a choreographer who has also worked in flamenco, hip-hop and contemporary dance, has for her newest work, “Frida,” which will have its world premiere at the Dutch National Ballet on Feb. 6.

The ballet, which is based on the painter’s life — including her tempestuous relationship with her husband, the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera — does not linger on Kahlo’s physical disability, Ms. Lopez Ochoa said in a recent interview. Instead, it will animate her emotional world and artistic legacy, using dance.

Read the full article in the NY Times.

Berks-Mont: Dance Theatre of Harlem performs at Kutztown University

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10 January 2020

KUTZTOWN — KU Presents! welcomes the Dance Theatre of Harlem, a singular presence in the ballet world celebrating its 50th anniversary season for a multi-day residency at Kutztown University.

Founded in 1969 by Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook, the company tours internationally presenting a powerful vision for ballet in the 21st century. The 18-member, multi-ethnic company performs a forward-thinking repertoire that includes treasured classics, neoclassical works by George Balanchine and resident choreographer Robert Garland, as well as innovative contemporary works that use the language of ballet to celebrate African American culture. Through performances, community engagement, and arts education, the company carries forward Dance Theatre of Harlem’s message of empowerment through the arts for all.

Dance Theatre of Harlem will take the stage on Feb. 5 at 7:30 p.m. in Schaeffer Auditorium on the Kutztown University campus. Tickets are $42; $38 for students and seniors and can be purchased at www.KutztownPresents.org, or by calling the KU Presents! Box Office Tuesday through Friday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 610-683-4092.

In addition to the public performance, the Dance Theatre of Harlem will be offering a lecture and demonstration for K-12 schools at 10 a.m. on Feb. 5. In this assembly performance, the company will speak about their history, how they started as a revolutionary, multi-ethnic dance company, and perform excerpts of their new works that highlight female choreographers, women of color, and African-American themes. 

Read the full article here.

WBUR The ARTery: The Ballet World Asked For More Choreography By Women — And Got It

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By Sharon Basco

10 January 2020

In the not-distant past, major ballet companies went year after year, decade after decade, without a single ballet made by a woman. Then, seven years ago, choreographer Amy Seiwert did something no one else had done: She researched U.S. ballet troupes with budgets exceeding $5 million, looking at the number of female-made ballets in the 2012-2013 season. According to the Dance Data Project, she found that of 290 ballets staged that year, just 25 (or 8.62%) were choreographed by women. And people, like Boston Ballet artistic director Mikko Nissinen, began to take notice. “I was staggered by the numbers,” he said.

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A sign that representation of women in the creative ranks will be sustained and improved upon is the emergence of the Dance Data Project as an official nonprofit last year. (The project began in 2015 as a simple database.) The organization describes itself as “a global resource for the study and analysis of major national and international dance companies, venues, and choreographic awards.”

The Dance Data Project compiles statistics annually to track progress (or lack of it) in major ballet companies with the belief that cold, hard facts will drive change. Here’s an example: Of the 50 largest (by expenditure) American ballet troupes, in the 2018-2019 season, 81 percent of the works were choreographed by men. In the 2019-2020 season, 79 percent of the works will be choreographed by men.

No one ever said it would be easy, or happen quickly, but the glass ceiling has been cracked. Now, there are other crucial gender issues to be addressed. One is equal pay. Another is the chance to fail. And a third is about creativity itself, about development of a special, individual voice, something that traditionally was discouraged in girls.

Read the full article on WBUR.

LA Dance Chronicle: BULLYING AND THE STRUGGLE FOR GENDER PARITY IN DANCE

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By Nancy Dobbs Owen

6 January 2019

When I first decided that I wanted to write about the reactions I observed regarding the Prince George bullying incident, I thought it would take me a couple of weeks to look at some research, talk to a few people in the industry and come up with a clear and cogent summary of the problems and perhaps a list of solutions.  I wrote the introductory article, posted it and planned to post the second and third over the next few weeks. That was intensely naive. The problems of bullying, homophobia, misogyny, and gender (mis)representation are multilayered, intertwined, serious and intensely harmful. The erasure of talent and ambition, the lack of empathy and inclusion, and the often soul crushing meanness that permeates the dance world is illustrated in hundreds of single spaced links, was choked out during long, tearful conversations, and documented in the pages and pages of detailed and vulnerable answers to the simple questions that I posed.  Honestly, if it was all bad, maybe it would have been easier to write, but for every heartbreaking, soul crushing anecdote or relayed experience, there was also a story of dance as the source of salvation, of found family, and of overwhelming love. I plan, over the course of these next two articles, to explore this dichotomy of dark and light all along the spectrum, opening up discussion within and outside of the dance community, hopefully leading to increased understanding, inclusivity, and exploration.

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So, what are the solutions?  How do we honor all of our dancers and their individual hardships while shifting the gender balance in leadership to reflect the population, both in and out of the dance world? In addition to Kate Crews Linsley and Anacia Weiskittel, I interviewed three amazing women who are all working in or towards leadership roles in ballet: Amy Seiwert is Artistic Director of The Sacramento Ballet as well as the founder and Artistic Director of her own company, Amy Seiwert’s Imagery. Her Nutcracker is the only full-length ballet choreographed by a woman this season among the top fifty companies in the United States based on research by the Dance Data Project who’s “theory of change is that once the public, dance critics, and foundations know the numbers, they won’t be able to hide any more.” Stella Abrera-Radetsky is a principal dancer with American Ballet theater and in January is stepping into a new role as Artistic Director of Kaatsbaan, the Hudson Valley’s cultural park for dance and an incubator for the growth, advancement and preservation of professional dance. Nicole Haskins is a ballet choreographer and dance educator who has had pieces commissioned by Richmond Ballet, Smuin Contemporary Ballet and Oregon Ballet Theatre among others.

Read the full article in the LA Dance Chronicle.

Dance Magazine: Calling It: The Dance Trends We’re Predicting for the ’20s

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By Jennifer Stahl

6 January 2020

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There will be more female leaders.

The new Dance Data Project is determined to share the real stats on how many leadership opportunities in ballet are held by women. Unfortunately, the numbers right now look pretty dismal. But we’re optimistic that we’ll be seeing more women take charge as directors and choreographers over the next decade.

Starting 2020 on a hopeful note, Royal New Zealand Ballet artistic director Patricia Barker programmed an all-female–choreographed season this year. In our January issue, she tells Steve Sucato:

“Male artistic directors have had every opportunity to hire female choreographers all along. While I applaud any effort to develop and encourage the next generation of female choreographers, it feels like a belated pat on the head. There is an existing generation of female choreographers doing fantastic work already. You can just pick up the phone and call them.”

Read the full article on Dance Magazine’s blog.

Bay State Banner: ‘See | Be Seen’ upends expectations of female dancers

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By Celina Colby

On Saturday, December 21, an enormous crystalline inflatable dome rose almost to the ceiling of a performance space in the South End’s Calderwood Pavilion. Inside the inflatable dome, three nude dancers reclaimed their bodies and their artistic agency in “See | Be Seen,” a new piece by artist Emily Beattie.

The seeds of the show were planted three years ago when Beattie began considering her experience as a female dancer. Trained in ballet, modern and improvisational dance, she found that very specific rules came tied to each form. Her thought process aligned with the beginning of the Me Too movement, which further spurred her work.

“There are patriarchal expectations put on dance. That you need to look a certain way, that you need to move in a certain way, that the audience needs to necessarily feel welcomed,” she says. “There are power dynamics in that.”

In “See | Be Seen,” those power dynamics are flipped completely in the dancers’ favor. The dome in which the women perform can be looked into but not with complete clarity. Audience members are encouraged to walk around the dome in the round while the performers are dancing. If they want to be involved and to witness the piece, they have to work for it.

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“I think it takes a team to say go beyond, go beyond where you think you should go,” says Beattie. “We’re proud that we have an all female show.”

Read the full article in the Bay State Banner.

New York Times: ‘Just Speaking From My Body’

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By Siobhan Burke

24 December 2019

Every so often a great dancer transcends her own brilliance, somehow expanding its outer limit. Last week at City Center, Linda Celeste Sims, a member of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for 24 years, did just that in a rapturous performance of Ailey’s 1971 “Cry,” a 16-minute solo dedicated “to all black women everywhere — especially our mothers.”

This season Ms. Sims, 43, danced the work for the first time as a mother — she gave birth to her first child, Ellington, in May — and something shifted.

“I went deep, I went really deep,” she said in a telephone interview on Thursday, reflecting on her performance the night before. “It almost felt like I wasn’t performing for you, I was actually just speaking from my body.”

The Youngest (and Liveliest) ‘Nutcracker’ Audience of the Season

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By Julia Jacobs

24 December 2019

The red velvet seats at the David H. Koch Theater were quickly filling up — not with the usual ballet audience, but with squirming, shrieking and giggling elementary school students.

On a Tuesday morning in December, the day after the first snow of the season, a couple thousand students spilled out from school buses and marched single file into the theater, where the New York City Ballet would perform “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker” just for them.

Each class at Girls Prep is named after a woman of significance; these students are in the “Maria Tallchief class,” named for the ballerina who played the Sugarplum Fairy when Balanchine first restaged “The Nutcracker” in 1954.

Read the full article in the New York Times.

“IT’S A NEW ERA FOR WOMEN IN BALLET” – DDP “Here & Now” Story Now Available Online

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Dance Data Project® (DDP) research was discussed in a Here & Now piece on National Public Radio (NPR) on Friday, December 20. Following reporter Sharon Basco’s initial investigation of the lack of women choreographers in ballet, published in WBUR’s The ARTery and covered in a Here & Now story in 2015, the program discussed the shifting “no girls allowed” atmosphere in the artform.

Listen to the story here.

Vogue Australia: The Australian Ballet’s Alice Topp explores gender politics in the world of dance

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By Victoria Baker

In a discipline where women are under-represented, Alice Topp shines bright. Appointed a resident choreographer at the Australian Ballet in 2018, she writes about finding the confidence to take on a new career challenge.

“I never saw myself becoming a choreographer. I thought it must be something you’d always dreamed of doing, a calling, and that there’d be some sort of lightning-bolt strike of inspiration that led you to your destined choreographic path. But it wasn’t like that for me. The opportunity came about when the only woman creating for the Australian Ballet’s choreographic season Bodytorque withdrew to go on maternity leave. It had been a few years since a woman had choreographed for the program and the conversation about the lack of female choreographers had become a popular discussion worldwide. Nicolette Fraillon, the company’s music director, felt I would be a good replacement. I’m not quite sure what it was she saw in me, but I’m forever grateful. She prompted our artistic director David McAllister to ask me if I’d be interested in filling the gap in the program.

I had a weekend to make a decision, but as intimidating as it was to accept the challenge without any notion of what I was doing or how to go about it, I had watched many freelance friends fight for funding, space and a platform just like the opportunity that had landed in my lap, so I felt it was something I should have a crack at. It was easier not to place too much pressure on myself at first – I was a last-minute wild card with nothing to lose. All the other choreographers were male principal dancers with previous choreographic experience and I was a third-year corps de ballet dancer with no clue what I was doing! I felt there was no expectation, so I couldn’t really fail.

Read the full article in Vogue.