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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

Broadway World: Photo Flash: Take a Look Inside Dance Lab New York’s Collaboration with The Joyce Theater

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18 November 2019

In the final two weeks of the Joyce Lab Cycle, choreographers Courtney Cochran and Margarita Armas explored the classical and neoclassical ballet idioms prior to their presentation at Works & Process at The Guggenheim.

New York-based choreographer and dancer Courtney Cochran said, “To be nominated for this opportunity was incredible. As a woman, a woman of color and a choreographer, I feel seen.” Regarding her discoveries in The Lab, “Dance Lab allowed me to dive much deeper into my exploration of human relationships in a narrative I’m developing.”

19-year old Margarita Armas reflected on her time in The Lab, “I am completely changed from this experience. I thought I was just a dancer before, and now I have really found the choreographer and the creator in me. It has changed me.”

Read the full article and view the gallery on Broadway World.

Three Out of Five Choreographers For Ballet Arkansas Program Are Women

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Arkansas Times: Five dances, five moods in Ballet Arkansas’s “Debut”

By Leslie Newell Peacock

14 November 2019

Orson Welles once said that the enemy of art is the absence of limitation. Perhaps Michael Fothergill had a similar adage in mind when he drew up the rules for Ballet Arkansas’s most recent evening of new works. The terms were these: Five dancers had nine hours each in the studio to create a new work. They drew their casts from a hat, and rehearsals began. The result was “Debut,” performed Nov. 15-16 at Argenta Community Theater in downtown North Little Rock.

Read the full article in The Arkansas Times.

Yale News: YUBC performs cinematic fall show

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By Ella Goldblum

11 November 2019

“A gang that don’t own the street is nothin’!”

This quote from West Side Story appeared on the backdrop as Yale Undergraduate Ballet Company dancers emerged in flannels and jeans at the Off-Broadway Theater on Nov. 6 and 9. Company members also danced against bare trees, warped New York City buildings and moonlit beaches.

Karen Jiang ’21, co-president of YBC, said this show used ballet “to complement and further deepen our understanding of another form of art.”

“The Moving Picture,” a two-act show in which company members danced exclusively to songs from movies, was YBC’s first show of the academic year. It was also the first time in YBC history that the company invited a guest choreographer. Guest choreographer Miriam Mahdaviani previously danced and choreographed works for the New York City Ballet and was invited to choreograph the show as part of the 50WomenatYale150 celebration of women in the arts.

Read the full article on Yale News.

Cage 541: Five questions with Eugene Ballet’s Toni Pimble

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By Destiny Alvarez for The Register-Guard

5 November 2019

From the time Toni Pimble was 8 years old, ballet has been her life.

As a child Pimble, now the art[istic] director of Eugene Ballet, grew up in Camberley in Surry, England, near London and developed a love of music from her parents, who enjoyed playing classical music. She was incredibly energetic and when her parents put her in ballet classes as an outlet, dance became her everything.

The path led her to a professional performing arts school where she studied classical ballet, jazz, tap, modern, and even forms of classical Indian dance. After graduation she joined a classical ballet company in Kiel, Germany, and later danced with companies in Germany for many years. She eventually met Riley Grannan, lifelong Eugene-area resident, and the pair founded the Eugene Ballet Company in 1978.

While she no longer performs, Pimble has helped build the Eugene Ballet Company’s reputation of artistic excellence throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

Read the full article in The Register-Guard.

Stuff: Royal New Zealand Ballet partnering with foodbanks in time for Christmas

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By Kate Greene

6 November 2019

A ballet about hungry children will ensure  fewer kids go hungry this Christmas. 

The Royal New Zealand Ballet (RNZB) is teaming up with food banks in seven cities during November and December, collecting donations at performances around the country.

Hansel and Gretel opens in Wellington on November 6, and the company will be collecting non-perishable food and personal care items at every performance.

Bins will be placed in theatre foyers during performances, with audience members able to drop off donations.

Read the full article on Stuff.

Pointe Magazine: Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Feminist Reading of “A Streetcar Named Desire” Comes to Nashville

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By Hannah Foster

30 October 2019


In December 1947, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire rocked audiences with its brutal portrayal of a young southern widow’s tragic life. At the Broadway premiere, the theater fell utterly silent after the curtain closed, before the audience erupted into a 30-minute ovation.

Since its creation, Streetcar has won numerous awards and provided inspiration for a plethora of adaptations. Now, choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa‘s balletic version is making its U.S. company debut at Nashville Ballet November 1–3. As a female choreographer with an interest in telling women’s stories, Ochoa is championing a new era of narrative ballet, and she wants audiences familiar with Williams’ story to see the protagonist’s arc in a new light.

Streetcar was Ochoa’s first full-length work; it premiered at Scottish Ballet in 2012. “I chose this story and I couldn’t understand why no other company had chosen it, but as I was making the piece I understood,” she explains. “The characters are complex and very layered, and the story leans on secrecy and psychology.”

Read the full article in Pointe Magazine.

The Korea Times: Korean National Ballet presents independent female lead in ‘Hoi Rang’

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By Anna J. Park

The Korean National Ballet (KNB) will present its original dance titled “Hoi Rang” Nov. 6-10 at Seoul Arts Center’s Opera Theater in southern Seoul.

The 110-minute modern ballet is the story of a strong-willed female character called Rang, who disguises herself as a man to join the army to save her ill father and lead the victory in a war.

The plot was inspired by the compilation book “Ilsayusa,” published in the early 20th century in Korea, which collected famous stories of low and middle-class citizens of the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom.

It is the national ballet company’s third original piece, created to showcase homegrown ballet to international audiences, following “Prince Hodong” in 2009 and “Heo Nan Seol Heon” in 2017. More than three years have been spent preparing this piece.

“I think, from a global perspective, anybody in the world can easily follow the story and share its sentiment,” KNB artistic director Kang Sue-jin said during a press conference on Wednesday. “It just feels like Walt Disney’s fairy tale. This original ballet marks a new challenge for the Korean National Ballet to advance one more step. I am very proud of it.”

Read the full article in The Korea Times.

The Gazette: Dancing queens: New York City’s Ballet Hispánico to perform in Colorado Springs

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By Jennifer Mulson

30 October 2019

It’s not only the fields of media and politics coming to terms with their century-long misogyny; it’s also the world of dance.

When you take in a Ballet Hispánico show, you’re watching one company’s effort to bring equality to the dance world. Over the past three years, the Manhattan-based Latino dance organization has made efforts to feature female choreographers and increase the women’s visibility.

“The #MeToo movement is also affecting us,” said Eduardo Vilaro, artistic director and CEO of Ballet Hispánico. “Everyone thinks the arts don’t face it, but they do too. The dance world has been a male-dominated world, with women playing the swan or themselves as marginalized. This is a way of really moving the needle.”

Read the full article in The Gazette.

The Star: Karen Kain will retire from a half-century with the National Ballet of Canada in 2021

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Ballet superstar Karen Kain will retire as artistic director of The National Ballet of Canada in January 2021.

The ballet’s board of directors says Kain will step down from the post but remain with the company as artistic director emeritus.

The announcement comes nearly 15 years after Kain assumed the creative reins in 2005 and 50 years after joining the company as a dancer in 1969.

She says serving as artistic director “has been the greatest honour” of her life.

The ballet’s board chair, Cornell Wright, lauded Kain for inspiring “excellence in all who have the privilege to work with her.”

Kain commissioned and acquired 65 works for the company, and is directing and staging a new “Swan Lake” in June 2020.

“I am so proud of the National Ballet of Canada and feel so fortunate to have had this wonderful company as my artistic home for 50 years. The role of artistic director is the most challenging, and the most rewarding, of my career,” Kain said Friday in a release.

Read the full article in The Star.

The Globe and Mail: Crystal Pite tackles her biggest challenge yet at the Paris Opera Ballet

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By Laura Cappelle

23 October 2019

It’s 9 a.m. at the Palais Garnier, the imposing home of the Paris Opera Ballet, and Crystal Pite is listening to Chopin alone in her dressing room. The Canadian choreographer has 10 days to go before the world premiere of Body and Soul, her new production for the French company, and it’s not finished, she tells me when I join her. “I was listening to some of the 24 preludes that I haven’t even touched yet. So … that’s challenging.”

Read the full article with a subscription to The Globe and Mail.