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
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
×"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
By Jennifer Homans
15 April 2019
Begin at the wall. A large concrete wall, a Berlin Wall, a U.S.-Mexico wall,an Israeli wall. As the curtain opens on Akram Khan’s “Giselle,” we see a crowd of people pushing against it. Their backs are to us; we feel their weight, see their hands and anonymous bodies cast in shadow and silhouette. One of them is searching for someone. He finds her, and they stand facing each other, without touching, palms open. A moment later, they are separated by a man who roughly claims her, and an intensely physical rhythmic group dance—undulating torsos, fanned hands—engulfs them all. Now herds of people are galloping across the stage, arms thrusting, in a chaos of passage and flight, their seemingly hoofed feet hitting the ground like beating drums as they cross and recross, their bodies strangely bent, half human, half beast.
We are far from the nineteenth-century “Giselle” that is still performed by ballet companies around the world. The Spanish ballerina Tamara Rojo, formerly of London’s Royal Ballet, became the director and the lead principal dancer of the English National Ballet, in 2012. Three years later, she commissioned Khan to make this new “Giselle.” It was a bold choice. Khan, a British dancer of Bangladeshi descent, is not a ballet choreographer. Trained in kathak, the northern Indian dance form, he is known for his powerful performances and innovative work with his own troupe, Akram Khan Company, on the contemporary scene. His “Giselle” was first performed, to acclaim, in 2016, in Manchester. I saw it in March, at the Harris Theatre, in Chicago, with Rojo in the title role at its sold-out American première.
Rojo wants to bring ballet out of its too often élite precincts, and she aims to do this in part by reimagining the classical repertoire. She does not share the impulse of many ballet directors to “reconstruct” or cleave as closely as possible to the original music and steps of old dances in the ballet canon. Khan’s “Giselle” is also not a modern-dress staging, like the 1982 version by the Swedish choreographer Mats Ek, in which the second act was set in a mental hospital. Instead, Rojo and Khan have scrapped just about everything of the old ballet, keeping only the barest outlines of the plot. Khan’s “Giselle” has a new score, new décor and costumes, a contemporary setting—migrant laborers in ghostly abandoned factories—and above all a new kind of dancing, which draws on kathak and ballet, on contemporary dance and everyday gesture, on animals and machines. It is a brand-new show haunted by an already haunted dance.
Read the full article in The New Yorker.
9 April 2019
The initiative creates a unique opportunity for an emerging female choreographer to take up an artistic residency at Sydney Opera House and create a work for The Australian Ballet’s Bodytorque program in October 2019.
The winner, Amelia Drummond, is from Canberra and was selected from more than 40 entries. Each entry was assessed by a panel of knowledgeable judges including The Australian Ballet’s artistic associate and principal coach, Fiona Tonkin; the head of Contemporary Performance at Sydney Opera House, Olivia Ansell; and the former Artistic Director of Expressions Dance Company, Natalie Weir (who is also a former resident choreographer of The Australian Ballet), alongside Dance Australia co-editor Karen van Ulzen and Dance Australia critics Margaret Mercer (WA), Geraldine Higginson (NSW), Susan Bendall (VIC).
“We were all delighted by the diligence and care of the applications and the high quality of the choreography,” Karen van Ulzen said. “It has been a pleasure to review such a talented field of creative women and it has been very difficult making a choice. We regret that we were not able to accept them all!”
Natalie Weir was equally enthusiastic. “This initiative is a much-needed opportunity for female choreographers working in the classical genre to have their work platformed, to work with the incredible dancers of The Australian Ballet, and to have their profile lifted, which may lead to further commissions,” she said. “Opportunities to choreograph for ballet companies are very rare; I hope this is an initiative that continues into the future.”
Read the full article in Dance Australia.
For an April 11 article in Playbill, Djassi Dacosta Johnson celebrates the Dance Theatre of Harlem’s 50th anniversary at New York City Center. Johnson highlights the company’s foundation of inclusion and awareness, calling it “the proliferation of classical ballet- artistically and socially advancing what ballet can mean to a public.”
Johnson praised Virginia Johnson, DTH’s director, writing, “She has provided a platform for female classical ballet choreographers through Women Who Move Us, the DTH program with a mission to cultivate the female choreographic voice in classical ballet. ‘There is much headway to be made,’ says Johnson. ‘The ballet world is so hierarchical and still so traditionally male dominant.'”
The company began with a strong advocate for a well-rounded, diverse, rooted-in-classical but thoroughly modern ballet, and 50 years later, this philosophy continues to allow DTH to thrive.
Read Johnson’s article here.
By Carla Escoda
10 April 2019
“Can hip-hop save ballet?”
It was a question recently asked on BBC Radio by Eric Underwood. The former Royal Ballet soloist was talking with other prominent black dancers about the systemic exclusion of black dancers from the ballet world, and the need to keep the art form relevant. As ballet companies embrace assorted strategies to become more inclusive, perhaps the real question is: can ballet save ballet?
It urgently needs a pipeline of new dance-makers, and platforms that give them the freedom to take risks. As Diana Byer, founder and artistic director of the acclaimed New York Theatre Ballet, and a stalwart champion of new dance-makers, tells me, “It is a constant struggle to find even extremely limited funds to nurture emerging choreographers.” Today, she says, “media drives a specific kind of artist and the texture of the dance scene tends to become one-dimensional.”
In this grim climate, Byer has persisted. Last weekend she chose six rising choreographers to present work at New York’s storied 92nd Street Y. All are current or former dancers with well-known companies (including New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, New York Theatre Ballet, and Oakland Ballet), and all are New York-based—except for Milissa Payne Bradley, who hails from the Bay Area.
It’s unusual for the West Coast to be invited to a New York dance party. New York City likes to think of itself as the world’s dance capital, and every other city in America as “regional.”
Read the full article on KQED Arts.
By Ellen Olivier
12 April 2019
From onstage at Thursday’s Los Angeles Ballet Gala, honoree Sofia Carson held back tears as she spoke about how her mom took her hand at age 3 and walked her to her first ballet class.
“I don’t remember a moment in my life when I wasn’t madly in love with dance,” said the Disney “Descendants” actress. “So when I was 3 years old and stepped into my very first ballet slippers, in that moment my life changed forever. And as I grew up, my love for dance became deeper and stage became my safe place. It became my happiness, my haven.
“So I promised myself that if ever I was lucky enough to do what I love every day of my life, I would do everything that I could to give that chance to dance to other little girls who didn’t have that beginning.”
Read the full article in The Los Angeles Times.
Tamara Rojo, a star of classical ballet and leader of the acclaimed English National Ballet, continues to lead her company in the right direction. To great praise, Rojo has incorporated a #MeToo era triple-bill into her company’s season. She Persisted, the production that follows the company’s She Said all-female choreography program from 2016, is a breath of fresh air, telling original stories by women to international audiences.
The program is a three-part evening, with work by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Stina Quagebeur (a First Artists with ENB), and Pina Bausch. Nora, Quagebeur’s first work for the main stage, is the program’s major premiere, which speaks volumes to the support Rojo and her team have for new artists – particularly women.
Broken Wings and The Rite of Spring return to the company’s repertoire, creating a full-circle program of work from both emerging female artists to those well-established in the dance community.
Watch English National Ballet’s video below to hear Tamara Rojo, artists, and Stina Quagebeur discuss the program and women choreographers.
Learn more about She Persisted on the ENB website, here.
Choreographer links:
By Mark Brown
6 April 2019
Scottish Ballet, our national dance company, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Given the breadth of its programming, it is fitting that it should begin its celebrations, not with a classical ballet, but with Spring!, a double bill of defiantly unorthodox choreographies.
The evening begins with the world premiere of Dextera, an intriguing and memorable work by Scottish Ballet artist in residence Sophie Laplane. The choreographer describes the piece as a celebration of creativity, but, it seems clear, it is also commenting, upon current debates around gender inequalities and identities.
This it does with imagination, humour and some disquieting imagery. In contrast to the beauty of music by Mozart, red-gloved men manipulate puppet-like women, some of them with hooks attached to their costumes (all the better to control them).
This rigid, disconcerting gender scheme begins to crack when we see a male figure, attired in the same white dress as the women, being moved around the stage with energetic roughness. Soon, chorus scenes are offering comedic gestures of feminist defiance, leading to a final montage of personal freedom and social harmony.
Read the full article in HeraldScotland.
By Mark Monahan
5 April 2019
Is it encouraging and emancipating – or patronising and pigeonholing – to showcase “female choreographers”? Either way, there’s no doubt that women are sorely under-represented in the realm of dance-creation, and you could hardly accuse English National Ballet (under dancer-director Tamara Rojo) of not sticking to its guns.
Three years ago, it unveiled She Said, a triple bill of new works by women. Now, also at Sadler’s Wells, it is serving up an even more explicit #MeToo-era broadside, with She Persisted.
Read the full review in The Telegraph.
By Alyson Lowe
6 April 2019
Conjure up an image of classical ballet, and pointe shoes, tutus, a corps of fluttering ballerinas and exaggerated stage make-up will spring to mind. Visually, women are everywhere in ballet, but, this is very often where it stops; they are seen as objects of beauty, but historically it has rarely been anything more. Feminist discourse in the art form is only at its very fledgling stage, with women’s voices in the classical realm remaining especially silent.
Led by creative director (and ballerina) Tamara Rojo, the English National Ballet’s latest trilogy, She Persisted, gives those voices to these previously seen-but-not-heard women – and they’re big, bold, loud ones. A trilogy of works, all crafted by female choreographers, the production takes over London’s Sadler’s Wells for two weeks. This isn’t the first time Rojo has led a women-first project. Back in 2016, She Said similarly showcased female choreography, but it’s season two that proves Rojo is very serious about permanent change after #MeToo’s impact through the arts world.
Read the full article in Bhttps://www.vogue.co.uk/article/she-persisted-english-national-balletritish Vogue.
By Ramona Harper
3 April 2019
Spring is in the air with not only the blooming cherry blossoms but also the bursting energy of the New York City Ballet’s exciting spring concert at the Kennedy Center.
Something old and something new was the theme of the evening. One might have thought the company’s selections would have presented its founding ballet masters and choreographers, George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, first. It didn’t. Ever forward-looking, New York City Ballet opened with Composer’s Holiday, the choreography of a new rising star, 19-year-old Gianna Reisen, the youngest person ever to choreograph a work for the New York City Ballet.
Composer’s Holiday felt perfectly right for a springtime concert with its light, airy, and youthful pulsations and a feeling of excitement and anticipation.
Lukas Foss’s Three American Pieces for violin and piano, performed by Arturo Delmoni and Susan Waters, respectively, was an evocatively moving musical complement that gracefully framed the dancers’ quick, bouncy steps and joyous movements. The female dancers’ sheer white skirted costumes by Virgil Abloh of Off White added a sense of an incredible lightness of being.
Read the full article in DC Metro.
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"The Devil Ties My Tongue" by Amy Seiwert performed for the SKETCH Series, 2013. Photo by David DeSilva. Courtesy of Amy Seiwert's Imagery