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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

Laurent Liotardo/The English National Ballet

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Protagonist a ‘Badass Boss’ on Tour for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal

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Annabelle Lopez Ochoa created a work, Vendetta – Storie di Mafia, on Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, which was featured on the company’s international tour. The Canadian Jewish News interviewed Ochoa, who said to the publication, “Ballet is evolving and not just by stretching the body out and kicking one’s legs higher and higher. That’s already been done. I want to cast the woman in a stronger role – one that isn’t so frail and fragile. A badass boss.”

The publication continued to touch on the theme of a woman creating a story ballet and the risk that comes with that:

When asked if she thinks whether Vendetta could eventually earn a spot alongside the great classics, Ochoa responds: “It’s a big risk to present a new story to an audience, but the audience is hungry for new stories. They want them, it’s up to us to find the courage to present them. I’m sure this hunger will only grow. The second time that Vendetta comes to town, people will know its story – hopefully one day as well as The Nutcracker. It would be a huge honour to be able to introduce something new into the canon of ballet repertoire that empowers women. All I can do now is keep writing.”

Ochoa is one of the few women taking this risk and garnering appropriate attention today. She is breaking companies out of the “12 rotating story ballets” they are known to perform. The DDP team is happy to see her Vendetta on tour to cities as far as Isreal. The respect the community has for Ochoa’s work should lead to an open-minded approach to commissioning full-length, dramatic work from women choreographers for companies. Vendetta is just the beginning of a long list of works that could be incorporated into big-company repertoires.

Read The Canadian Jewish News’ article about Vendetta here.

The Listener: Why Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Choreographic Series is a defining moment

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Read the following excerpt from Sarah Catherall’s February 28th article for The Listener:

Usually, Shaun James Kelly is on stage dancing with the Royal New Zealand Ballet. On a hot weekday in February, though, the Scottish-born dancer is at the front of the company rehearsal studio, directing his first large-scale choreographic work, The Ground Beneath Our Feet.

Principal dancer Mayu Tanigaito is mesmerising to watch as Kelly leads the dozen women learning the piece.

Having joined the RNZB six years ago, after graduating from the English National Ballet school, Kelly has been one of three company choreographers in residence for the past two years. Groundis set to Bach’s Violin Concerto in G minor and has ballerinas en pointe and five couples dancing together.

“My work is about growth,” says Kelly. “I have this image of a seed growing into a beautiful flower and that’s what is taking me through the work. The idea of time, distance, and working with gravity.’’

Kelly’s piece may have classical touches, but it is part of the four-part Choreographic Series, a contemporary programme of new local works that marks the beginning of the RNZB’s performances for the year.

Along with Kelly, the series will feature the choreography of James O’Hara, Sarah Foster-Sproull and Moss Patterson – all “new-generation dance-makers’’ whom RNZB artistic director Patricia Barker engaged for their unique approaches, hoping they could give the company something that would set it apart.

Dance Data Project has seen Patricia Barker continuously engage female choreographers in every position. From Grand Rapids Ballet to New Zealand, clearly Barker is prioritizing advocacy and equity in her programming. She is doing just what she hopes for – setting her companies and repertoires apart.

Read the full article in The Listener.

BalletX: Christine Cox’s February Letter X

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Artistic Director of BalletX and choreographer Christine Cox shares an update on the company. Watch the video below or visit the company’s website to learn more about the company’s season, programs, and history.

BalletX is Philadelphia’s Premier Contemporary Ballet Company. The company publishes an e-newsletter called the Letter X, beginning with a message from Artistic Director Christine Cox. This video contains February 2019’s message from the director. Be sure to return to the Letter X to finish reading this month’s e-newsletter! For more info visit BalletX.org.




Nantucket Dance Festival

Nantucket Dance Festival: Austin Goodwin Gets a Shot to Choreograph, But No Women Premieres

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The 2019 performance program at Nantucket Dance Festival will feature a decent roster of choreographers, with Melissa Barak, Crystal Pite, and Pam Tanowitz pieces included in the roster of five other choreographers (all male).

Artistic Director Tyler Angle comes from New York City Ballet, so Balanchine no doubt makes his program. A new choreographer, Austin Goodwin, will present a world premiere with the festival’s support. While the 3:5 ratio is not terribly inequitable like many festivals and company programs tend to be, Angle could do better to invite a young woman to choreograph a premiere for the program to appear alongside the other wonderful work the festival features.

In 2018, the Joyce Theater notably highlighted women during its Ballet Festival, which led to praise throughout the dance world and strong reviews in the New York Times. Nantucket could benefit from the diversity and respect a festival earns when taking the lead in advocating for female choreographers.

See the full program details on the Nantucket Dance Festival website.

Broadway World

Broadway World: MorDance Reimagines ROMEO AND JULIET

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27 February 2019

MorDance embarks on their sixth season of innovative and inspiring ballet-making by presenting their first full-length story ballet, R+J Reimagined. An ensemble of eleven dancers will be joined by six musicians to breathe new life into the classic drama, May 9-11 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

Artistic director and choreographer Morgan McEwen will again collaborate with Ben Gallina, enlisting his talents to compose new works arranged amidst favorite moments from Sergei Prokofiev‘s iconic score. Furthermore, the company is ecstatic to again be joined by lighting designer Becky Heisler.

When asked about mounting this new project, Ms. McEwen states, “I’m excited to tackle a classic tragedy. I will draw upon Shakespeare’s dramatic poetic structure while developing, constructing, and choreographing my original version. I look to breathe new life and depth into this timeless tragedy through powerful choreography that employs the athleticism and prowess of my exceptional group of dancers. The team of artists and production staff I have behind this project are fiercely talented. I know we will produce a bold, compelling, and unparalleled work, while continuing to stay connected to my classical ballet roots and voice.

Read the full article on Broadway World.

Chris Hardy/Smuin Ballet

Dance International: Creating Relationships: Choreographer Helen Pickett Builds Bonds Onstage and Off

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By Cynthia Bond Perry

16 November 2018

To find a way into Helen Pickett’s creative existence, and the many worlds she creates, look to her characters.

In Pickett’s The Crucible — commissioned by Scottish Ballet and based on the play by Arthur Miller — Abigail Williams is a young teen traumatized by seeing her parents killed. Yearning to fit into the structure of the family where she is a servant, Abigail develops a crush on John Proctor, head of the household. Their affair is the tipping point, Pickett said, for a girl who is too young to understand the sexual encounter and, then, too emotionally fragile to recover from the ensuing rejection. With the role of Abigail, Pickett digs deep to unearth the layers of a character who will feed hysteria within her community to devastating effect.

Set to premiere at the 2019 Edinburgh International Festival, The Crucible is the centrepiece of Scottish Ballet’s 50th anniversary season. When we met in the lobby of New York’s Joyce Theater last spring, Pickett was in the thick of creation, in between trips to Glasgow, Tulsa, San Francisco, Oklahoma City and Charlotte, North Carolina, where five of her ballets were in various stages of planning, rehearsal and production.

Pickett is a contemporary ballet choreographer of substance, with deep convictions, an effervescent sense of humour and a wide-ranging intellect. She is also one of few women working in the ballet world’s higher levels, and one of fewer still who are tackling full-length narrative ballets of serious dramatic heft.

Read the full article in Dance International.

Photo by Cheryl Mann

Unsex Me Here: A Stephanie Martinez Piece for Charlotte Ballet

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Innovative Works is Charlotte Ballet‘s yearly production that brings groundbreaking and diverse productions to the company’s regional audiences. This year, Stephanie Martinez and Peter Chu challenged Shakespeare norms in Shakespeare Reinvented. The choreographers teamed up with Shakespeare professor Andrew Hartley and UNC Charlotte Department of Theatre department chair Lynne Conner to capture the well-known characters and stories within an innovative twist on the celebrated playwright’s works.

A review for Broadway World wrote:

Martinez and Coleman [costume designer] definitely set the women free from their traditional moorings, particularly James as Lady M and Amelia Sturt-Dilley as Kate. If you’ve seen or studied Macbeth, you’re likely aware that the “unsex me here” quote comes from a Lady M soliloquy where she is steeling herself to commit regicide with her husband and seize the throne of Scotland. Perhaps less familiar is the quote gleaned from The Taming of the Shrew, “If I be waspish, best beware my sting.” It comes from early in the first dialogue that Katherine has with Petruchio, shortly after he has obtained her father’s consent to take her hand in marriage – with a sizable dowry to go along with the prize.

Later in the article, entitled “BWW Review: UNC Doctors Do No Harm in Charlotte Ballet’s SHAKESPEARE REINVENTED,” Perry Tannenbaum writes of Martinez’ work, “Clocking in at an expansive 44+ minutes, Unsex Me Here was richly enjoyable and never struck me as an academic or PC rehab of these familiar men and women. Yes, it’s true that the guys – even Bottom – were deemphasized, but there was no detectable condemnation or belittlement.”

Watch Martinez’ Unsex Me Here below. The production was performed from January 25th to February 16th, 2019 in Charlotte. Martinez’ score design was by the choreographer herself, Ethan Kirschbaum, Johnny Nevin, and Peter de Klerk with music by Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Sasseth, and a voice over of Lady Macbeth’s speech by Kate Fleetwood.

Read the Broadway World article here.

Read more about Stephanie Martinez here.

Courtesy of Co Lab Dance, Photo by Luis Pons

Co•Lab Dance Gets a New Season

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There will be another season of American Ballet Theatre dancer Lauren Post’s Co•Lab Dance this summer. Post’s initiative has been offered an Artist Residency at the illustrious Kaatsbaan International Dance Center in Tivoli, NY.

Choreographers and dancers will stay and work at Kaatsbaan for two weeks to rehearse and create the new program. The program’s first show will be at Kaatsbaan, with two more performances in New York City to follow at Manhattan Movement and Arts Center on September 6th and 7th, 2019.

This year, Post’s initiative will welcome choreographers Danielle Rowe, Gemma Bond, and Xin Ying. Post tells us, “We are so excited to be continuing and expanding Co•Lab Dance for a second season.”

Dance Data Project’s team will share more news and media in upcoming months as the program develops.

Lauren Lovette to be Artist in Residence at Vail Dance Festival

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The New York Times reported that Lauren Lovette, principal of the New York City Ballet and part-time choreographer, will assume the role of Artist in Residence at Vail Dance Festival this summer.

Lauren Lovette, a principal dancer at New York City Ballet as well as a choreographer, will be artist in residence at Vail. Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

Roslyn Sulcas wrote for the Times:

Damian Woetzel, who has directed the festival since 2007, said he believed in nurturing talent over multiple seasons. “Having Lauren Lovette as our artist in residence, will build on her years at the festival dancing new roles, breaking new choreographic ground and experiencing new challenges,” he said in an email.

Referring to “the historic inequality of opportunity for female choreographers,” Mr. Woetzel, who is also the president of the Juilliard School, said he had been “working at this issue for many years in Vail, and in my other work as well.”

Mr. Woetzel also continues to commission work. This year’s new pieces include dances by the contemporary choreographer Hope Boykin to a score by Caroline Shaw, the festival’s Leonard Bernstein composer in residence and will feature Ms. Lovette; a piece by Alonzo King set to a score by the jazz musician Jason Moran; a work by Pam Tanowitz, also set to music by Ms. Shaw; and works from the jookin’ artist Lil Buck, the tap choreographer Michelle Dorrance, the City Ballet principal Tiler Peck and Ms. Lovette.


DDP celebrates this news and hopes to see more women appointed to similar residencies. The position at Vail is a renowned one in the dance community and will no doubt lead to more commissions for Lovette in the coming seasons. She has already created works on her home company of New York City Ballet and has a history performing and choreographing during the Vail Festival.

This exciting news is sure to make the festival scene brighter and more inclusive this summer. The off-season is known to promote equity, with the Joyce Theater’s Ballet Festival boasting an inclusive program last summer and Isabella Boylston’s Ballet Sun Valley successfully commencing in 2018.

Read the New York Times article on this news here.

Art Intercepts: IN ‘MOVEMEDIA,’ GRAND RAPIDS BALLET COMMITS TO BALLET FOR AND ABOUT ‘NOW’

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By Lauren Warnecke 

9 February 2019

Read the following excerpt from Warnecke’s review praising Penny Saunders’, a featured choreographer by DDP:

Ahead of “Aquatic Hypoxia” is Saunders’ “Testimony,” inspired by Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford surrounding allegations of sexual assault in 1982.

I don’t know if the use of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s music “Hand Covers Bruise,” the theme from the movie “The Social Network,” was intentionally tongue-in-cheek, or if Saunders just liked it for her piece. Whatever the case may be, this adds a layer of complexity when we consider the role of social media in perpetuating division about current events.

That’s not to say that the Kavanaugh hearings were more divisive than those of Justice Clarence Thomas, which are often referenced as a historical parallel due to allegations of sexual harassment by Anita Hill. Saunders makes the comparison, too, weaving in memorable bits and pieces of audio from both — Thomas’ “And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves,” and Illinois Senator Dick Durban’s “I want to know what you want to do,” for example — in “Testimony’s” opening sections.

Saunders is especially good at painting the space with large groups of dancers; in this case, it’s 10 women and nine men, all dressed in ties and trousers. In the beginning the narrative is subtly, but uncomfortably demeaning toward the women — their gestures are soft, submissive and doubtful compared to the posturing of the men as they puff their chests and raise a dismissive hand. Saunders extends the dancers’ gorgeous lines by having them pull at their ties every which way. It’s not morbid, but a self-inflicted choking quite often comes to mind.

By the end, the men have gone and to be honest, I hardly noticed them leave. This is obviously the point, having the company’s women perform a gorgeous passage of gestures in which they figuratively and literally hold space. I wouldn’t call “Testimony” a political piece, per se; rather, Saunders beautifully lays bare the strength and resilience of women without pandering to any particular platform on an issue which deeply divided our country, now and a generation ago.


Read the full article on Arts Intercepts.