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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

DDP will cover stories from the corporate, for profit world regarding issues surrounding pay equity and transparency where relevant, such as other industries with low representation of women: tech, the sciences, venture capital, the entertainment industry, etc. to examine parallels between these male dominated spheres where informal hiring and word of mouth is the norm.

Pointe: Ingrid Silva Stars in New Nike Video Series Celebrating Black History Month (Plus, Serena Williams Narrates)

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By Chava Lansky


Yesterday, the first of Nike’s new Common Thread video series dropped, and we were thrilled to see that it featured dancers; namely, Dance Theatre of Harlem member (and June/July 2017 Pointe cover star) Ingrid Silva, and Florida-based ballet student Alex Thomas. Even better, it’s narrated by tennis phenom Serena Williams. This series of short videos celebrates Black History Month by focusing on representation in sport. (We’re not crazy about ballet being called a sport, but we’ll let it slide.) In each installment, athletes united by a common thread discuss their passion, and the lack of role models they saw in their fields while growing up.

Interspersed with gorgeous dance footage, Silva and Thomas tell each other their stories. Silva talks about growing up in Brazil, and how it wasn’t until she moved to New York to train at DTH that she saw dancers who looked like her. Thomas discusses the loneliness he felt as the only dancer of color in his childhood studio. “Representation matters, and you can’t become something you don’t see,” says Silva, who later adds, “Directors have to take the first step in hiring dancers of color, so the stage looks like what the rest of the world looks like.”

Watch this inspirational video below now!

Read the full post on Pointe’s blog.

The Atlantic: Classical Music Has a ‘God Status’ Problem

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By Ashley Fetters, J. Clara Chan, and Nicholas Wu

Sarah Hubbard knew something was off about her interactions with a piano professor at the Berklee College of Music—they had a “haunting and unsettling” quality, she remembers. Hubbard, who studied violin at Berklee until she graduated in 2016, remembers that sometimes when they crossed paths, he seemed to be “deliberately trying to prolong” their interaction, and sometimes the professor, Bruce Thomas, gave her hugs that felt awkward. Sometimes he would show up near where she was, Hubbard says, lingering just at the periphery of her vision and then emailing her that he’d seen her that day but she’d seemed too busy to say hello. He sent her emails late at night, she says, and once when she didn’t respond promptly, he approached her boyfriend on campus to tell him to tell Hubbard to return his email. (Thomas did not respond to requests for comment.)

Hubbard frequently worried, as she moved around campus, about surprise encounters with Thomas, who had been teaching at the school for some three decades and occasionally composed music that her student ensemble played. When they were in the same music-department building at the same time, she’d plan escape routes: “Well, I at least can outrun this guy on stairs if I run into him; I can zoom past him. But I can’t do anything in an elevator,” she remembers thinking.

It got to the point where Hubbard had trouble focusing on her music—the reason why she’d come to Berklee in the first place. But she worried that things could “blow up in [her] face” if she reported his actions to Berklee’s leadership. “A lot of these encounters, they scream inappropriate, but they don’t scream, like, You’ve broken a rule in our handbook,” Hubbard says. So instead, she mentioned her discomfort to a faculty member she trusted, one of her student ensemble’s advisers, who she believes spoke to Thomas on her behalf—and quietly discouraged Hubbard from auditioning for any solos that, should she be assigned them, would require her to rehearse one-on-one with him.

Still, he always seemed to be close by, and Hubbard says he once cornered her in an elevator, demanding that she apologize for speaking up about his behavior.

Read the full article here.

The New York Times: The Unhealthy Math of Skinny + Pretty = Good

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A young woman struggling with an eating disorder tries to shift from self-loathing to self-loving.

By Lauren Covalucci

I always liked myself better for what I could be than for what I was — especially when it came to my body.

This started at age 3 in dance class, where the other girls, unlike me, had thin arms and legs. The other girls’ tights, unlike mine, didn’t dig into their waists like a pink belt around teddy bear fluff. Their cheeks didn’t glow red after class. They could do splits.

By the time I was 13, my body had stretched and thinned, leading my teacher to say, “You finally look like a dancer.” Ten years of childhood passion couldn’t get me there, but puberty did.

Nine years later, once puberty had run its course, I learned that I could accomplish a similarly magical transformation by simply not eating.

Thinking back on that time now feels like waking from a nightmare: bolting upright at 4 a.m., blinking and breathing as you try to reorient yourself to reality and reconcile the things you did in dreams with the person you are awake. This is how I give context to memories like the time, nearly five years ago, when I started a loud public fight with my college boyfriend because he had bought me a slice of pizza on a Saturday night.

My argument went like this: “I said I didn’t want a slice of pizza. I can’t just not eat pizza if I don’t want it. It’s not that easy. You never listen to me. You don’t even respect me enough not to buy me a slice of pizza. When I say no, I mean no.”

Yes, that’s really what I said.

I can’t explain to him what happened because we don’t speak anymore. The breakup was unsurprisingly messy, borne of our emotional mismatch — his optimism (“Can’t you just be happy?”) versus my depression (“That’s not how it works.”). One night, as our hurtful exchanges snowballed, he went for the jugular: “You’ve gained weight.”

Love may feel intolerably complex at 22, but one emotional equation, for me, was starkly simple: skinny + pretty = good.

Read the rest of the story here.

The Straits Times: Lyon Ballet chief sacked for firing dancer after maternity leave

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Agence France-Presse

PARIS- The director of a French ballet has been sacked for firing a dancer after she had a baby, the French culture ministry confirmed last Friday.

The unions had called for Greek-born Yorgos Loukos to go after he lost his appeal over discrimination against dancer Karline Marion, who was 34 at the time.

He was ordered to pay Marion €5,000 (S$7,600) in compensation.

Loukos, 69, who had been director of the Lyon Ballet for 33 years, was fired last Thursday.

Like the vast majority of ballerinas in France, Marion was on a temporary contract during her five years at the ballet.

Read the full story here.

Washington Post: At the Oscars, Geena Davis will get a humanitarian award for making Hollywood see women as fully human

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By Ann Hornaday

7 Feburary 2020

LOS ANGELES — Geena Davis arrives for lunch at a beachside hotel looking as understated as humanly possible for one of Hollywood’s most recognizable celebrities. Dressed modestly, her hair in a bob and her famously sculpted cheekbones and pillowy lips adorned with minimal makeup, she makes small talk about the brush fires raging just two miles from her Los Angeles home, where she lives with her three teenage children. “I’ve never gotten so many texts in my life,” she says of concerned acquaintances checking in.

Davis speaks softly and with careful consideration, her thoughts often giving way to free-associative digressions. It’s October, and she looks preternaturally relaxed for someone who, in a few days, is scheduled to deliver a speech at one of the movie industry’s most exclusive events. Davis was being honored at the Governors Awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where she would receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for her work in promoting gender parity on screen.

It promised to be a tough room, as sexism and what to do about it continue to fuel contentious debate in certain precincts. But Davis is unfazed.

Read the full article in the Washington Post.

Dance Australia: After six years of operations, Melbourne City Ballet closed suddenly in June, leaving dancers and students in limbo. Susan Bendall investigates.

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29 September 2019

It was at the end of an in-house Studio Sessions showing of contemporary works by full time students that Michael Pappalardo announced the immediate closure of Melbourne City Ballet. It was the evening of June 27. Four days earlier, company members had received an email stating that activities would be suspended for 14 days. This was the first they had heard that the company was in peril. By the next morning, MCB was no more. The company’s wonderful purpose-fitted studios in Melbourne’s Pentridge precinct in Coburg bore a ‘breach of lease’ notice. The company was debarred from entering the premises. It was all over.

In the following days there was an outpouring of sadness and sympathy for Melbourne City Ballet. Dance Australia’s Karen van Ulzen broke the story with an interview with Artistic Director Michael Pappalardo who cited lack of funding as a key factor in the company’s sudden closure after five years’ operation. The magazine’s social media pages were blitzed with messages of support and appreciation as well as disgust at the government’s refusal to adequately support the small- to medium-sized arts community. People cared about the fate of this company.

Dance Australia, like other individuals and organisations, had been a great supporter of MCB. We started attending and reviewing performances from the outset. It was wonderful to have a local company bringing dance to audiences that might not be able to access the very prohibitively expensive professional offerings of the likes of The Australian Ballet. Better yet, as Pappalardo proudly announced, the company provided jobs for dancers.

Read the full article in Dance Australia.

The Straits Times: Lyon Ballet chief sacked for firing dancer after maternity leave

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10 February 2020

PARIS • The director of a French ballet has been sacked for firing a dancer after she had a baby, the French culture ministry confirmed last Friday.

The unions had called for Greek-born Yorgos Loukos to go after he lost his appeal over discrimination against dancer Karline Marion, who was 34 at the time.

He was ordered to pay Marion €5,000 (S$7,600) in compensation.

Loukos, 69, who had been director of the Lyon Ballet for 33 years, was fired last Thursday.

Like the vast majority of ballerinas in France, Marion was on a temporary contract during her five years at the ballet.

In 2014, with her post about to become permanent under French law because she had worked through five contracts, Marion was let go two days after she returned from her maternity leave.

At the time, Loukas told the municipal authorities who pay the dancers’ salaries that he was sacking her because of her “physical and stylistic weakness”.

During a meeting with the dancer, which she recorded, Loukos told her: “If between the ages of 29 and 34, you did a fair bit, though not a lot, you are not going to do much more between 35 and 40, particularly with a child.”

Read the full article in the Strait Times.

Dance Magazine: TU Dance’s Uri Sands Resigns Amidst Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

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By Lauren Wingenwroth

2 January 2020

Uri Sands has resigned as co-artistic director of TU Dance, according to a release issued by the company this week. A recent lawsuit alleges sexual misconduct claims against him, which he denies.

Toni Pierce-Sands, his wife and co-founder, will continue to lead the Twin Cities-based company as artistic director.

Both Sands and TU Dance deny the allegations made in a lawsuit filed in October by an unnamed former company member, including sexual misconduct and negligent supervision of Sands by the company. But according the release, Sands is resigning to “help TU Dance move forward in providing a safe and healthy environment for all.”

Sara McGrane, the lawyer representing both Sands and TU Dance, acknowledged that Sands did have a sexual relationship with the former company member during the time in question, but maintains that the claims in the lawsuit are untrue, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

This is not Sands’ first time facing misconduct allegations: According to the Star Tribune, an anonymous complaint filed in 2017 led to TU Dance adopting a sexual harassment policy, and a policy barring Sands from traveling alone with female dancers. Sands consequently participated in counseling and therapy.

Read the full article here.

HuffPost: How Ballerinas of Color are Changing the Palette of Dance

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By Rohina Katoch Sehra

Ballet’s aristocratic origins and an early association with opera mean that it remains wedded to a Euro-classical ethos. Certain ideas about it still persist ― that only an expensive cultural education can unlock its meaning and that it belongs in gilded venues accessed only by the elite. Then there’s the unmistakable race-signaling; despite documenting the decline of ballet in the late 1800s and showing us how terribly dancers suffered at the hands of predatory male patrons, French artist Edgar Degas’ paintings have bypassed their nightmarish context, at least in the popular imagination. Today these instantly recognizable scenes are visual shorthand for everything ballet embodies ― beauty, pristineness, perfection ― all of it encoded as whiteness.

Even today, ballet prizes the physical and emotive attributes that set European nobility apart from commoners ― poise, daintiness, adherence to etiquette and hierarchy, erectness of carriage. So it seems that ballet and whiteness are inseparable, to be divorced from each other at a cost no less than the extinction of the form itself. Some stakeholders reinforce this idea by favoring homogeneity, claiming a Black dancer in the corps could throw off the symmetry needed for pleasing optics. Others ostensibly reject Black dancers for having what they say are unsuitable contours. The cumulative impact of these beliefs is felt hardest by aspiring dancers of color.

Read the full article online here.

San Francisco Examiner: SF Ballet changes program in wake of Liam Scarlett misconduct allegations

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By Leslie Katz

30 January 2020

San Francisco Ballet’s second program of 2020 won’t have English choreographer Liam Scarlett’s “Hummingbird” on it in the wake of an announcement this week that The Royal Ballet has suspended him as it investigates allegations of sexual misconduct.

In a press statement today, San Francisco Ballet Executive Director Kelly Tweeddale that the troupe’s decision to remove the piece is made is “out of respect for the ongoing inquiry in London, the dance community at large, patrons of San Francisco Ballet, families of the San Francisco Ballet School and artists of the company.”

The BBC reports that a representative for the Royal Opera House, where England’s Royal Ballet is based, said: “We were made aware of allegations relating to Liam Scarlett in August 2019. The individual was immediately suspended, and an independent disciplinary investigation opened.”

Read the full article in the Examiner.