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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

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.

Los Angeles Times: Column: How John Proctor and #MeToo helped cure my ‘work in progress’ theater phobia

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By Mary McNamara

15 August 2019

Some people get anxious when they fly, I get tense when I go to a play. Particularly if the space is small and intimate and there is no intermission.

I fret about tech disasters and dropped lines, bad casting and flawed sets as if I were the playwright’s mother or some make-or-break investor. Mostly, I worry that it will be terrible and that I will be trapped. Theater is an active, communal experience; what if I, as an audience member, can’t hold up my end because despite what the reviewers said, I just really hate this play? It’s not like I can hit the remote or get up and leave. I can’t even slump in my seat and commune in horrified hilarity with my friends. The people who are making it are right there.

And that’s for a play that’s finished. Watch a work in progress? Honey, there’s not enough Xanax in the world.

Then my older daughter became a summer intern at the 22nd Ojai Playwrights Conference’s New Works Festival and so I went to the final production. By the time it ended, with a denunciation of John Proctor, a celebration of Lorde and 200 people on their feet cheering, crying and dancing their way onto the stage, my theater anxiety had vanished; I was cured.

Read the full article in The Los Angeles Times.

You Need to Hear About the Swan Dreams Project

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12 August 2019

Founded by former New York City Ballet dancer Aesha Ash, the Swan Dreams Project is an initiative that advocates for and inspires African-American communities and young ballet dancers who may find their opportunities to succeed in the ballet world limited due to their race or socio-economic status. Learn more about the project from Ash herself in the Project’s video:

The Project’s Mission:

Through the use of imagery and my career as a ballet dancer, I want to help change the demoralized, objectified and caricatured images of African-American women by showing the world that beauty is not reserved for any particular race or socio-economic background. I wish for this message to infuse the ballet world and project to the entire world. While exposing more African-American communities to the ballet, I also hope to promote greater involvement and increase patronage to this beautiful art form. ​

The Swan Dreams Project’s goal is to convey the message that beauty and talent are not constrained by race or socio-economic status. I want our youth to know that they are not limited by stereotypes nor by their environment, but only by their dreams

Learn more or donate to the Swan Dreams Project here.

Female Perspective Dance Festival? Count us in.

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LA Times: Dance in L.A., Aug. 11-18: MixMatch Dance Festival, ‘Women Rising’ and more

By Matt Cooper

Women Rising: Choreography from the Female Perspective BrockusRED, LA Contemporary Dance Company, Blue 13 Dance Company, Kybele Dance Company, JazzAntiqua, Luminario Ballet and others perform in this Los Angeles Dance Festival presentation curated by Deborah Brockus. Ford Theatres, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood. Fri., 8:30 p.m. $25-$65. (323) 461-3673. FordTheatres.org

Learn about more festivals in the Los Angeles Times.

Dance Magazine: What Does It Take to Transition from Dancer to Director? Three New Leaders Open Up

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By Rita Felciano

5 August 2019

Becoming an artistic director can be a lot more complicated than it may seem. Dance Magazine spoke with three newly minted leaders, at the beginning and then again at the end of their first seasons as artistic directors of long-running ballet companies.

The Directors:

Amy Seiwert—Sacramento Ballet

Previous experience: Dancer with Sacramento Ballet; dancer and resident choreographer with Smuin Contemporary Ballet; director of her own pickup troupe, Imagery; freelance choreographer

Her thoughts on the job in fall 2018: “This is not a cookie-cutter company; there is a lot of diversity among the dancers. The company will be 65 years old, so I’m very aware of being part of a lineage. I hear Michael Smuin’s voice in my head all the time: He said that if you invite people into the theater and take their money, you better damn well entertain them.”

Garrett Anderson—Ballet Idaho

Previous experience: Dancer with San Francisco Ballet, Royal Ballet of Flanders, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Trey McIntyre Project

His thoughts on the job in fall 2018: “I like the openness and genuine joy in this company’s performances, and was struck by the sense of transparency and lack of pretension. I’ve had to build a season in a short time, which is a great opportunity to jumpstart my vision, but I’ve had to make decisions without knowing the company very well.”

James Sofranko—Grand Rapids Ballet

Previous experience: San Francisco Ballet soloist and founder of SFDanceworks

His thoughts on the job in fall 2018: “I had heard that the company had come a long way under the previous director, Patricia Barker. They were doing a lot of great work and had become noticed on the big stage. But for me, coming from a huge metropolitan area into a smaller one, I wonder whether there is an audience for the smaller pieces that can show that ballet is more than the big story ones.”

A year has gone by. How do you feel?

Seiwert: “The sheer amount of work was overwhelming. I felt like Sisyphus rolling up that boulder, fearing that it would kill me if I stopped. But I love working with these dancers.”

Anderson: “I have been treated so well, but people didn’t know what to expect from me, so we were careful about how we framed our message. Change has been about evolution and organic, rather than a pivot. I didn’t want our community only exposed to the finished product, so we invited people into our studios to observe the dancers at work. We also initiated preshow talks. Audiences right away were excited about what was happening.”

Sofranko: “Some people have left, and I’ve hired another bunch and now have a group of dancers who are 100 percent behind my vision. I have big dreams, but I don’t want to bankrupt the company with a moon shot that won’t serve anyone in the long term.”

Read the full interview in Dance Magazine.

Seattle Times: Ballet has a diversity problem. Here’s what some people, in Seattle and elsewhere, are doing to change that.

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By Moira Macdonald

31 July 2019

Zariyah Quiroz is just 12, but she’s had a dream since she was a very little girl: “I always thought dance, and ballet specifically, was so beautiful,” she said, chatting before class at Pacific Northwest Ballet School (PNB) earlier this summer, “and I wanted to be part of that.”

A rising seventh grader who’s studied at PNB since 2015, Zariyah, who lives in Seattle, has many of the attributes that seem essential for a career in a professional ballet company: long limbs, elegant posture and innate poise, not to mention a supportive family willing to commit to five-days-a-week classes at PNB. But the road to that goal isn’t easy for any young dancer. And it’s especially difficult for students of color, like Zariyah, who look at ballet stages and see few, if any, dancers who look like them.

The visibility of Misty Copeland, who in 2015 became the first black female principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre, has been an inspiration for Zariyah — and has elevated a jarring truth in this most graceful of arts. Though he’s beginning to see change, “ballet in my lifetime has been very white,” said PNB artistic director Peter Boal, who danced with New York City Ballet (NYCB) from 1983 to 2005.

Read the full article in The Seattle Times.

DDP on Dance Magazine Blog

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Over 80% of Ballets Are Still Choreographed By Men

By Lauren Wingenwroth

25 July 2019

In the past several years, ballet has been called out time and again for not fostering, presenting and commissioning the work of women. Recently, highlighting women ballet choreographers has become somewhat of a trend, with companies pioneering initiatives to try to close the gender gap, or presenting all-women programs.

But numbers don’t lie, and unfortunately, we still haven’t made much progress.

A new report released by the Dance Data Project—a nonprofit launched earlier this yearto assess gender inequity in ballet—looks at the 2018-2019 seasons of America’s 50 largest balletcompanies (this list is determined by budget, and “ballet” is defined loosely: The list includes companies like Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and L.A. Dance Project).Here are the biggest takeaways:

81 percent of works last season were choreographed by men.

That’s 520 of the total 645 works performed by these companies last season. Looking at just full-length ballets the number grows worse: 88 percent were choreographed by men.

One bright spot: Only 65 percent of world premieres were choreographed by men—but of full-length world premieres, 90 percent were by men. Men choreographed 70 percent of mainstage world premieres, although women did have more opportunities in non-mainstage world premieres, which were split 55 percent men and 45 percent women.

Read the full article on Dance Magazine’s blog.

Vogue: Inside Wendy Whelan’s Triumphant Return to New York City Ballet

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By Lilah Ramzi

16 July 2019

IT’S A SUBLIME SPRING day in New York, but Wendy Whelan wouldn’t know a thing about it. She’s spent the day in the windowless studios of the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, where rehearsals for George Balanchine’s Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet are under way. Today she’s dressed in dark skinny jeans and a navy cardigan, but even in this everyday outfit, you can see a body sculpted by the three decades she spent at New York City Ballet, 28 of those years as a principal dancer. In a profession where women often bow out by their mid-30s, Whelan’s tenure onstage was remarkable. Now 52, she has become the first woman in the company’s history to hold a permanent position within the artistic leadership. “I never imagined myself here,” she says. “I just thought, That’s usually a guy’s role.”

Her appointment as the associate artistic director of NYCB in February—alongside Jonathan Stafford as the new artistic director of NYCB and School of American Ballet—not only ended a tumultuous year, it also signaled that the company was in need of a dramatic shift. In January of 2018, Peter Martins, the NYCB’s star dancer turned ballet master in chief, retired, his resignation precipitated by accusations of sexual harassment. (Martins maintains his innocence, and the NYCB’s investigation did not corroborate the allegations.) Then, just days before the fall season, City Ballet fired two male dancers (the company had earlier accepted the resignation of a third) accused of sharing explicit photos of female dancers. The company would “not put art before common decency,” announced principal dancer Teresa Reichlen in a speech delivered on the evening of the fall gala, standing onstage with her fellow dancers.

Read the full article on Vogue.com.

AFTER NYCB IS FORCED TO HIRE BACK RAMASAR, HE GETS ANOTHER GIG ON BROADWAY – PERPETUATING THE ISSUE?

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‘West Side Story’ Producers Announce Cast for Broadway Revival

By Julia Jacobs

10 June 2019

The reimagined production of “West Side Story” from the experimental Belgian director Ivo van Hove will open on Feb. 6 at the Broadway Theater, the producers announced on Wednesday. They also named the show’s full cast, which includes 23 actors making their Broadway debuts.

Isaac Powell, best known for playing the young love interest in the 2017 revival of “Once on This Island,” will be Tony, a former leader of the Jets street gang. Shereen Pimentel, an undergraduate at the Juilliard School who made her Broadway debut in “The Lion King” at 9 years old, will be Maria.

Portraying Bernardo, Maria’s brother and leader of the Puerto Rican gang the Sharks, is Amar Ramasar, a principal dancer with New York City Ballet who had a prime role in the 2018 Broadway revival of “Carousel.”

Mr. Ramasar returned to the City Ballet stage in May after he was fired for sending sexually explicit photographs of a female colleague in the company. 

Read the full article in The New York Times.

Philanthropy Women: Time and Space to Create: Ways Funders Can Help Women Artists

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By Julia Travers

27 June 2019

Being a working artist is demanding. Most artists hold other jobs to support themselves, which limits their studio time.

“It’s a cycle. You don’t have the time to create the work, so you can’t create enough work to sell to support yourself financially, so you need to have the job, which takes up your time. It’s hard to get out of that loop,” says Rhode Island artist Kathy Hodge . Hodge is an award-winning artist with many exhibitions and shows to her name who also served as the Artist in Residence at multiple U.S. national parks. Because the gender gap is still prevalent in the art world, as in many sectors and professions, women artists like Hodge are in particular need of support.

Gender Disparity in the Arts

In 2019, the Freelands Foundation in England released its report, “Representation of Female Artists in Britain During 2018.” It’s the fourth study of its kind from the arts-focused charity that focuses on “the lack of sufficient support for female and emerging artists,” among other issues. The report’s author, Kate McMillan, an artist and fellow at King’s College, London, found while progress has been made, the “slow pace mirrors what is happening in other sectors across the world.” She cites “The Global Gender Gap Report 2018” from the World Economic Forum, which estimates it will take 108 years to achieve gender parity at current rates of change.

Read the full post on Philanthropy Women.

The Guardian: Death of the dance dictators: ballet in the wake of #MeToo

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By Judith Mackrell

16 July 2018

Ballet companies are unique in ways that are wonderful and preposterous. At best, they are fabulously creative organisations to which loyal dancers, including the biggest stars, may devote entire careers. But, with scores of dancers striving to master extreme levels of physical perfection, pitted against each other for prime roles and principal rankings, they can also be hotbeds of competitive dissatisfaction. That intensity is exacerbated by the fact that presiding over these very young, driven, vulnerable egos is one person – the artistic director – who holds their destinies in his, and occasionally her, hands.

“Dancers today are not ‘behaving badly’, they are asking more of us as leaders,” wrote Scottish Ballet’s Christopher Hampson earlier this year. He was asking fellow artistic directors to reform their practices in the wake of accusations by ballet dancers around the world of bullying, aggression and misconduct. There have been complaints from dancers at leading companies – among them New York City Ballet, English National Ballet, Paris Opera and Finnish National Ballet – and some allegations have been extremely disturbing.

But what prompted Hampson was not so much specific cases as the conviction that such behaviour would continue to occur as long as certain assumptions within ballet culture have remained unchallenged. “I genuinely believe that every artistic director in the UK is trying to do their best by their dancers, but we all have a way to go,” he says. “We have a problem that we need to admit to, and it can be difficult to talk about because it can involve people in the past who we’ve held in such veneration.”

Read the full article in The Guardian.