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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.

San Francisco Classical Voice: Ballet’s New Mandate: Change or Die

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By Lou Fancher

14 September 2020

Six months after the coronavirus pandemic shuttered performing-arts venues in mid-March, there are more unsettling questions than there are comforting answers about the future of dance — and classical and contemporary ballet in particular.

Adding tilt to the unsteady imbalance are the art form’s longstanding gender inequities and worldwide social-justice protests related to racism after the most recent killing of Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement. The open wounds of gender and racial inequities that lay across American history and current affairs have left deep imprints on the entire dance world.

In this environment float the presumptions and principles that have led to ballet companies directed generally by men; with more white dancers than people of color in ballet company ranks; with more funding for white-led dance company boards and management, and more commissions and grants awarded to white applicants or for projects with Western, Eurocentric origins and focus. White is not just found in the classical tutus found of Swan Lake or Giselle, but across the entire ballet landscape.

During the unwelcome furlough of COVID-19, companies large and small cancelled annual Nutcrackers, the ballet world’s major money-making machine, and often enough, the bedrock funding for entire seasons. This raises existential questions, but also opportunities to reflect on how companies can more broadly represent their communities. What are dance artists and organizations willing to change, and will it be enough to sustain the art form?

Searching for artists who might be pushing the parameters with results lasting beyond quick, flashy trends, I talked to Trey McIntyre, Amy Seiwert, and Gregory Dawson, three choreographers/artistic directors whose work has risen to prominence and receives considerable local, national and international attention. I asked them what they are doing to keep their companies afloat and invited them to speak about their perspectives on dance, ballet, digital dance offerings, and the state of the art.

Read the full article here.

Dance Magazine: What Intimacy Coordinators Could Bring to How Love and Sex Are Portrayed in Dance

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By Zachary Whittenburg

16 September 2020

In October 2018, HBO made news with an announcement that it would engage specialists to ensure sex scenes in every movie and series it produced were handled safely and professionally. Some characterized the network’s new policy as a move to stem the tide of #MeToo allegations in entertainment, proof themselves that the industry had failed to self-regulate.

In the two years since, intimacy coordinators have become increasingly present behind the camera; performers have grown more comfortable stipulating they be hired proactively, too.

The circumstances that require intimacy coordination on set—called “intimacy direction” in live theater—tend to be self-evident. “We’re talking about any instance of nudity, simulated sex or deep physical intimacy,” says Claire Warden, creative team member at leading industry group Intimacy Directors and Coordinators.

Dance, however, is an art form that frequently involves the kind of bodily contact that, in a nondance context, would be watched extremely closely, perhaps nervously. “Deep physical intimacy” is simply the dancer’s stock-in-trade.

Despite—or perhaps because of—the fact that dancers are often nearly as comfortable with other bodies as they are with their own, it’s important to make and maintain space for honesty about personal limits and power dynamics.

“Because so much of dance is touch-based, our boundaries are really muddy,” says Sarah Lozoff, certified by IDC and resident intimacy director at both the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and RudduR Dance (to Lozoff’s knowledge the first dance-centered organization to create and fill such a role). “We explore and experiment with each other in the studio, and then maybe we change in front of each other in the dressing room, and then we hug each other goodbye.”

“In dance, there’s this implicit devotion to give your body to this form and to the teachers and mentors and choreographers who are then going to direct it and mold it and shape it,” says choreographer Faye Driscoll, who acknowledges how attractive that sense of surrender can be. “There’s an underpinning of, ‘My body isn’t just for me. My body is for this vision, this work, this thing,’ and that’s something I was very much drawn to as a dancer.”

Read the full Dance Magazine article here.

Continuing the Conversation: DEFYING TRADITION WITH PRIDE

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By Adriana Pierce

27 June 2019

One sunny morning, several years ago, I was walking down Ocean Drive holding hands with a woman. I was dancing with Miami City Ballet at the time, and it was a much-needed day off. We strolled down the iconic South Beach strip, and a man sitting on the porch of a hotel began yelling obscenities at us. This is not an unusual experience for two young women walking down a city street, so it took me a few moments to realize that he was actually spewing homophobic slurs at us. We are taught to keep our heads down and walk faster in these situations, but this man took our lack of response personally and turned his slurs into hostile threats and insults while we quickened our pace. He advanced towards us as we passed, and his shouts culminated in one last biting put-down: “Oh, I bet your mother is really proud of you.”

Not all of my experiences as a queer woman have been as blatantly hostile, but working as one of the only openly queer women in professional ballet has certainly been far from easy. Ballet has always been entrenched in tradition. While this may serve to uphold a technical standard, rigid conformity makes it difficult for the artform to evolve, especially when it comes to expressing sexual identity and presenting gender equality. Just over a year ago, choreographer Alexei Ratmansky stated, “there is no such thing as equality in ballet… and I am very comfortable with that.” Along with this comment, he included a photoshopped picture of a classical ballerina supporting a male dancer high above her head with one arm, and some remarks about how men should do the lifting and escorting and women should dance on pointe, “not the other way around.”

Understandably, these statements made by such a high-profile choreographer sent ripples throughout the ballet community. It is his prerogative to perpetuate outdated and arguably harmful gender stereotypes in his own work, and he will be responsible for the fallout of those choices. The problem comes when we allow this narrow-minded thinking to shape the conversation that we all need to be having about ballet’s future. When did art become something that should be comfortable? Adhering to tradition is not so important that it is worth alienating the people and stories that might encourage ballet to grow and remain culturally relevant. I believe in ballet’s ability to preserve its integrity while also serving as an essential cultural voice, but in order to do that we must embrace diversity and explore the boundless potential of the art form instead of its limits. Ballet will survive without the sexism, homophobia, and stifling reliance on normative gender presentation – and I can say that with confidence because, as a queer woman who has experienced all of those things, my very existence in this professional space directly challenges established thinking.

Read the full piece here.

DW: Berlin’s state ballet school confronts allegations of abuse

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By Verena Greb

9 September 2020

One of Germany’s most prominent ballet training institutions stands accused of fostering a “culture of fear.” With the investigation report now public, the future remains uncertain as teaching reform is demanded.

Professional ballet schools have a reputation for cut-throat competition and harsh demands, from bloody toes and caloric deprivation to submitting to an iron-clad training regime, often far from home and at a vulnerable preteen age. Germany’s schools are no exception.

Recently, the Berlin State Ballet School and School for Acrobatic Arts (SBB), as well as the Ballet Academy of the Vienna State Opera in Austria, had to confront accusations of structurally endangering children’s well-being. Both institutions were forced to close temporarily as special commissions examined the allegations.

On Monday, the report of the Berlin examination was published . The review was conducted from early this year through mid-August by an independent commission of experts and involved interviews with more than 150 parents, students and teachers at the SBB.

Read the full article here.

Pointe: For Queer Women in Ballet, There’s a Profound Gap in Representation. These Dancers Hope to Change That.

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By Lauren Warnecke

9 September 2020

In her teens, Lauren Flower realized she was different. Originally from Fresno, California, Flowers moved to Arizona and trained with Tucson Regional Ballet and the school at Ballet Arts Tucson before accepting a scholarship with Houston Ballet II. It was in Houston that Flower started to think she might be gay, but didn’t feel she had anyone to talk to about it.

“I quickly shot all those feelings down,” says Flower. “I was petrified. I thought no one would get it or understand what I was realizing about myself.” When she returned to her home state to join Ballet Arizona in 2013, Flower remained closeted in her professional life. But she began to meet other queer women outside of ballet who helped her to embrace her identity. At age 22, Flower came out and joined Boston Ballet shortly afterward, committed to being fully out of the closet in her life there.

 

Flower says getting involved in the LGBTQ community made the absence of queer women in ballet more apparent to her. While there are plenty of examples of queer people in the dance world, Flower says ballet in particular is lacking role models for gay women. (Katy Pyle’s company, Ballez, is a notable exception.)

Traditional ballet companies do not typically shy away from celebrating the gay community, but for women there is a profound gap in representation. Earlier this year, a friend pointed out to Flower that Boston Ballet was featuring its gay male dancers in a series of Instagram posts celebrating Pride Month. No one approached Flower, one of two openly gay women in the company, about contributing to the social media campaign. It was only after bringing it up to the PR team that she was included.

Read the full article here.

The Guardian: Side hustle essential: how Covid brought dancers to their knees

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By Lyndsey Winship

7 September 2020

When lockdown hit in March, it didn’t stop dancers dancing. The flood of online classes, short films and Instagram clips are testimony to that. But it did stop many of them earning. Outside the big ballet companies, most dancers and choreographers are freelance (81% according to One Dance UK). Some were eligible for financial support, others fell through the cracks. Ever creative, some have found new ways to make money, like Sam Coren, formerly of the Hofesh Shechter Company, who started fixing and building bikes. Or Daisy West, a dancer with Mark Bruce Company, who designs greetings cards on the side. But it turns out having a second job is nothing new to most dancers, in a competitive industry where contracts are often short and pay is poor. A 2015 survey by Dancers Pro found that more than 50% of dancers earned less than £5,000 a year from performing. The current ITC/Equity minimum fee for an independent production is £494 a week. “There’s always been a need for a side hustle,” says West.

The precariousness of the dancer’s life has come into sharp focus during lockdown, and many artists now want to see a change when we come out the other side. “The systemic injustices of the industry have been unveiled more than ever,” says dancer and Rolfing practitioner Hayley Matthews. “For too long there’s been a prescribed necessity for dancers to live precarious financial lives.” Lockdown has “exposed a lot that was really fragile and difficult about this industry”, says Rachel Elderkin, a dancer, writer and podcaster who also works front of house in the West End and has a sideline dressing as a Disney princess for kids’ parties. “Even though [as a dance artist] you’re the people who create work, the money goes to organisations and as a freelancer you have to apply for opportunities.” The funds don’t always trickle down.

Dancer, choreographer, writer and model Valerie Ebuwa was due to have her first solo project, Body Data, screened at the V&A in April, but coronavirus put paid to that. She released the film and accompanying talk online. Dancers are “always at the bottom of the pile”, she says in her talk on Instagram. “Why don’t dancers get paid as much as musicians, or any other [artists]?”

Read the full article online here.

 

Wall Street Journal: Remote Schools’ Hidden Cost: Parents Quit Work to Teach, Prompting New Recession Woes

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By Gwynn Guilford

7 September 2020

Clara Vazquez’s 7-year-old son, Kevin, asks her a troubling question before he goes to sleep each night. “‘Mom, who’s going to take care of me tomorrow?’ he asks me,” said the 27-year-old resident of Sunnyside, Wash. “I feel so bad because I have to say, ‘I don’t know.’”

She’ll have to come up with an answer soon, and it may cost Ms. Vazquez a big part of her livelihood. In two weeks, her son’s online-only classes start running from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. If she can’t find child care, she will give up at least one of her two jobs as a home health-care worker to help her son manage his studies.

“I don’t want to quit my job because it’s going to put us in financial strain,” said Ms. Vazquez, whose husband is a truck driver. “But I feel like I’m out of options.”

It is a trade-off that looms for millions of families across the U.S. whose children are returning to partial or completely remote learning at K-12 schools this fall, and the potential blow to the economy could be big enough to rival a small or medium-size recession.

Read the full article here.

Los Angeles Times: L.A.’s dance crisis: Studios fight to survive the pandemic

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By Makeda Easter

2 September 2020

The announcements coming from L.A. dance studios feel eerily similar.

In June, an Instagram post from Pieter Performance Space in Lincoln Heights began: “It is with a heavy heart we share news of the departure from our studio home.”

In a July email to supporters of his Silver Lake studio, Ryan Heffington — the choreographer behind Netflix’s “The OA” and Sia’s “Chandelier” video — wrote: “Due to the uncertainty of our lives, both currently and for the foreseeable future, I’ve decided to take the Sweat Spot entity virtual.”

In August, after the announced sale of Hollywood’s Television Center, Edge Performing Arts Center cofounders Bill Prudich and Randall Allaire posted on Instagram: “We have just been informed that Edge will not be part of the building’s future development. … Their plans, combined with the hardship created by the COVID-19 mandatory closures have resulted in this outcome.”

The flurry of goodbye-for-now messages, combined with desperate pleas for support across social media and GoFundMe, paint a picture of a dance landscape in crisis. Without dance studios, professionals lose their places to train or work out new art before it appears to the masses. And amateurs lose their go-to outlet for creative expression or alternative to boring workouts.

Mandatory coronavirus-related closures have wiped out most income for dance studios, which rely on in-person classes, rentals and performances. And although many studios have shifted to online learning, it may not generate enough income to last through the uncertain months ahead.

Read the full article here.

New York Times: The School That Camille A. Brown Built

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By Salamishah Tillet

2 September 2020

Camille A. Brown can’t remember the first time she danced the Electric Slide. She only remembers doing it. “It just was,” she said in a recent Zoom interview. “It’s the same thing with the Running Man or double Dutch. I don’t remember the first time I had a rope in my hand, but I remember the freedom.”

Ms. Brown, 40, a renowned dancer and one of the most sought-after choreographers of her generation, didn’t learn those social dances in school. She picked them up from family and friends — along with a host of other moves with roots in West Africa that African-Americans have passed down, from one generation to another, traded at family reunions and house parties or brought to pop culture and music videos.

Whether the Juba or stepping, social dance has always been a big component of Ms. Brown’s choreography. Her high energy, historically sweeping works are a powerful blend of modern, ballet, hip-hop, West African and African-American vernacular forms.

In recent years, Ms. Brown has expanded beyond the dance world. She was nominated for a Tony Award for her work on “Choir Boy” in 2019, and choreographed “Porgy and Bess” at the Metropolitan Opera. This year would have brought other new challenges: She was slated to make her debut as a theater director with “Ain’t Misbehavin” at the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Mass., in August; and was tapped to direct the Broadway revival of Ntozake Shange’s theater piece, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” which would have opened this fall. (It is aiming for a 2021 premiere.)

When the pandemic hit, Ms. Brown was on a career high, but like everyone in the performing arts she had to pivot. And like many other dancers and choreographers, she turned to Instagram, where she has created a virtual version of a school she never attended, one in which social dance is the foundation from which everything else flows.

“When everything stopped and shut down,” Ms. Brown said, “it gave me an opportunity to process everything that I had been doing, particularly in the last two years.”

Read the full article here.

New York Times: In Her Words: Ideal, Perfect, Ultimate

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By Corinne Purtill

1 September 2020

In 2012, scholars Christine M. Beckman and Melissa Mazmanian set out to examine the lives of overstretched middle- to upper-middle-class working parents. Prior studies on so-called work-life balance, they noticed, tended to treat working families’ days as if they could be neatly disassembled into tidy blocks of time: family time here, work hours there, a few minutes of household chores or personal care scattered in between.

But the more time they spent with their research subjects — nine Southern California families, all with children under 12 and at least one parent employed full-time — it was clear the average day didn’t operate like that at all.

Equipped with devices that allowed them to be accessible to all of the people in their lives, all the time, working parents toggled constantly between competing commitments: discreetly texting the babysitter during work meetings, reading over spreadsheets on the sidelines of soccer games, ordering dinner on the rushed commute home. Women — and to a lesser degree, men — did everything, all at once, in ever-increasing amounts, and were exhausted from the stress of chasing an unattainable ideal of perfection.

Beckman and Mazmanian examine the beliefs that fuel these efforts in their book, “Dreams of the Overworked,” published in June. Their thesis is framed around three core myths that tend to influence parents’ choices: the myth of the ideal worker, the myth of the perfect parent, and the myth of the ultimate body, which in this context refers less to the pursuit of Barbie-type proportions than to attentive stewardship of one’s own health. (If you’ve ever been exhausted, yet also convinced that you “should” use a moment of downtime to fit in a run or another form of exercise, you have dallied with this myth.)

Read the entire article here.