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
Representative John Lewis passed away on Friday at the age of 80. Lewis was an American civil rights leader, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and representative of his state of Georgia from 1987 up until his death in 2020.
Never, ever be afraid
to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.
Rep. John Lewis (1940-2020)
By Joe Pinsker
9 July 2020
Child care is the immovable object around which so much else in family life orbits, and when the usual child-care options disappear, something else has to give. During the pandemic, with schools and day-care centers closed or operating at reduced capacity, many parents’ careers—particularly mothers’ careers—are getting deprioritized.
When Salpy Kabaklian-Slentz left her job in April because her family was moving to Southern California, she thought she’d be able to devote her days to job searching and then start working again soon enough. Three months later, she’s struggled to find any open positions similar to the one she gave up, as a local-government attorney.
Her main task these days is looking after her and her husband’s boys, two “bundles of energy” ages 6 and 4. Kabaklian-Slentz’s husband, also a lawyer, has mostly been going into the office, but when he works from home, he’s protective of his time. “He’s not only locked the office door but barricaded the sofa in front of it to get stuff done,” she told me. “Otherwise the kids pop in every two seconds.”
Instead they go to her, preventing her from getting the sort of uninterrupted time that a job search, as a well as a job itself, demands. She doesn’t yet know how or when schools in her area will reopen, and thus whether she’d even be free to start a new job in the fall, if an opportunity were to open up. “It sucks,” she said. “Being a stay-at-home parent was never on the radar for me.” It wasn’t on the radar for many other parents of young children either, and yet here they are, even those in households with lots of resources, leaving their jobs or reducing their hours.
Read the full article online here.
By BWW News Desk
8 July 2020
New York City Center President & CEO Arlene Shuler today announced New York City Center Live @ Home virtual programming including a newly commissioned weekly performance series conceived and curated by tap dancer Ayodele Casel, alongside frequent collaborator Torya Beard, called Ayodele Casel‘s Diary of a Tap Dancer V.6: Us, and the popular Studio 5 series curated and hosted by Alastair Macaulay and featuring Misty Copeland, Sara Mearns, and Tiler Peck in a special five-part event titled Great American Ballerinas. The much-loved social media series Encores! Archives Project, which revisits selections from City Center’s illustrious musical theater vault, also continues through September.
“During these uncertain and turbulent times, it is even more important that City Center provides a platform for artists to develop and share their work,” said Shuler. “I’m excited that City Center Live @ Home programming showcases some of the extraordinary dance artists who are part of our extended family. This has been a challenging time for so many and I am personally grateful for the support City Center has received from our loyal audiences. I hope you will all tune in as we launch these new online initiatives.”
In keeping with City Center’s founding mission to provide access to the best in the arts for all, City Center Live @ Home programs will premiere for free on City Center’s YouTube page and website at NYCityCenter.org.
For this new virtual series, Ayodele Casel has curated a group of artists who will present seven different video performances-solos and duos created and performed by a multigenerational and multicultural group-to be released weekly at 12pm beginning Tuesday, July 14 (through Tuesday, August 25). Co-directed by Casel and Torya Beard, the series is a continuation of her Diary of a Tap Dancer project and will feature performances from Casel and other tap artists including Amanda Castro, Starinah Dixon, Andre Imanishi, Ryan Johnson, Lisa La Touche, Ted Levy, Michela Marino Lerman, Anthony Morigerato, Makenna Watts, and more. Kurt Csolak serves as editor of the series, with Darren Biggart and Anthony Morigerato acting as creative producers.
To read more about these program, click here.
MEET ELIZABETH “LIZA” YNTEMA, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF DANCE DATA PROJECT®. A GLOBAL RESOURCE FOR THE STUDY AND ANALYSIS OF MAJOR NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL DANCE COMPANIES, VENUES, AND CHOREOGRAPHIC AWARDS. SHE IS MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES FOR WTTW/WFMT, THE ADVISORY BOARD OF THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND IN ILLINOIS AND THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATER.
Who is Elizabeth Yntema? Define yourself
Introvert/extrovert, a woman with huge amounts of energy but a shameless napper. Poetic and pragmatic, stubbornly moderate in politics and life. Recent science tells us that we are literally different people by age 60 than the person we were at early adulthood.The joy of not being one of those vaunted “old souls” is that this present moment, this life, is teaching me all the time. What brings me the greatest pleasure, is being of use, and making unexpected connections.
I am terrible at math, but have become fascinated by quantum mechanics and string theory, now dipping into science as well as art journals, silencing the voice in my head that tells me I am not worthy, not smart enough, but choosing to gingerly explore the cosmos anyway.
How were you as a kid?
Tiny, uncertain, solitary, with a surfeit of energy. My mother, who worked as a full time professional (unusual for the time), put me in ballet to wear me out and because it was socially acceptable for a young lady (no Title IX back then). Testing revealed ADD, physical activity has always calmed me down and allowed focus and reflection. I loved the discipline, the slow progression, the community of dancers.
Of course, like so many wanna-be ballerinas: I starved myself to dance, and my family grows late in life. So, in 8-9thth grade for example, I was 4’11 and 89 lbs. Everyone else was developing, and I had buck teeth and a bowl cut. I leave it to the imagination how that went. Let’s just say things didn’t change much in high school. However, Winsor School in Boston saved me. All girls, proudly fiercely intellectual, it gave me wonderful academic training and a community of incredibly smart women. I am proud to serve on their Corporation.
You were graduated from the University of Michigan Law School, where you were awarded the annual prize for Outstanding Contribution to Social Justice. Why did you choose that course of study?
To be honest, I went to law school for two reasons: First of all, I had no idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Enrolling in grad school seemed to guarantee respectability and allowed me to delay for 3 more years figuring out what “I want to be when I grew up” (still haven’t worked that one out) Secondly, I came from a highly academic family, extremely distinguished, opinionated. Our dinner table was not about catching up, it was full on, constant “point counter point.” The positive was the discussions were high level and never ever about extraneous surface chitchat. Even as a small child, I was allowed to engage with the adults. The negative side was that even at 9 or 10, offering an opinion meant you were fair game: without proof for a statement, you got shredded. I wanted to understand and be able to use the “language of power.”
I have been “making trouble” since the age of 15. Law school presented an opportunity for advocacy, but as I look back, I wish there had been a focus less on case law, or even trial clinic, and more on dispute resolution. While injustice has always made me absolutely nuts, I also don’t like tearing things down and apart. It’s much harder, but I would prefer to invest in solutions. Once I got to law school, while I was intellectually intrigued by some of it, I pretty much knew after the first year that I didn’t want to practice. But, if you do well, and I was then at the third highest ranked law school in the US, one gets sucked into the prestige, are recruited and end up in a cubicle. My original intention, before I met my husband, was to go back to the DC area and work in an agency or for a Congressional committee, which I think I would have very much enjoyed. Instead I followed my husband to Chicago, knowing no one. My volunteerism began as a way to engage, make friends.
You served as an attorney and lobbyist. After staffing the Tech Review Staff of Speaker Michael Madigan, you enjoyed a stint in public relations/issues management and served as the Director of Governmental Affairs for the Chicago Area Chamber of Commerce, how did you jump from to that point to found your company Dance Data Project®?
Mike Madigan is considered by many to be the single most powerful state wide politician in the US. While mayors and governors have come and gone, he has endured. While I don’t agree with most of his policies, and he is commonly referred to as on a level with Voldemort (He Who Shall Not Be Named), I had an incredible experience working for his Tech Review Unit. I literally loved every second of the experience, and he was a great boss, totally fair and zero issues with women. He just wanted the work done, and I delivered. Getting an insider’s view of “the sausage being made” was invaluable. He actually let me draft legislation, and this is back in 1985, for “parental” not maternity leave. Dealing with an avalanche of bills coming in over the transom, with about 30 seconds to read, decode/flag, and determine what to do, was superb training, as was briefing legislators who had no interest or background on a bill, bringing them up to speed as quickly as possible by laying out the salient facts and where their interests lay.
I wasn’t happy toiling away for a big firm, so jumped off the law firm path before many of my contemporaries then worked for what is now the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce as well as Edelman Public Relations. After children, I moonlighted at a not for profit think tank. Great experience, loved most of my colleagues, got to decide in great measure where to focus priorities, and learned more about interacting with the media and doing in depth governmental budget analysis.
Read the full interview here.
By BWW News Desk
29 June 2020
Ballet Hispánico continues to celebrate 50 years of uniting people through dance with Noche Unidos on Tuesday, June 30, 2020 from 7:30-8:15pm EDT on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. All are welcome to view the show, with an advanced RSVP requested here, donations are optional.
The evening includes ten virtual world premiere performances featuring Ballet Hispánico Company dancers and students, new works created remotely in the past weeks by world renowned choreographers Carlos Pons Guerra, Michelle Manzanales, Andrea Miller, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Pedro Ruiz, Gustavo Ramirez Sansano, Nancy Turano, and Eduardo Vilaro; and celebrity appearances including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Rita Moreno, Gloria Estefan, Norman Lear, Paquito D’Rivera, Arturo O’Farrill, and other Latinx artists. A highlight of the evening will be performances by Ballet Hispánico School of Dance students Julienne Buenaventura and Ruby Castillo, Nuestro Futuro scholarship recipients in BH’s La Academia program, works choreographed by Kiri Avelar and Rodney Hamilton.
The pre-recorded show will include new works set remotely on our dancers by prominent choreographers. The choreographers are social distancing in locations around the world, and our dancers are across the country, yet the beauty of dance transcends the distance between them.
Read the full article here.
By Emma Goldberg
26 June 2020
“I admitted to myself that I couldn’t do it all.” |
— Ellen Kuwana on quitting her job in scientific communications |
Women have shouldered more child care and housework responsibilities than men since long before the coronavirus era. But with schools, day care centers and camps closed, the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated that disparity. Even with men pitching in more, women are scrambling to balance their work with household obligations.Patricia Cohen and Tiffany Hsu, business and economics reporters at The Times, have written that the effects of the pandemic on working mothers will last far beyond this period of crisis. Their reporting showed that a generation of working women will experience setbacks that may have lifelong consequences for their earning potential and career opportunities.
Some of the women they interviewed are balancing child care and jobs by working late-night or early morning shifts. Others have reduced their working hours or have quit their paid work altogether. One woman interviewed left the highest-paying role she had ever had: “I admitted to myself that I couldn’t do it all.” Not surprisingly, the pressure is heaviest for single mothers who are the sole income providers for their families. Those who have lost their jobs have had the cumbersome task of seeking unemployment benefits and applying for new work while simultaneously helping their children with remote learning. I asked Cohen and Hsu to share what they had learned in the course of their reporting. While some of the economists they cited had grim predictions, the reporters also shared some of the possibilities they see for reforms promoting work-life balance and workplace parity in the long term. Read the full article here.
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‘Our opening night would be our closing night’
By Lisa Traiger
12 May 2020
“I’m running a $52-million ballet company out of my San Francisco apartment,” Kelly Tweeddale said with a rueful laugh last week. “Even though we’re all at home and we might be in our sweats,” she added, “everyone is working harder than they’ve ever worked in their lives.” Tweeddale especially.The arts manager has 30 years of experience including as the former president of Vancouver Symphony, executive director of the Seattle Opera, along with leadership positions at the Cleveland Orchestra and the Seattle Symphony. In the early 1980s, she began her career as an administrator at an improvisational dance company.
Tweeddale just joined San Francisco Ballet, one of the nation’s oldest dance companies, September 2, 2019, where, as executive director, she oversees 350 employees, including 78 dancers, 49 musicians, faculty and teaching artists at the school, and administrative and artistic staff; at peak season, employees go up to 450 and payroll ranges between $2.3 million and $3 million a month. Then a global pandemic changed everything.
Talk about a first-year trial by fire.
She is undeterred, noting, “In some ways, having lived through the 2008 financial crisis, many of us feel we’ve been through something kind of like this. But, in truth, there’s nothing like this pandemic. I feel like everything in my career has prepared me for this moment. And nothing has prepared any of us for this moment.”
San Francisco was one of the earliest U.S. jurisdictions to face closures and, ultimately, shelter-in-place orders. The ballet felt the ramifications on the first day. “March 6 was opening night of our Midsummer Night’s Dream. As we were taking the stage, we got the call from the city that they were closing the War Memorial Opera House. Our opening night would be our closing night.”
Navigating Uncertainty
Tweeddale said, “Helgi [Tomasson, the company artistic director] and I looked at each other and I said ‘We’ll either look at this, and say it was the biggest overreach ever or we’ll look back at this moment and say it was the most brilliant decision ever.’” Looking back, she feels fortunate that city leadership made decisions that erred on the side of health and science, even with the overwhelming ramifications those have for the 87-year-old ballet company.
To navigate uncertainty during this trying period, Tweeddale has relied on Tomasson, whose 35-year tenure at the company has been a godsend to her. She also included SFB’s 52-member board, and former dancer-turned-doctor Richard Gibbs, who started the company’s wellness center, as instrumental in providing guidance to help the organization navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Gibbs runs a free medical clinic in San Francisco and has offered essential advice to Tweeddale and the leadership team as it develops plans and protocols amidst the pandemic. “We thought about what social-distance seating might look like if that was the next step. Then the shelter-in-place [order] came March 16, to begin on March 17. We had 24 hours to notify everybody in the organization that we would be sheltered in place. That was a game changer.”
Read the full article online here.
By Joshua Kosman
18 June 2020
World premieres by choreographers Cathy Marston, Mark Morris, Danielle Rowe and Myles Thatcher — as well as a return engagement for George Balanchine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic after a single performance in March — are among the highlights of the San Francisco Ballet’s 2021 season.
Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson announced details of the season on Thursday, June 18, under the title “Leap of Faith,” an aptly balletic rubric acknowledging the elements of uncertainty and hope that surround any planning by a performing arts organization in the current climate.
“The situation is totally un-normal right now, and we will have to be able to adjust to different situations,” Tomasson told The Chronicle in a phone interview. “The season is assuming that the city will allow us to perform and that people are willing to come. That would be the ideal.”
If that doesn’t happen by the time the season is scheduled to open on Jan. 19, Tomasson said, the company has backup plans, including the possibility of live-streaming performances from the studio.
The season’s seven programs, which run through June 27, 2021, have been arranged with the goal of keeping the two biggest and most elaborate programs at the end, in order to maximize the chances that performances will be fully possible by then. Those are the full-length story ballets “Swan Lake” (May 28-June 6) and “Romeo and Juliet” (June 18-27), both choreographed by Tomasson.
Read the full article here.
17 June 2020
By Lucy Cohen Blatter
At a Black Entertainment Television Black Girls Rock! event two summers ago in Newark, N.J., Misty Copeland presented Judith Jamison with the Living Legend Award, noting her “virtuosity in dance” and describing the modern-dance giant as a “dancer, choreographer, author, spirit.” Before handing the lifetime achievement trophy to Jamison, Copeland bowed, in a move reminiscent of the ballet bow known as “révérence.”
While the two women broke through in the dance world decades apart—Jamison, 77, as a modern dancer and later the creative director of AlvinAiley American Dance Theater, and Copeland, 37, as the first African-American female principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre—they’ve both managed to break the proverbial glass ceilings in their disciplines, inspiring those who look like them and those who don’t.
Neither dreamed of being professional dancers, they told Penta, partly because they didn’t see any role models who looked like them. Describing how she came to dance, Jamison says, “I can say it in one sentence: I was having fun. I was an overactive child, and I was put into a ballet school at 6 years old.”
For Copeland, too, her discovery of dance—and ballet in particular, though later in life—was surprising. “I had never heard of classical music, and I didn’t know what a ballerina was. The dream that I can most vividly remember was at 12, when I decided I wanted to be a cheerleader in the drill team at my middle school. There was nothing before that at all. It fell into my lap at 13, and I happened to be really good at it.” And, she adds emphatically, “I had mentors who led me to this profession.”
Among the mentors and inspirations Copeland names are “Lauren Anderson, Alicia Graf Mack, Virginia Johnson, Aesha Ash, so many black women….There’s no true record of the history of black dancers who came through. When I became a soloist, I only knew from word of mouth. The press releases said I was the first black soloist, but I wasn’t. Everyone had a part in some way.” Copeland says she has “followed the lead of so many leaders, whom the world isn’t aware of,” citing that as one of the reasons she’s working on a book about black ballerinas.
“ I’ve lived through these experiences, so I can lead the next generation in the right way. ”
Jamison, too, says she got where she is by being “lifted” by trailblazers and mentors such as Alvin Ailey, Pearl Primus, Carmen de Lavallade, Katherine Dunham, Mary Hinkson, and many more. But none of these disrupters, she says, were household names or faces when she first happened upon the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater in 1965, about seven years after it was founded. “Very rarely did you see black people on television at the time,” Jamison says.
As soon as she first saw the company perform, she tried to imitate them. Then her big break came when she met and auditioned for Ailey—the dancer, choreographer, and activist who founded the company in order to tell the African-American experience through modern dance.
Jamison catapulted to stardom after performing in Ailey’s Cry, a dance he had dedicated to his mother and to “all black women everywhere—especially our mothers.” (The dance was performed by the troupe during this year’s traveling show, which was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic.)
Ailey, Jamison says, was a true disrupter who aimed to use modern dance to convey and celebrate African-American culture and experience.
Read the full article here.
17 June 2020
Performing Arts Alliance
SBA Issues PPP Flexibility Rules! Reminder: Loan Application Deadline June 30.
The Small Business Administration has released new rules implementing the provisions of the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act, available here. For those that have already received a PPP loan, many may be nearing the completion of their loan period and should be aware of significant changes regarding the loan forgiveness application process. The SBA is also currently revising the PPP loan forgiveness application form. While more guidance may soon follow, the rules include some helpful clarification, including confirmation that borrowers with less than 60% of expenditures dedicated to payroll will be eligible for partial loan forgiveness. With more than $100 billion remaining in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) resources, any potential applicant should take note that the opportunity to apply for a loan closes on June 30, 2020.
SBA Re-Opens Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program for New Applicants.
The SBA announced yesterday that it has reopened its Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program, offering long-term, low interest assistance for small businesses with fewer than 500 employees, including non-profit organizations. EIDL assistance can be used to cover payroll, pay debt, or fund other expenses that are not already covered under a Paycheck Protection Program loan. Additionally, the EIDL Advance will provide up to $10,000 ($1,000 per employee) of emergency economic relief that does not have to be repaid. Loans are administered by the U.S. Treasury, and applications are made directly to the SBA. Further information is available in the SBA press release and the EIDL loan application portal.
Main Street Lending Program for Nonprofits Proposed by Federal Reserve; Comments Due June 22.
The Federal Reserve announced yesterday that it is inviting public comments on a Main Street Lending Program, specifically designed for nonprofits. Partners in the nonprofit sector and leaders in Congress have called for implementation of loan opportunities for nonprofits since such a program was authorized under the CARES Act. The minimum loan size for the 5-year loans is $250,000 while the maximum loan size is $300 million. Principal payments would be fully deferred for the first two years of the loan, and interest payments would be deferred for one year. Eligibility requirements related to liquidity, limitations on the percentage of revenue from donations, and other requirements may exclude many potential loan applicants. Further details regarding the proposed terms of the loans are available in the Overview of New Nonprofit Loans and in the Federal Reserve’s press release. The Federal Reserve says “public feedback is being sought to help make the proposed program as efficient and effective as possible.” The nonprofit sector is mobilizing to weigh in and feedback may be submitted via email here until Monday, June 22.
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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