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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

Classic Chicago Magazine: People to Listen to, 2019: Liza Yntema Leads the Charge

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BY JUDY CARMACK BROSS

At January’s end, vibrant Liza Yntema will roll out the Dance Data Project™ (DDP), which could not only transform the ballet community and impact the national and international arts environment but also change philanthropy for women.

Using over 2,000 records of choreographic works in DDP’s database on this online platform, Liza will promote dance equity by providing data analysis, advocacy, and programming. In addition, she will showcase women-led companies, festivals, venues, and special programs. Her work will undoubtedly have bottom line results with the development of grants to female choreographers and women in leadership positions as well as to women composers; costume, set and light designers; and photographers.

Soon to set out soon on a listening tour of the top 50 dance companies in the country from Sacramento to Philadelphia, whose stories will be featured on DDP’s website, Liza paused to tell us:

“Gender equality in relationship to major companies is a topic that is barely breached in the dance world. I feel a moral obligation to lead the charge. What we see on the ballet stage is, for the most part, a male’s vision, even if the story is supposed to be from a woman’s point of view.

“I have commissioned ballet works that come from a woman’s perspective, but I have also wanted to do much more. On my fact-finding tour I will be looking at the number of male versus female artistic and executive directors at the top U.S. dance companies and which companies pay the most versus the least—and where women fall on that spectrum.”

Read the full interview, featuring DDP Founder and President Liza Yntema and DDP Director of Research Isabelle Vail, here.


Photo by Pascal Perich/Contour by Getty Images

Ashley Bouder Takes a Stance – DDP Stands with Her

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Many will remember in April 2018 when Ashley Bouder wrote an OpEd for Dance Magazine, “It’s Time for Ballet to Embrace Feminism.” She wrote with honesty and a well-informed ear:

Personally, I like receiving flowers and being escorted offstage. I like dancing in pointe shoes and being lifted and supported. Yet that doesn’t mean a man shouldn’t be able to have those things too. It seems that whenever a man is escorted offstage or receives flowers—other than at retirement or a single rose from the ballerina—it’s only done for a humorous reaction, to make fun of him for being like a woman.

The problem with these traditions is that they highlight more serious gender inequality. It’s as if the image of a man leading a woman into the wings is a metaphor for how the dance world is run. A male director leading the careers of dancers. A male choreographer laying down the pathway of steps to perform. 

Of course, there are women who have broken through this mold. But there it is in the phrase: “broken through.” A simple place at the table would be sufficient. Instead, it’s like women are crashing the dinner party.

In order to move forward socially, and, yes, artfully, we must be willing to break from tradition and make room for all types. That doesn’t mean that the traditional male and female roles cannot exist. As long as performances of Petipa’s Swan Lake keep selling out, it is guaranteed that they will exist.


Bouder, leader of The Ashley Bouder Project, is constantly doing more to reinforce and stand by her statements from both this OpEd and her social media accounts. Recently, however, Bouder faced retaliation from her ex-male director, Peter Martins. This time, instead of laying down the pathway of steps to perform, Martins took away all steps, more specifically, an opening night, first-cast performance of the Sleeping Beauty, from Bouder. According to the New York Times, Martins continues to maintain the authority to change casts and whatever else he wants in his version of the production for New York City Ballet, despite no longer serving as Artistic Director for the company after severe allegations of abuse and sexual misconduct. Jonathan Stafford, the interim Artistic Director, had no authority to prevent this last-minute change to his first cast.

Bouder has chosen to fearlessly speak out, revealing the disturbing truth of a reality she and her peers face. Dance Data Project stands with Bouder as she remains steadfast and strong – “‘I feel like he is punishing me, even though he is not my boss anymore,” Ms. Bouder said. “And by talking about it I can be punished even further. But that’s a risk I have to take.'” Her honesty is the advocacy this community needs to fight the policies and leadership that do not promote equity and fairness in classical dance.

Read the New York Times article on Martins’ continued control here.

Read the New York Times article featuring Ms. Bouder’s project and advocacy here.

Read Bouder’s OpEd for Dance Magazine here.

Visit www.theashleybouderproject.com to see first-hand the dancer/leader’s advocacy.

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.

Harris Theater Presents 2019/2010

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Dancers from Bangarra Dance Theatre perform at the Harris Theater.

An inclusive season is in the works for the Harris Theater in Chicago. A frequent venue for dance in the Windy City, the theater’s upcoming season will feature many female choreographers and companies supportive of the artists.

Work by Pina Bausch, Martha Graham Dance Company, Bangarra Dance Theatre is at the top of our list to see. View the entire seasonal program here.

Pacific Northwest Ballet’s New Voices: Choreography and Process for Young Women in Dance

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Pacific Northwest Ballet has created a year-long course dedicated curating female choreography from an early stage in a dancer’s career. New Voices, as it is called, is funded by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation – known to support women in dance – and was first tested as an aspect of PNB’s summer program.

To Pointe Magazine, Artistic Director of PNB Peter Boal had this to say:

“I do post-performance Q&As, and questions I hear so frequently are ‘Why aren’t there more female choreographers?’ or ‘What can we do to ensure there will be more?’ As I think about this issue, I keep going further and further into the pipelines of empowerment, support and opportunity. It was natural for me to think, Oh, I could be a choreographer. And I don’t know if women in classical ballet have felt that.” 

Boal even went on to admit that he does not have enough female choreographers featured in his upcoming season. It is essential for leaders to admit those instances in which they could do better and change their programming in the future to reflect their determination to be more equitable.

Pacific Northwest Ballet founding artistic co-director Francia Russell, directs ballet dancers at the company’s studio in Seattle. Russell retired in 2005.

The New Voices program is a remarkable step in the right direction for this leading company and supports the commitment Boal makes in his discussion with Pointe. As the program unfolds, DDP will follow closely to see the emerging choreographers with a new voice and opportunity. This is just the beginning for creative young women in a leading ballet school.

Read the interview with Boal and report on the initiative in Pointe Magazine.

Penny Saunders on TESTIMONY

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Watch the video below to hear choreographer Penny Saunders talk about her new work for Grand Rapids Ballet, TESTIMONY.

Look out for a Meet the Choreographer soon with Penny and our founder, Liza Yntema.

Crosscut: Teen choreographers hope to break ballet’s glass ceiling

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7 February 2019

By Brangien Davis

Ballet students engage in a movement study about focus in a choreography class taught by Eva Stone at Pacific Northwest Ballet on Feb. 6, 2019. Called “New Voices: Choreography and Process for Young Women in Dance,” it’s PNB’s first-ever, year-long program aimed at increasing the numbers of women who choreograph ballet. (Photo by Dorothy Edwards/Crosscut)


On a chilly Wednesday night in Seattle, a group of young dancers is planting seeds of revolution.

The girls — all 14 to 16 years old — are flocked on the floor of a Pacific Northwest Ballet rehearsal studio, chatting nervously while parents file into the viewing area. As advanced-intermediateLevel VII students enrolled in PNB School, these young women have been in dance recitals before, but this one is different. This time, they’ve written the choreography themselves.

“Ballet is woman,” said legendary choreographer George Balanchine. He had a point, except when it comes to the choreography.

While modern dance has long drawn female choreographers, contemporary ballet remains largely created by men. The women who tend to pop up on seasonal ballet lineups — Twyla Tharp, Jessica Lang, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa — are exceptions to a norm that has existed since approximately the Renaissance. (PNB’s 2018-2019 season includes 13 male choreographers and justone woman, Robin Mineko Williams, on the Director’s Choice mixed bill.)

In an effort to help right this disparity, PNB School Director Peter Boal has said he is currently working to “rectify an imbalance that exists in ballet.” This fall, PNB launched a program that aims to dig toward the root of the problem by encouraging women to consider choreography as early as young teens.

Read the full article on Crosscut.

Penny Saunders at Grand Rapids Ballet

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DDP Founder Liza Yntema and Penny Saunders with dancers from Saunders' upcoming work entitled Testimony.

DDP is excited to share highlights of some of Penny Saunders‘ upcoming work as Resident Choreographer at Grand Rapids Ballet, under the leadership of Artistic Director James Sofranko. Her new piece is entitled TESTIMONY, and DDP founder Liza Yntema was one of the early few to have the pleasure of watching the work in the studios of Grand Rapids Ballet.

See more videos from the work below:

An interview with Saunders by Yntema will be featured soon on our website as the first in the “Meet the Choreographer” series.

Amy Seiwert Featured in the Sacramento News & Review

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By Isabelle Vail

1 February 2019

Amy Seiwert is well-known to the DDP team as one of the leaders supporting women in dance and equity in the arts. She will be interviewed this week by DDP founder Liza Yntema during a stop on her Listening Tour to Smuin Ballet, where Seiwert is choreographing a world premiere on the company.

In the Sacramento News & Review, Seiwert’s work for Sacramento Ballet, of which she is Artistic Director, is described as invigorating. Tessa Marguerite Outland writes:

Tchaikovsky’s overture floats out of the orchestra pit, and children dash across a dimly lit stage. The scene is set, and the audience waits for Clara, a young girl with bouncing curls, to appear and receive her Christmas gift.

But this time, it’s Marie who twirls in to accept the nutcracker. Unlike Clara, she’s growing out of dolls and into womanhood, though the gentle girl still dreams of lands with sugar plum fairies, Arabian dancers and a toy prince.

In December, The Sacramento Ballet debuted a different version of The Nutcracker, this time under the leadership of a new artistic director, Amy Seiwert. Seiwert admitted that creating her own version was terrifying; looming over the production was the shadow of a beloved 30-year-old legacy, cast by her predecessors and former teachers Ron Cunningham and Carinne Binda.

Read the full feature in the Sacramento News & Review.

Look out for Yntema’s interview with Seiwert soon on our blog!