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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

Co•Lab: A Female-Led Initiative in NYC

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By Isabelle Vail

October 20th, 2018

Lauren Post is a longtime ballerina of American Ballet Theatre, where she is regularly featured in soloist roles and can be seen alongside fellow Corps de Ballet members night after night. Despite the demands of dancing with one of the most prominent ballet companies in the world, Post has dedicated much of 2018 to her latest endeavor: Co•Lab Dance.

On its website, Co•Lab dance is described as providing “a unique platform for interaction among dance peers, creating new choreography and intimate performance opportunities outside regular seasons.” The offseason of ballet, commonly referred to as “layoff,” is a time in which dancers constantly seek out supplemental opportunities as they prepare for the next season of dance.

For many dancers, opportunities are few and far between during layoff. Post’s initiative not only helps her peers secure a gig for part of the summer; it also has presented women with an opportunity to create and lead in this community that does not always favor them.

For its first run, Co•Lab has invited two women (and one man) to choreograph. Zhong-Jing Fang (with Duncan Lyle) and Xin Ying premiere their works in the production, while Post includes past work of the impressive and well-respected Justin Peck from New York City Ballet. The program ran in September and was praised, garnering attention from The New Yorker.

DDP looks forward to following the growth of this initiative and its female leader in the next offseason!

Read about Co•Lab Dance on its website.

Financial Times: ABT Meets the #MeToo Era

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By Apollinaire Scherr

19 October 2018

Praising the work of ABT in its Women’s Movement, Financial Times journalist Apollinaire Scherr adds to the well-deserved attention the company has received from international press. Describing Michelle Dorrance as “genius” and detailing Jessica Lang’s history with the company, Scherr analyzes the current state of the dance world and seeks to learn why women are only now garnering the praise and receiving the commissions they deserve.

Read the article in the Financial Times.

ABT Women’s Movement Supported by DDP Founder

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By Isabelle Vail

17 October 2018

The American Ballet Theatre Women’s Movement has committed to commission three female choreographers for the next three years. For the fall 2018 season, the company is presenting works of four women.

These choreographers are Michelle Dorrance, Lauren Lovette, Twyla Tharp, and Jessica Lang.

Dorrance returns to ABT with a world premiere for the main company. Ms. Lovette, a principal dancer for New York City Ballet, stages Le Jeune, a work she created in 2017, for the ABT Studio Company. In the Upper Room by Tharp, a fan and dancer favorite with its unmistakeable red pointe shoes and striped costumes, will again be featured by the company beginning with the Gala on October 17th. A new work by Jessica Lang, entitled “Garden Blue,” will also run from October 17th until the 28th.

Mentioned in ABT’s press release announcing the initiative to support women choreographers was DDP’s founder, Elizabeth Yntema. In the spirit of DDP’s mission of informing equity, Yntema has spent years urging company and community leaders to give women a chance on major stages and in major productions. Ballet Theatre has listened, becoming the first leading company in the world to do so, and remains one of DDP’s most steadfast supporters during our recent database expansion and 501(c)(3) application.

Along with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, Yntema is bringing ballet one step closer to equity through support of the Women’s Movement. We at DDP could not be more excited to see the amazing work created by these commissioned women choreographers on the world stage.

New York Times: Sculpting with Bodies

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By Marina Harss

16 October 2018

The choreographer Jessica Lang was directing traffic from the front of a studio at American Ballet Theater a few days ago. It was late in the afternoon, and seven tired dancers turned their slightly haggard faces toward her. One by one she arranged them around one of two wooden, winglike structures, turned on its side so that it created an ovoid wall.

She worked like a sculptor, molding the group until it pleased her eye. Until finally, there it was: a wave-shaped figure shaped out of interlocking bodies, flowing from low to high.

Read the full article in the New York Times.

Pointe Magazine: ABT’s Fall Season Brings Women’s Movement to Focus

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By Chava Lansky

12 October 2018

Last spring American Ballet Theatre artistic director Kevin McKenzie announced the company’s Women’s Movement, a multi-year initiative to support the creation of new work by female choreographers. ABT’s fall season, running October 17–28 at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater, sets the project in full swing. The opening gala features a world premiere by tap extraordinaire Michelle Dorrance. A co-commission with the Vail Dance Festival, this work marks ABT’s third collaboration with Dorrance this year: She created Praedicere, a pièce d’occasion for ABT’s spring gala, as well as a work on company dancers at Vail last summer. The gala performance also includes past and present works by two female choreographers: Twyla Tharp’s 1986 In The Upper Room and Lauren Lovette’s 2017 Le Jeune, which will be danced by the ABT Studio Company.

Read the full article in Pointe Magazine.

New York Times: ‘We, the Dancers’: At City Ballet’s Gala, Affirming Ballet’s Honor

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By Alastair Macaulay

28 September 2018

On Thursday night at the David H. Koch Theater, the curtain rose to show the dancers of New York City Ballet, assembled to face the audience. Then Teresa Reichlen, standing center front, delivered a speech — written by her and Adrian Danchig-Waring, another principal — that began with the words, “We the dancers of New York City Ballet.” The unlikely occasion was the company’s fall fashion gala.

This central announcement was crucial: “We will not put art before common decency or allow talent to sway our moral compass.” Ms. Reichlen also spoke of “the high moral standards that were instilled in us when we decided to become professional dancers” and affirmed that “each of us standing here tonight is inspired by the values essential to our art form: dignity, integrity, and honor.”

Why do these words matter so greatly now? Earlier this month, New York City Ballet — and then its affiliate School of American Ballet — became one of the prime targets of a lawsuit, charging the institution with condoning multiple aspects of the abuse of women. The issues involved here are complex; they will not — should not — be dispelled soon. Yet the dancers have been responding all season by showing not just physical skill but also the moral distinction that underlies ballet’s classicism.

Read the full article in the New York Times.

Le Figaro: Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker’s School

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By Ariane Bavelier

2 September 2018

From Europe, the Figaro describes the work and style of Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker, a world-renown woman choreographer based in Brussels.

Read the full article in the Figaro.

Dance International: Paris Fall 2018

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By François Fargue

18 August 2018

A summary of the fall season in the Paris dance scene. Fargue details his experience at the L.A. Dance Project triple bill, which may have been labeled as approaching mediocracy. At the Paris Opéra Ballet, dissatisfaction with former Étoile and now-Artistic Director Aurélie Dupont plagues the revered institution. Fargue discusses rumors of Dupont’s mismanagement and the recent talks of employee harassment downplayed in the past and only now revealed in an anonymous survey of dancers.

Read the full article in Dance International.

New York Times: ‘The Nutcracker’ Chronicles

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By Alastair Macaulay

28 December 2010

“This is the 25th “Nutcracker” production I’ve seen this season, and of the 23 I’ve seen for the first time it strikes me as the most perfect. That’s not to say it has the best dancers, that its choreography and designs aren’t surpassed here or there by others, or that all its episodes strike me as the best responses to Tchaikovsky’s music. But it’s certainly up there with the Ballet West (Salt Lake City) and the Ballet Arizona (Phoenix) productions as the most satisfying, and it’s the one that follows its own internal logic with most unflagging consistency and detail.”

Read the full review in the New York Times.

Tiler Peck Could Run a Company

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Embed from Getty Images

Below is an excerpt from an article in the New York Times.

By Gia Kourlas

13 July 2018

“In “Ballet Now,” a new documentary directed by Steven Cantor, Ms. Peck is captured in the days, hours and minutes leading up to the performances. “It changed me as a person, and I think that’s what has translated into my dancing now,” she said. “I do feel a difference.”…It tracks Ms. Peck, who in less than a week put together an eclectic program of ballet, tap, hip-hop and mime, featuring choreography by George Balanchine, Justin Peck (no relation), Bill Irwin, Michelle Dorrance and others; she oversaw dancers, choreographers, the orchestra and every other last detail. Of course, she danced, too.

“It was such a huge turning point for me,” she said, adding that it brought on an important realization: “I know I could run a company. And I could do it really well.’”

Read the full article in the New York Times.

Who wouldn’t be on-board with this stellar female leader in dance taking over a company? Tiler, if you’re reading, we know you could run a company, too.