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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

Los Angeles Times: Actress Sofia Carson receives honors during the Los Angeles Ballet Gala

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By Ellen Olivier

12 April 2019

From onstage at Thursday’s Los Angeles Ballet Gala, honoree Sofia Carson held back tears as she spoke about how her mom took her hand at age 3 and walked her to her first ballet class.

“I don’t remember a moment in my life when I wasn’t madly in love with dance,” said the Disney “Descendants” actress. “So when I was 3 years old and stepped into my very first ballet slippers, in that moment my life changed forever. And as I grew up, my love for dance became deeper and stage became my safe place. It became my happiness, my haven.

“So I promised myself that if ever I was lucky enough to do what I love every day of my life, I would do everything that I could to give that chance to dance to other little girls who didn’t have that beginning.”

Read the full article in The Los Angeles Times.

She Persisted: English National Ballet’s She Persisted Shows Work On and By Women

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Tamara Rojo, a star of classical ballet and leader of the acclaimed English National Ballet, continues to lead her company in the right direction. To great praise, Rojo has incorporated a #MeToo era triple-bill into her company’s season. She Persisted, the production that follows the company’s She Said all-female choreography program from 2016, is a breath of fresh air, telling original stories by women to international audiences.

The program is a three-part evening, with work by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Stina Quagebeur (a First Artists with ENB), and Pina Bausch. Nora, Quagebeur’s first work for the main stage, is the program’s major premiere, which speaks volumes to the support Rojo and her team have for new artists – particularly women.

Broken Wings and The Rite of Spring return to the company’s repertoire, creating a full-circle program of work from both emerging female artists to those well-established in the dance community.

Watch English National Ballet’s video below to hear Tamara Rojo, artists, and Stina Quagebeur discuss the program and women choreographers.

Learn more about She Persisted on the ENB website, here.

Choreographer links:

Stina Quagebeur

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa

Pina Bausch

How is Ballet Like Soccer? – New York Times In Her Words: Abby Wambach’s Leadership Lessons: Be the Wolf

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By Maya Salam

9 April 2019

Abby Wambach has made a career out of pursuing goals. She’s scored 184 of them after all, the most by any soccer player, male or female, in international soccer history. But now, a few years into her retirement, Wambach, who led the United States women’s team to a World Cup championship in 2015, is focused on a new kind of goal: motivating women to become leaders.

“There has never been a more important, urgent time than right now for women to begin to fully lead our own lives,” she told me this week.

In her new book, “Wolfpack,” Wambach, 38, shares lessons she learned from decades of training, failure and triumph on the field. It is based on the commencement speech she gave at Barnard College in New York last year that quickly went viral. “If I could go back and tell my younger self one thing, it would be this: ‘Abby, you were never Little Red Riding Hood; you were always the wolf,’” she told graduates.

Read the full article in The New York Times.

DDP Founder Liza Yntema at American Ballet Theatre

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DDP Founder Liza Yntema paid a visit to American Ballet Theatre last week, meeting again with visionary Executive Director Kara Medoff Barnett . The company’s Women’s Movement is taking off with full support at all levels of the major company. Details will soon follow on our website.

Read more about the Women’s Movement on the ABT website here.

HeraldScotland: ‘Defiantly unorthodox’ – Reviews: Scottish Ballet’s Spring! plus Glengarry Glen Ross

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By Mark Brown

6 April 2019

Scottish Ballet, our national dance company, celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Given the breadth of its programming, it is fitting that it should begin its celebrations, not with a classical ballet, but with Spring!, a double bill of defiantly unorthodox choreographies.

The evening begins with the world premiere of Dextera, an intriguing and memorable work by Scottish Ballet artist in residence Sophie Laplane. The choreographer describes the piece as a celebration of creativity, but, it seems clear, it is also commenting, upon current debates around gender inequalities and identities.

This it does with imagination, humour and some disquieting imagery. In contrast to the beauty of music by Mozart, red-gloved men manipulate puppet-like women, some of them with hooks attached to their costumes (all the better to control them).

This rigid, disconcerting gender scheme begins to crack when we see a male figure, attired in the same white dress as the women, being moved around the stage with energetic roughness. Soon, chorus scenes are offering comedic gestures of feminist defiance, leading to a final montage of personal freedom and social harmony.

Read the full article in HeraldScotland.

The Boston Globe: At the theater, furious rebuttals in the age of #MeToo

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By Don Aucoin

4 April 2019

In a recent interview with Fareed Zakaria on CNN, author Rebecca Traister pointed to a large, gaping hole in the history books: Namely, that they have habitually minimized the intensity and the effectiveness of women’s anger as a force for social change.

“We’ve never been taught the story or given the view of women’s anger as politically potent,’’ said Traister, whose book “Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger’’ was published last fall. “Women’s anger, even when it has existed, has often been covered over by the people telling the story of it.’’

At this moment, though, that story is being forcefully told on stages from Boston to Broadway. The anger of women, and their determination to fight back against the role of systemic misogyny in making them feel undervalued and unsafe in the world, has formed the basis of recent and current productions as different as Lyric Stage Company of Boston’s “The Little Foxes,’’ Sleeping Weazel’s “The Audacity: Women Speak,’’ Flat Earth Theatre’s “Not Medea,’’ Also Known As Theatre’s “Extremities,’’ and the riveting “What the Constitution Means to Me,’’ at New York’s Helen Hayes Theater.

Even generally lighthearted classics like Lerner & Loewe’s “My Fair Lady,’’ George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion’’ (from which “My Fair Lady’’ was adapted), and Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me, Kate’’ now resonate differently, having been tweaked by contemporary directors to emphasize the defiance of their incensed female protagonists and the legitimacy of their grievances.

Read the full critic’s notebook in The Boston Globe.

The Telegraph: She Persisted, ENB, Sadler’s Wells, review: an all-guns #MeToo broadside

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By Mark Monahan

5 April 2019

Is it encouraging and emancipating – or patronising and pigeonholing – to showcase “female choreographers”? Either way, there’s no doubt that women are sorely under-represented in the realm of dance-creation, and you could hardly accuse English National Ballet (under dancer-director Tamara Rojo) of not sticking to its guns.

Three years ago, it unveiled She Said, a triple bill of new works by women. Now, also at Sadler’s Wells, it is serving up an even more explicit #MeToo-era broadside, with She Persisted. 

Read the full review in The Telegraph.

CNN Business: Women are now running all three network morning shows for the first time ever

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By Brian Stelter

April 4 2019

New York (CNN Business)

For decades, the TV morning shows that are designed to appeal primarily to women have been produced mostly by men. But that’s changing.On Thursday, CBS named Diana Miller the new executive producer of “CBS This Morning,” filling a void that was left when Ryan Kadro exited the show three months ago.There was loud applause in the newsroom when new CBS News president Susan Zirinsky announced Miller’s promotion.For the first time, all three network morning programs have female executive producers. The E.P. is the day-to-day boss of the show.Roxanna Sherwood became the E.P. of ABC’s “Good Morning America” in July 2017. She reports to senior executive producer Michael Corn.

Libby Leist became the E.P. of NBC’s “Today” show in February 2018. She reports to NBC News president Noah Oppenheim.The gender dynamics of morning TV have gained more attention in recent years due to the downfalls of Charlie Rose at CBS and Matt Lauer at NBC.When Lauer was fired at NBC, Hoda Kotb became Savannah Guthrie’s co-host. When Leist took over the show a month and a half later, it was viewed by staffers as a break with the past.

Read the full article on CNN Business.

Dance Magazine: Why Every Dancer Should Choreograph At Least Once, According to Boston Conservatory at Berklee

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5 april 2019

The way we create and consume dance is changing every day. Now more than ever, the field demands that dancers not only be able to perform at the highest level, but also collaborate with choreographers to bring their artistic visions to life. Dancers who miss out on choreographic training may very well find themselves at a disadvantage as they try to launch their careers.

At Boston Conservatory at Berklee—which was just named a top school for aspiring choreographers by College Magazine—choreography courses are an essential aspect of the curriculum. “The skills you learn choreographing make you a better artist all-around, and help you build a diverse portfolio,” says dean of dance Tommy Neblett. “Not to mention these skills are transferable to so many different areas within and beyond the performing arts.”

Here’s why Neblett recommends all dance students try choreography at least once:

1. You’ll have a huge professional advantage.

Read the rest in Dance Magazine.

Laurent Liotardo/The English National Ballet

What a Difference a Female Director Can Make! Vogue: #MeToo Finally Makes Waves In The Ballet World With English National Ballet’s She Persisted

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By Alyson Lowe

6 April 2019

Conjure up an image of classical ballet, and pointe shoes, tutus, a corps of fluttering ballerinas and exaggerated stage make-up will spring to mind. Visually, women are everywhere in ballet, but, this is very often where it stops; they are seen as objects of beauty, but historically it has rarely been anything more. Feminist discourse in the art form is only at its very fledgling stage, with women’s voices in the classical realm remaining especially silent.

Led by creative director (and ballerina) Tamara Rojo, the English National Ballet’s latest trilogy, She Persisted, gives those voices to these previously seen-but-not-heard women – and they’re big, bold, loud ones. A trilogy of works, all crafted by female choreographers, the production takes over London’s Sadler’s Wells for two weeks. This isn’t the first time Rojo has led a women-first project. Back in 2016, She Said similarly showcased female choreography, but it’s season two that proves Rojo is very serious about permanent change after #MeToo’s impact through the arts world.

Read the full article in Bhttps://www.vogue.co.uk/article/she-persisted-english-national-balletritish Vogue.