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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

BBC News: Sir David Hare: Society shifting women’s role in film and theatre

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18 March 2019

Women are seeing better representation in film and theatre, Sir David Hare has said, but the change is due to societal pressure rather than the industry.

The acclaimed playwright and director said there were more stories being told about women but the number of women behind the camera was “still tiny”.

The industry was “running along behind” society, he said.

Sir David, known for creating leading roles for women, wrote screenplays for The Hours, The Reader and Collateral.

“I’ve been going on about women’s lives and about the importance of portraying women’s lives for 45 years now and nobody listened for the first 45 years,” he said.

“And at last, people are listening.

“Now I don’t think that’s a change in the industry, I think that’s a change in society.”

The US campaign group, Time’s Up, says only 4% of Hollywood’s biggest earning films from the past decade were directed by women.

Speaking in February, British director Georgia Parris said it was a “pretty depressing figure” and part of the “age-old problem that women are hired on experience and men are hired on potential”.

A movement, known as the #4percentchallenge, is now trying to inspire confidence in future movie-makers and Time’s Up is asking actors to commit to working with a female director in the next 12 months.

In the UK, the percentage of women being cast in UK films (around 25%) has barely changed in more than 100 years, data released by the British Film Institute (BFI) in 2017 showed.

However, the percentage of female crew members went up from 3% to 33% over the same period of time.

Read the full article on BBC News.

If Theater Can Change, So Can Ballet: New York Times – ‘Doors Swing Open for Women and People of Color at Top Ranks of American Theater’

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By Michael Paulson

19 March 2019

To understand the striking transformation taking place in the American theater, consider Nataki Garrett.

Ms. Garrett, a stage director who has held leadership posts in California and Colorado, is an African-American woman with a track record of championing new work. On Tuesday, she is being named the sixth artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a Tony-winning nonprofit with a $44 million budget and an annual audience of 400,000.

Across the country, scores of artistic directors, most of them white men who have served as community tastemakers for years, are leaving their jobs via retirements, ousters, and an industrywide round of musical chairs. As their successors are appointed, a shift is underway: according to a national survey conducted by two Bay Area directors, women have been named to 41 percent of the 85 jobs filled since 2015, and people of color have been named to 26 percent.

Read the full article in The New York Times.

Broadway World: Ergo Arts Theatre Announces 2nd Annual ERGO PINK FEST

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18 March 2019

Ergo Pink Fest is a 4-day theatre festival in Toronto (March 28-31, 2019), conceived and hosted by Ergo Arts Theatre (EAT) that gives voice to female and non-binary identified playwrights, providing them a unique platform to develop and showcase their work. The festival, being held at the Small World Music Centre, 180 Shaw Street, brings together award-winning playwrights and dramaturges Beverley Cooper, Marcia Johnson, Anita La Selva, Paula Wing and Elyne Quan to nurture the development of eight new plays.

The plays take us around the world – China, Poland, Italy and America – and talk of the experience of female, non-binary identifying and transgender characters.

“The original idea behind the festival came when we read the 2015 Equity in Theatre study by the Playwrights Guild of Canada,” says EAT Artistic Director, Anna Pappas. “It said that the greatest disparity in gender equity happens in the playwright category. So that seemed to be the place to start, providing a space for these playwrights to create that work and tell those stories. The experience last year was so powerful and made such a positive impact, that a second year was inevitable. To know that 8 new plays will be brought into the Canadian theatre scene as a result of this work is very exciting.”

Read the full article on Broadway World.

Women’s Programming Should Be As Diverse As Men’s

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South East Dance has announced recent programming to challenge pervasive and systematic inequity in the UK dance scene.

According to UK’s Broadway World’s News Desk, the program, 20:20 Vision, “will feature 20 unique performances from 20 choreographers and producers, all of whom identify as women or non-binary artists.”

The programming is non-classical and certainly defies the norms of productions often commissioned at the Royal Opera House and Sadler’s Wells theatre. An aerial dance company, Gravity & Levity, will perform, according to Broadway World, along with choreographers such as Janine Harrington, a dance artist whose work explores movement and technology.

The program has a significant purpose: to highlight the gender-imbalance and “challenge the status quo and perceptions of what dance is, who makes it, what it can achieve and who it’s for.” But the program also highlights an additional issue we must tackle as a community. When a work diverges too far from classical ballet, or the modern forms of the art, choreographers risk their work falling under an identification that may never be accepted by ballet audiences.

20:20 Vision is exciting and places women in the spotlight – where they should be – but to expect works that diverge so drastically from even the most experimental works the Royal Ballet could perform (think productions like Divergence by Crystal Pite or even Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice in Wonderland) gives such companies basis to ignore urges to program women.

A work that could be identified as “out there” or “extreme” is highly specialized. Ballet and the programming selected for classical/neoclassical companies are specific to those trained in balletic technique and audiences seeking a more identifiable combination of technique, story, and music. Deviating forms of dance, like aerial and even the less-abstract work of Harrington, which can combine several mediums and abstract ideas, do not fall into the same target audiences of a classical ballet company like the Royal Ballet. Sadler’s Wells can perhaps tackle the more experimental programming, as it is no longer associated with only classical ballet, but these major main stages require large-scale productions that capture at least one of the elements a classical ballet audience seeks.

Women’s programming is too often solely associated with experimental productions like those featured in 20:20 Vision. Just like the repertoire we see in men’s programming, women’s programming can and should cover a wider range of works and styles.

Read about 20:20 Vision here.

Courtesy of Cheryl Mann via Daily Nexus

Daily Nexus Article, “The Joffrey Presents Not Your Grandma’s Ballet” Covers #MeToo Discussion

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By Hannah Jackson

12 March 2019

For UCSB’s Daily Nexus, Hannah Jackson reviewed the Joffrey Ballet’s Not Your Grandma’s Ballet performance. Hannah Jackson applauded the company’s discussion of #MeToo in ballet and discussed portrayals of women in Alexander Eckman’s “show-stopping” Joy. She wrote:

Following the performance, artistic director of the Joffrey Ashley Wheater spoke onstage with Professor Christopher Pilafian from the Department of Theater and Dance. In spite of the numerous scandals that have recently struck the dance world in conjunction with the #MeToo movement, Wheater believes that “dance is having a moment right now.” It was evident that while ballet still very much tailored to an older, wealthier audience, the Joffrey is leading the charge toward a more progressive and accepting future for the art form: starting with bodies.

“Robert Joffrey said, ‘A great dancer comes in every shape and size,’ and I believe that is true if you look at our company today,” Wheater said. And he’s right: throughout the performance I was pleasantly surprised by the (relative) diversity; the presence of breasts and strong thighs more common than that of alarming skinniness.

While acceptance of the human form as it comes seems like a small step, seeing attainable body standards on the stage of one of the world’s most renowned companies is no small feat. This permissiveness, in conjunction with the Joffrey’s confidence to embrace the funk and the spunk of experimental dance will lead them into the 21st century — now it’s time for a young audience to follow in suit.   

Read the full article here.

Chicago Sun-Times: La Femme Dance Festival celebrates black choreographers in ‘dancestry’ program

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By Catey Sullivan

14 March 2019

About five years ago, Red Clay Dance Company founder Vershawn Sanders-Ward realized she was repeating herself. “I started noticing that I kept having the same conversation with my peers. That the same issue kept coming up: There was a lack of support for our work. A lack of opportunities for marginalized voices. And by our work and marginalized voices I specifically mean black women,” Sanders-Ward said, during a recent chat.

With Red Clay’s 3rd Biennial La Femme Dance Festival, Sanders-Ward gives those voices opportunities to blossom. Running March 14 – 16 in Washington Park’s Green Line Performing Arts Center, Femme Fest spotlights the creations of five female choreographers of Black/African or Diaspora/African descent. By honoring African “dancestry” (dance plus history plus ancestors), Red Clay amps up its commitment to spotlighting dances that began in the myriad nations of the African continent, spread across the planet via the slave trade and evolved through generations to influence everyone from the Brooklyn-based Urban Bush Women to Chicago’s Hiplets to superstar ballerina Misty Copeland.

Read the full article in the Chicago Sun-Times.

WFPL: Louisville Ballet Announces 2019-2020 ‘Season Of Imagination’

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By Ashlie Stevens

14 March 2019

The Louisville Ballet has released details for its 2019-2020 season, dubbed the “Season of Imagination.”

In a written statement, Robert Curran, Louisville Ballet artistic and executive director, said the company is always working to tell stories in a creative and thrilling way.

“We will continue to imagine and create the reality we want to live in, and we look forward to exploring this on stage with you this season,” he said.

The season will open on Sept. 13, 2019 with the regional premiere of “The Merry Widow,” choreographed by Ronald Hynd; scenery and costumes will be provided by the Australian Ballet, where Curran was a principal artist for 10 years.

Then, in October, the Louisville Ballet will present three pieces in one program: Balanchine’s “Serenade,” the world-premiere of “Appalachian Spring,” and the regional premiere of Stanton Welch’s “Velocity.”

“Appalachian Spring” is being choreographed by Andrea Schermoly, the company’s first female resident choreographer.

Read the full article on the blog of 89.3 WFPL.

Wall Street Journal: What Women Artists Knew About Work

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By Mason Currey

14 March 2019

In December 1850, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote to her sister-in-law with a complaint that will sound familiar to anyone who has struggled to carve out time for a creative project. “Since I began this note,” Stowe wrote, “I have been called off at least a dozen times—once for the fish-man, to buy a codfish—once to see a man who had brought me some baskets of apples…

Read the full article with a subscription to the Wall Street Journal.

Long Hard Road Ahead According to The Conversation: Gender equity—the way things are going, we won’t reach true parity until the 22nd century

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By Rebecca Cassells and Alan Duncan

8 March 2019

The good news this International Women’s Day is that women are now moving through the ranks into management roles faster than men.

If things continue at this rate it will take just two more decades for women to hold the same number of full-time management positions as men.

For lower-level managers, it could happen even sooner, perhaps in just ten to eleven years.

But for the top spot of chief executive, we are unlikely to see women holding half the positions until 2100. That’s right: until the turn of the 22nd century, 80 years away.

Credit: BCEC|WGEA Gender Equity Insights Series 2019: Breaking through the Glass Ceiling via The Conversation

Projected dates women should achieve parity with men

The Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre has crunched five years of data collected by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency and discovered that while the glass ceiling that has prevented women from holding high-level jobs is receding, the ceiling governing salaries remains pretty much in place.

At every management level, in every industry, the spread of salaries available to male managers is much wider and higher than the spread available to female mangers.

The top paid 10% of male mangers earn at least $600K in total salary, whereas the top paid 10% of female managers earn $436K, a difference of over $160K.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2019-03-gender-equitythe-wont-true-parity.html#jCp (The Conversation)

Scene from Praedicere, Choreography by Michelle Dorrance, Courtesy of American Ballet Theatre, Photo by Marty SohlCourtesy of American Ballet Theatre/Photo by Marty Sohl

American Ballet Theatre Highlights Women Credited Throughout Its History & Announces Movement’s Next Endeavors

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In a new extended page that details the American Ballet Theatre Women’s Movement, Ballet Theatre is featuring the artists responsible for stagings and commissions throughout the company’s history.

The thirty-nine women come from different generations and diverse backgrounds from around the world. Ranging from Natalia Makarova, who has staged La Bayadère for Ballet Theatre since the 80’s (and the less-performed Paquita), to Catherine Littlefield, who brought her work “Barn Dance” to the company in 1944, the list is intriguing and serves as a model for what all companies should be doing – giving choreographers support and exposure beyond their commissions or staging.

The company has also shared the Women’s Movement’s influence on its 2019 Spring Season. Jane Eyre, a full-length work by Cathy Marston, is coming to the Metropolitan Opera House, followed by a reprisal of In the Upper Room, one of Twyla Tharp’s best-known works. The latter comes as part of the Tharp Trio program, which includes the choreographer’s The Brahms-Haydn Variations and Deuce Coupe.

Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company is set to perform more work by Claudia Schreier and a new work by Stefanie Batten Bland beginning in January 2019. Eight women choreographers have already benefited from the Women’s Movement since its official rollout last fall.

DDP Founder Liza Yntema provides continuous support to the Movement.

See all the information on the Women’s Movement on the American Ballet Theatre website.
Read about the Movement in the news here: Marie Claire; The New York Times; Dance Magazine; San Francisco Classical Voice