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
By Nora Caplan-Bricker
10 August 2020
Women make up nearly nine in ten nurses, more than eight in ten home health aides, and more than two-thirds of grocery-store cashiers. In other words, they perform the lion’s share of the vital care that we now call “essential” work. At the same time, since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, women have been laid off at an outsized rate (a reflection of their concentration within the country’s lowest-compensated, least-secure jobs) and have been forced to reduce their paid hours to look after children at nearly twice the rate of their male partners. As the kinds of labor that sustain life have grown deadlier, women have taken on more of the risk. As paid work and the time to perform it become scarcer resources, men are retaining the better part of both.
What conclusions can we draw from the gendered dimensions of the current crisis? Kate Manne’s “Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women” presents a paradigm that maps neatly onto life in lockdown. Manne, a professor of philosophy at Cornell, argues that women “are expected to give traditionally feminine goods”—including physical and emotional care—and “to refrain from taking traditionally masculine goods,” such as power and authority. These assumptions result in a society in which men “are tacitly deemed entitled” to much of what life has to offer, while women are perpetual debtors, their very humanity “owed to others.”
Once again, Manne’s work is speaking to a moment that she could not have foreseen. Her first book, “Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny,” was released into the gathering storm of the #MeToo movement, in November, 2017. It was uncanny timing, and the intuitive explanatory power of Manne’s argument attracted a broad, enthusiastic following to a demanding academic work. Manne proposed that misogyny “should be understood as the ‘law enforcement’ branch of a patriarchal order,” a system of punishment that swings into action whenever women violate the rules. Sexism, by contrast, is the set of ideas that justifies the power which men hold. “Sexism wears a lab coat; misogyny goes on witch hunts,” Manne writes in “Down Girl.” “Sexism has a theory; misogyny wields a cudgel.”
In “Entitled,” Manne turns her attention to the gendered economy that these forces defend. If sexism is a scientist and misogyny is a cop, then the system of entitlements is a suite of financiers forever seeking ways to profit off someone else’s debt. Manne applies her theory to a litany of lopsided situations, sorting them into one of three scenarios: first, how women can be punished for failing to provide sex, love, admiration, or anything else that the dominant sex considers its due (Manne points to mass murders perpetrated by incels, who kill in protest of perceived rejection); second, how women struggle to lay claim to masculine-coded powers and privileges, the Presidency being one prominent example; and, third, how women may be denied the feminine-coded forms of care—such as attention to their pain—that they are expected to supply, not demand.
Manne first posited this slanted system of goods and services in “Down Girl,” and her arguments in “Entitled,” her first book for a general audience, may at times feel overly familiar to readers already acquainted with her work. In some cases, the new book remedies the other’s omissions, especially by considering transmisogyny and misogynoir, the interlocking systems of oppression that affect trans and Black women, respectively. Manne illustrates her ideas with recent headlines and cultural touchstones, travelling smoothly from the Brett Kavanaugh hearings to the sentencing of Brock Turner, from the movie “Gaslight” to the short story “Cat Person.” Manne examines these stories in order to reveal what male entitlement costs women and non-binary people, and how we might begin to resist its demands, even as the invisible matrix of male power shapes every imaginable interaction.
Read the full article online here.
By Geraldine Higginson
16 December 2019
Some dancers have a set list of goals from a young age, and move through life ticking them off one after the other; others change path and direction as they go, finding new goals along the way.
Readers who have watched the Australian Ballet (AB) for a decade or more might remember a former principal dancer by the name of Danielle Rowe — who danced with the company from 2001 to 2011. Tall and striking, she excelled in both classical and contemporary roles with the AB until a restless nature and a desire to seek new challenges took her overseas.
First stop was Houston Ballet, until her application for Netherlands Dance Theatre (NDT) — sent on a whim, never expecting to actually get in — was accepted, precipitating a second move to the Netherlands after one season in Houston.
Read the full article here.
By Lyndsey Winship
10 August 2020
As a gallant effort to keep the show on the road (or the screen) despite the cancellation of this summer’s edition, Edinburgh international festival has commissioned An Evening with Scottish Ballet. Although “evening” is pushing it, as this is more like a half-hour sizzle reel. Six short films packaged together, old and new, plus existing choreography filmed especially for Covid times by director Michael Sherrington.
There are two pieces from the company’s resident choreographer Sophie Laplane, full of stylish staccato riffs set to 4/4 machine beats. It’s a distinctive style, very watchable. In Oxymore, Rishan Benjamin and Anna Williams dance backstage in front of towers of flight cases and props. Their movement is straight-faced and straight-angled, a kind of un-groovy groove. Idle Eyes, filmed last year, is glitchier and quirkier, and benefits from the texture of a bigger cast, too.
Another pre-coronavirus film, Frontiers, by San Francisco Ballet’s Myles Thatcher, was filmed in 2019, under a concrete flyover. Thatcher aims to undo the gender stereotypes in ballet and he’s created gender-neutral partnering – the same choreography danced by two men, two women or mixed couples, spliced together with fast cuts until it all becomes a blur of identities. Flickering between dancers dressed in androgynous tailoring, the women do lifts, the men sort of swan dive, and it completely works as choreography. Crazy that this is still a boundary to push in 21st-century ballet, of course.
Read the full article here.
By Emily Davenport
11 August 2020
Dancer and activist Ingrid Silva is taking on women’s issues and empowering women in the process through her New York City-based organization.
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Silva started her dance journey at the age of 8 and began training in ballet at Dançando Para Não Dançar, a social project in Mangueira.
“Dance was never actually my dream but I was really excited when my mom mentioned to me about dance auditions,” said Silva. “I’ve always been involved with sports, been swimming since age 3, and joined a professional team. I had to decide between swimming and classical ballet – I ended up choosing ballet because it was really challenging and super fun.”
Silva went on to dance for three more schools in Brazil — Escola de Dança Maria Olenewa, Centro de Movimento Debora Colker and Grupo Corpo — before she sent an audition tape to the Dance Theatre of Harlem. She officially joined the company in January 2008, and currently resides in Riverside.
“It was a really interesting and amazing experience because when I first came to the states, I literally came for dancing,” said Silva. “My teacher came with me for the first month and then after that, I stayed with the school. That’s when my journey started in the states.”
During her time in the United States, Silva not only gained principal roles in a number of performances, but she also gained national recognition for leading the charge for skin-toned ballet shoes for dancers of all races and cultures. Silva has also been seen as a spokesperson for Activia and appearing in a Nike video series called The Common Thread.
Three years ago, Silva founded EmpowHER NY, an organization that centers around educating and giving women a safe space to speak freely about their ideas and experiences. The organization has made global connections with brands and organizations that want to empower women. Silva says that the organization has had events in New York prior to the pandemic, and has also helped women launch their brands and help them find jobs.
Read the full article here.
Read Parts 1-3 of the Playbook here.
By Max Zahn with Andy Serwer
6 August 2020
Ballet star Misty Copeland told Yahoo Finance in a recent interview that the ballet industry remains “extremely behind” on issues of racial justice, criticizing the continued use of blackface in dance productions and the lack of diversity she has witnessed in her career.
But the nation’s racial reckoning in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd has prompted the ballet community to address such issues “for the first time,” says Copeland, who in 2015 became the first Black principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater, one of the most prominent ballet companies in the U.S.
“It’s something that the ballet world has been very easily able to just kind of get away with,” she says. Now “our eyes are wide open and people are listening.”
“It’s something that I’ve talked about very openly and freely in trying to be the most respectful as I can,” she adds. “Because I know the deep rooted traditions and history in classical dance.”
“Being a European art form and the fact that we still perform those ballets that were created in that time in Europe to this day,” she says. “Just says a lot about where we are in the ballet world when it comes to racism.”
In June, as racial justice protests arose in the U.S. and around the world, ballet dancers called on their companies to acknowledge the lack of diversity and Black representation within the industry. The American Ballet Theater — among other ballet companies and cultural institutions — released a statementmourning the death of Floyd and vowing to do more to address racial injustice.
Read the full article here.
By Max Zahn with Andy Serwer
5 August 2020
While the spread of the coronavirus continues to devastate the performing arts, fans and experts are targeting a return next year as a potential vaccine becomes widely available.
But star ballet dancer Misty Copeland told Yahoo Finance that her industry will feel the effects of the outbreak beyond 2021. She pointed to the enduring financial losses suffered by ballet performers as well as mental and physical strain, adding that ballet companies should consider outdoor performances amid the pandemic.
“It’s going to impact us for a couple of years to come,” says Copeland, who has danced for the American Ballet Theater for two decades and appeared in a 2018 movie adaptation of “The Nutcracker.”
“I feel like a lot of the impact we haven’t even seen yet,” she says.
“It’s been difficult for people who spend their days — spend their lives — invested in this art form,” she says. “We’re very physical people. We spend hours at a time partnering one another and [in a] very intimate environment”
“Getting out of that and not having that personal human connection,” she says, “is a bit shocking.”
Read the full article.
By Libby Ballengee
7 August 2020
When the Dayton Dance Initiative’s second annual live performance was canceled in May, there was an obvious sense of disappointment. The professional dancers who planned and were set to perform their own original production had put in countless hours to create it all, from the choreography and music, to costumes and ticketing.
There was no way this dedicated group of dancers was going to throw in the towel that easily. Instead of turning the cancellation into defeat, the dancer-operated project decided to take the performance online and push their creativity even further.
Rather than film or live stream a static performance at the PNC Arts Annex, where the in-person show was to take place, the dance group has created an hour-long “dance movie” showcasing the individual dance pieces in unique and unexpected places.
Read the full article here.
By Alisha Haridasani Gupta
6 August 2020
Across the country, monuments honoring racist figures are being defaced and toppled. In New York’s Central Park, one statue is taking shape that aims to amend not only racial but also gender disparities in public art: A 14-foot-tall bronze monument of Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, three of the more prominent leaders in the nationwide fight for women’s right to vote
Called the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument, it is to be unveiled Aug. 26 to commemorate the 100th anniversary this month of the constitutional amendment that finally guaranteed women that right, depicts the three figures gathered around a table for what seems to be a discussion or a strategy meeting. Anthony stands in the middle, holding a pamphlet that reads “Votes for Women”; Stanton, seated to her left, holds a pen, presumably taking notes; and Truth appears to be in midsentence.
“I wanted to show women working together,” said Meredith Bergmann, the sculptor chosen from dozens of artists to create the statue. “I kept thinking of women now, working together in some kitchen on a laptop, trying to change the world.”
Read the full article here.
By Theresa Ruth Howard
01 June 2020
For the last five years the dance world, and specifically the ballet world, has been enrolled in the mission to understand and implement diversity, equity and inclusion into the field at all levels. A great deal of funding has been allocated towards efforts of education and training, consultants have been hired, conferences and seminars attended.
I myself am a part of a three-year initiative, The Equity Project, which is a learning cohort of 21 ballet companies to increase the presence of Blacks in ballet. And in many ways there has been progress made. With raised awareness, core values and mission statements have been amended to reflect these aspirations; recruitment has made pipelines browner; there are more brown dancers on stages. We are not there yet, but certainly there has been progress.
And then something like the global pandemic of COVID-19 comes along and in an instant distills all of it down to a few simple choices and actions or lack thereof. What COVID has wrought upon the dance world in many ways is irreparable. The rolling effect of lockdowns resulted in unrecoverable loss of revenue for dance organizations that will undoubtedly change the landscape forever. But few could predict that this global health crisis would create the unprecedented opportunity for dance organizations who profess to be authentically committed to the work of DEI to have the veracity of their progress tested. Unfortunately right now to the Black dance community, they are failing.
Read the full article here.
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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