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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

Broadway World: Dutch National Ballet Presents the Premiere of FRIDA – A Ballet Inspired By The Life Story Of Frida Kahlo

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26 November 2019

Dutch National Ballet presents the world premiere of Frida, a ballet inspired by the life story of Frida Kahlo. Annabelle Lopez Ochoa choreographs the ballet about one of the most intriguing artists of the 20th century. Frida Kahlo became world famous for her paintings, many of them self-portraits. She was also a great advocate of equal rights, broke taboos, was far ahead of her time in her battle for gender neutrality and did not let the doom that struck her restrain her.

Frida will have its world premiere at Dutch National Ballet on Thursday February 6, 2020 and can be seen until Tuesday February 25, 2020 at Dutch National Opera & Ballet, Amsterdam.

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, half Colombian, half Belgian, is only partly attracted by the Latin American connection she has with the Mexican Kahlo. Ochoa is particularly fascinated and inspired by the way in which Kahlo has managed to transmute her sorrow, pain and immobility into art. The ballet is not so much about the life of Kahlo, but depicts Frida’s feelings and perceptions through important events in her life such as the loneliness that haunted Kahlo all her life, her complex relationship with Diego Rivera, her bisexuality and the way she has crafted her own image.

Read the full article on Broadway World.

Atlanta Black Star: ‘Misty Copelands’ Are Rare in World of Ballet, and Black Entrepreneur Looks to Change That

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By Lauren Floyd

19 November 2019

When Robin Pitts, founder of the dance studio Dance Makers, started dancing at 7 years old she didn’t see many people on TV who looked like her.

Her mother wasn’t even sure she’d like dance, after it didn’t take with her older sister.

Still, the aspiring ballerina begged until her mother relented.

More than 30 years later, she still hasn’t stopped dancing.

“I’m a studio kid,” Pitts told Atlanta Black Star Nov. 12.

She’s focusing more on the administrative side of dance these days, having founded the Maryland-based Dance Makers studio in 2001 and leading the organization into its 18th year.

Read the full article in the Atlanta Black Star.

WTTW: Chicago Dance Companies Unite for Black Dance Legacy Project

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By Angel Idowu

19 November 2019

Eight of the city’s most prominent dance companies are coming together for a one-night-only concert this week.

“Lineage: The Black Dance Legacy Project” has a single mission: to celebrate the legacy of black dance in Chicago.

The project will not only document the history of dance for future generations, but pay homage to black dance companies that have been around the city for generations.

Joel Hall Dancers and Center is one of those companies.

“We worked closely with Joel (Hall) back in the day, so it’s wonderful to see him honored now in this way and can give our last little bit to help the family,” said Joel Hall Dancers and Center alum Tracey Hodgkin-Valcy, who is performing a duet in the show.

Other longtime companies like Ayodele Drum and Dance, Muntu Dance Theatre and Najwa Dance Corps will share stories reflective of the African diaspora.

Read the full article and watch the coverage on WTTW.

Datebook: Smuin Ballet finally has a home after 25 years adrift

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By Sam Whiting

30 October 2019

Smuin Contemporary Ballet dancers don’t normally use white respirator masks, but they have been vagabonds for 25 years and they weren’t going to wait another day. They were willing to breathe in paint fumes and dust to finally rehearse in their long-awaited and still-unfinished $10 million studio at the base of Potrero Hill.

The San Francisco company founded by the late choreographer Michael Smuin in 1994 had never managed to secure a studio lease, but now it owns a space in the city. So this first day of rehearsal for its annual “The Christmas Ballet” was historic because it marked the first day the 16-dancer troupe could rehearse at the official Smuin Center for Dance.

Gone is the hassle and the wear and tear of subletting space, which meant dancers were kicked out for children’s classes. Gone are the days they’d have to pack up their gear, traipse across town and find parking at some other borrowed space, with a different sprung floor to adapt to. Shin splints and knee troubles are an occupational hazard in constantly changing surfaces. So is transportation. Most dancers supplement their income by teaching. Without a studio they are like adjunct professors, known as “freeway fliers,” shuttling between dance schools.

Read the full article on Datebook.

Pointe Magazine: Stella Abrera to Take on New Role as Artistic Director of Kaatsbaan

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By Chava Lansky

19 November 2019

Yesterday, Kaatsbaan, the Tivoli, NY-based cultural park for dance, announced that Stella Abrera will join the organization as its new artistic director, effective January 1. This news come just weeks after we learned that Abrera will be taking her final bow with American Ballet Theatre in June.


While we’ll miss seeing Abrera on the ABT stage, we’re excited to see her grow into this new role. As artistic director, Abrera’s position will including working with artists to develop their projects and strengthen their ties to Kaatsbaan. She’ll also continue to teach and coach dancers in her role as the head of Kaatsbaan’s ballet intensives and the Pro-Studio/Stella Abrera program, which launched last summer.

Since its inception, Kaatsbaan has been closely linkedto ABT, making Abrera’s appointment all the more natural. ABT artistic director Kevin McKenzie and ABT’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School faculty member Martine van Hamel are among the organization’s four co-founders, and McKenzie still chairs its board. As part of this transition, Van Hamel will take on the role of principal ballet teacher for Kaatsbaan’s ballet and special weekend intensives.

Abrera brings much more than her decades at ABT to her new position. In 2014 she founded Steps Forward for the Philippines to benefit victims of Hurricane Haiyan, and since 2018 has directed an annual benefit gala in Manila to raise money for the Stella Abrera Dance and Music Hall at CENTEX (Center of Excellence in Public Elementary Education) in Batangas. She was also part of ABT’s first Crossover Into Business class at Harvard Business School, and has been recognized by the New York State Assembly and New York’s Philippine Consulate General for her service to the community.

Read the full Pointe Magazine article here.

Broadway World: Photo Flash: Take a Look Inside Dance Lab New York’s Collaboration with The Joyce Theater

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18 November 2019

In the final two weeks of the Joyce Lab Cycle, choreographers Courtney Cochran and Margarita Armas explored the classical and neoclassical ballet idioms prior to their presentation at Works & Process at The Guggenheim.

New York-based choreographer and dancer Courtney Cochran said, “To be nominated for this opportunity was incredible. As a woman, a woman of color and a choreographer, I feel seen.” Regarding her discoveries in The Lab, “Dance Lab allowed me to dive much deeper into my exploration of human relationships in a narrative I’m developing.”

19-year old Margarita Armas reflected on her time in The Lab, “I am completely changed from this experience. I thought I was just a dancer before, and now I have really found the choreographer and the creator in me. It has changed me.”

Read the full article and view the gallery on Broadway World.

LA Dance Chronicle: IT’S TIME TO CELEBRATE THOSE MASTERS OF MOVEMENT…. CHOREOGRAPHERS!

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By Joanne DiVito

9 November 2019

It’s the 9th Annual World Choreography Awards (WCA) on Monday, November 11, 2019 at the Saban Theatre, 8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211.  That’s the time we celebrate the glorious “designers of dance” by honoring the outstanding work of global media choreographers.  It salutes the future, celebrates the present and honors the past in dance.

From 1994-2004, the dance community had the good fortune of having the American Choreography Awards (ACA) co-created by Julie McDonald of MSA fame.  In lieu of the Oscars, which did not recognize the “choreography” category, the ACA’s special event began years of recognition for our hard working dance artists and craftsmen, but ended in 2004.

Not until 2010, when dance and choreography could no longer be ignored, and was growing at such a frenzied pace, (thanks to  “So You Think You Can Dance” and “Dancing with the Stars”), did the World Choreography Awards throw down the gauntlet.  The Producer and Director, Allen Walls with Cheryl Baxter insisted on creating the vehicle that recognized the incredible talent that was soon to become household names, not only in the dance world but the civilian world.   They felt it was important to honor the work in all forms of media not only TV, Commercials, music video and motion pictures, but also adding Digital Content and Digital Content Independent.  They’re feeling is, everyone is important and it is necessary that their work gets seen.

Read the full article in The LA Dance Chronicle.

The Guardian: Hollywood’s gender divide laid bare by analysis of this season’s Oscar contenders

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By Katherine Purvis and Catherine Shoard

15 November 2019

Striking contrasts in the choices of male and female awards contenders – and their potential impact on gender parity in Hollywood – have been uncovered by the Guardian.

The three youngest men likely to be in the race for next year’s best actor Oscar have never worked on a film directed by a woman, while the category’s frontrunner, Joaquin Phoenix, has worked with a female director only once during his 34-film career.

The picture is flipped for the female actors, with the youngest of the possible nominees working with female directors up to 75% of the time.

Meanwhile, Phoenix’s director on Joker, Todd Phillips – one of the youngest up for this year’s best director award – was found to be the only filmmaker likely to win an Oscar nomination who has never made a film with a female lead or co-lead.

The findings arrive as this year’s awards season prepares to begin, with the fight for the best picture Oscar in particular shaping up to be a battle of the sexes.

Proudly post-#MeToo female ensemble films Bombshell (about the sexual harassment of news anchors Megyn Kelly and Gretchen Carlson by Fox boss Roger Ailes) and Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women are expected to vie for the top prize with two male-dominated frontrunners: Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman and Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Read the full article in The Guardian.

Three Out of Five Choreographers For Ballet Arkansas Program Are Women

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Arkansas Times: Five dances, five moods in Ballet Arkansas’s “Debut”

By Leslie Newell Peacock

14 November 2019

Orson Welles once said that the enemy of art is the absence of limitation. Perhaps Michael Fothergill had a similar adage in mind when he drew up the rules for Ballet Arkansas’s most recent evening of new works. The terms were these: Five dancers had nine hours each in the studio to create a new work. They drew their casts from a hat, and rehearsals began. The result was “Debut,” performed Nov. 15-16 at Argenta Community Theater in downtown North Little Rock.

Read the full article in The Arkansas Times.

Yale News: YUBC performs cinematic fall show

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By Ella Goldblum

11 November 2019

“A gang that don’t own the street is nothin’!”

This quote from West Side Story appeared on the backdrop as Yale Undergraduate Ballet Company dancers emerged in flannels and jeans at the Off-Broadway Theater on Nov. 6 and 9. Company members also danced against bare trees, warped New York City buildings and moonlit beaches.

Karen Jiang ’21, co-president of YBC, said this show used ballet “to complement and further deepen our understanding of another form of art.”

“The Moving Picture,” a two-act show in which company members danced exclusively to songs from movies, was YBC’s first show of the academic year. It was also the first time in YBC history that the company invited a guest choreographer. Guest choreographer Miriam Mahdaviani previously danced and choreographed works for the New York City Ballet and was invited to choreograph the show as part of the 50WomenatYale150 celebration of women in the arts.

Read the full article on Yale News.