Upcoming Deadlines | click here to see if you are eligible for any of these opportunities

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

×

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

Nashville Ballet Brings Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” to the Stage in November

/0 Comments/in /by

Beginning on November 1, Nashville audiences can enjoy Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s acclaimed A Streetcar Named Desire . The work includes stage direction by Nancy Meckler, as well as costumes and set designs by Niki Turner. The female powerhouses behind the piece make it a notable program during a season in which women remain the minority within U.S. ballet company seasons.

DDP Founder and President Liza Yntema will visit Nashville Ballet in November to learn more about the company and its efforts to include and prioritize women in this and future seasons.

Watch the company’s promotional video for the production below!

Learn more about Nashville Ballet and the upcoming season here.

Alicia Alonso – Legendary Dancer, Director, and Leader in Ballet- Has Died

/0 Comments/in /by

According to the National Ballet of Cuba, Alicia Alonso, the prima ballerina assoluta and founder of what would become the National Ballet of Cuba, passed away on October 17th, 2019 at the age of 98.

For The New York Times, Jack Anderson wrote, “A ballerina of unusual range and power, she continued to dance into her 70s despite chronic vision problems.”

Celebrated both in her home country of Cuba and around the world, Alonso was a choreographer and leader as well as a famed dancer, and will be remembered long after her time on this Earth.

Read more about Alonso in The New York Times.

New York Times: Review: At Ballet Theater, Premieres More Pale Than Ghostly

/0 Comments/in /by

By Brian Seibert

17 October 2019

At American Ballet Theater’s fall gala on Wednesday, along with premieres by Jessica Lang and Twyla Tharp, there was much talk of women. The honoree, Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, the president and chief executive of Celebrity Cruises, drew a parallel between the fight against gender imbalances in her industry and in ballet. Just as she congratulated herself for hiring the first and so far only female captain, so she praised Ballet Theater for its Women’s Movement initiative supporting female choreographers.

The stark maritime statistics were new to me, but not the ballet numbers. For several years now, people in the ballet world have not just been talking about the longstanding gender imbalance in choreography; they’ve been changing it. Efforts like Ballet Theater’s have been giving female choreographers more chances to create work and get it seen, more chances to do what male choreographers have always been allowed to do: sometimes make hits, sometimes make duds.

Read the full article in The New York Times.

USA Today:

/0 Comments/in /by

By Savannah Eadens

17 October 2019

This weekend’s Louisville Ballet production — a three-bill performance called “Serenade + at High + Velocity” — will feature a dance designed by the company’s newest addition and first-ever female resident choreographer, Andrea Schermoly. 

Before 2018, the Louisville Ballet company did not have designated positions for resident choreographers but did hire female choreographers for dozens of shows. So, while Schermoly is not the first woman to ever choreograph a show at Louisville Ballet, she is the first official resident choreographer, a yearslong contracted position with the company that includes consistent commissions and collaboration. 

It’s a high-profile gig in a male-dominated industry. 

Schermoly’s choreographed dance, “at High” — accompanied by a live orchestral performance of Gustav Mahler’s Fourth Symphony — is not her first work with the Louisville Ballet. She choreographed the company’s performance of Martha Graham’s “Appalachian Spring” in February and has been involved in previous years of the Choreographer’s Showcase. 

Before her dancing career was ended by an injury and she began choreographing in full force, Schermoly danced professionally for the Boston Ballet Company and the Netherlands Dance Theater, and trained at the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg, where she grew up.

Read the full article on USA Today’s Courier Journal.

Chicago Sun Times: Women are having a greater impact on NBA than ever before

/0 Comments/in /by

17 October 2019

Practice is over and Boston Celtics assistant coach Kara Lawson is still working.

She stands under the basket rebounding and giving feedback to rookie guard Carsen Edwards as he shoots from different spots on the court. After swishing his final three attempts he jogs over to her.

“Thanks, coach,” Edwards says before exchanging a high-five with Lawson.

Welcome to the new-look NBA, in which women’s footprints are directly impacting every aspect of the game — from broadcasting booths, to officiating, coaching on the sidelines, front-office executives to ownership.

Lawson is one of a record 11 women serving as assistant coaches in the NBA this season. While former WNBA star Swin Cash and Sue Bird are working in NBA front offices.

“It’s not a fad,” said Basketball Hall of Famer Nancy Lieberman. “It’s opportunities going to very accomplished women who have given their life to the game.”

While it may not be a fad, it is a recent trend.

Read the full article in The Chicago Sun Times.

ABC7 News: Washington Ballet’s artistic director Julie Kent has defied all odds

/0 Comments/in /by

By Alison Starling/ABC7 News

11 October 2019

WASHINGTON (ABC7) — The Washington Ballet Theatre officially opens its new season in October. At the helm of the company is a woman who is known as one of the premier dancers in America, Julie Kent.

The Washington Ballet is not performing Swan Lake until April, but rehearsals are well underway.

In command of each move and magical step is Julie Kent, the artistic director for the Washington Ballet. But for nearly 30 years, she was captivating audiences with the American Ballet Theatre in New York. She was its longest-serving ballerina and principal dancer for more than 20 of those years.

Kent tells ABC7, “I think it was the greatest gift and greatest privilege to spend your life doing something that you love.”

Watch the video here.

DDP’s 2019 Highlights Now Available

/0 Comments/in /by

We know some of our followers don’t have the time to read our full reports right away – that’s why DDP maintains a document of our most interesting findings. You can read the 2019 Highlights now for all the facts. Click the link below to download.

Highlights_Fall2019Download

ABC News: How Australian theatre rebalanced its gender disparity

/0 Comments/in /by

By Jane Howard

12 April 2019

In 2009, director Neil Armfield stood on the stage at Sydney’s Belvoir St Theatre and announced, for his swansong season as artistic director of the company he co-founded, a season of shows almost exclusively written and directed by men.

It was a moment that prompted considerable scrutiny of industry-wide gender disparity.

In that year, at the eight best-funded Australian theatre companies — members of the Major Performing Arts Group (MPAG) — just 24 per cent of plays were written by women, and 24 per cent were directed by women. A staggering 86 per cent of productions had at least one man as writer or director.

But in the decade since, something remarkable has happened. The balance has shifted.

In 2019, women will make up 47 per cent of playwrights and 58 per cent of directors at MPAG theatre companies. And, for the first time ever, more of these productions will have at least one woman in a lead creative role (67 per cent) than at least one man (60 per cent).

Read more in ABC Arts.

The Post and Courier: With new season, Columbia Classical Ballet embraces female focus

/0 Comments/in /by

By Erin Jaffe

Columbia Classical Ballet’s new season arrives with a determined focus. This year’s programming will focus on female-driven productions, reflecting internal changes that Artistic Director Radenko Pavlovich feels were a long time coming.

“Well, to be honest, at the end of our last season, it occurred to me that the world is really changing,” he explains. With the #MeToo movement, women are rightfully demanding the respect they deserve. That movement and controversy even touched the ballet world, and it really shook me.”

“Honestly, women are what comes first to mind when people think about ballet, and yet women’s role in leadership positions have been almost exclusively limited to ballet mistresses or coaches,” he continues. “Only recently are there more female choreographers and artistic directors.

“I started thinking, ‘I want to change that in my company and I want the change to be from inside-out.’ I wanted a stronger female presence from the board to the artistic staff to the ballets the company will perform. This season is really a celebration about that change.”

Read the full article in The Post and Courier.

Houston Press: The Martha Graham Dance Company Celebrates Women with The EVE Project

/0 Comments/in /by

By Natalie de la Garza

16 October 2019

It’s a good time to be performing the great Martha Graham’s choreographic masterworks. But according to Janet Eilber, the artistic director of the Martha Graham Dance Company, that wasn’t always the case.

“There were a few decades in there where they were just old,” says Eilber. “But they are now old enough and they’ve proven themselves enough to be called classics.”

If you are one of the few who hears “classics” and expects the company to appear on stage with horns and a breast plate when they finally return to Houston after 15 years, well, you’ll be disappointed. With The EVE Project, Eilber says they are honoring Graham’s legacy of innovation through a theme that highlights Graham’s “revolutionary approach to female characters on stage.”

Read the full article in The Houston Press.