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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

Metrics Matter: How You Select Determines Outcome – Forbes Should Listen to Its Own Reporters

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UPWORTHY: Forbes’ 100 Most Innovative Leaders list includes 99 men. Here’s how their methodology was flawed

By Annie Reneau

12 September 2019

The fine folks at Forbes are currently falling all over themselves trying to clean up the mess they created by publishing their 2019 list of 100 Most Innovative Leaders.

via Twitter/Forbes

The problem: The list included 99 men and one woman. For those not so good with the math, that means according to Forbes, only 1% of the country’s most innovative leaders are female.

Have you ever watched a movie that’s so abysmally bad that you wonder how it ever even got made? Where you think, “Hundreds and hundreds of people had to have been directly involved in the production of this film. Did any of them ever think to say, ‘Hey, maybe we should just scrap this idea altogether?”

That’s how it feels to see a list like this. So how did Forbes come up with these results?

Let’s start with the description at the top of the published list, synopsizing who compiled the list and how:

“Business school professors Jeff Dyer, Nathan Furr and Mike Hendron teamed up with consultant Curtis Lefrandt to measure four essential leadership qualities of top founders and CEOs: media reputation for innovation, social connections, track record for value creation and investor expectations for value creation. The researchers then ranked these visionaries in a high-powered selection of 100 innovators at top U.S. companies.”

Read the full article on Upworthy.

Broadway World: Nashville Female Artists Confront Social Injustice Through Ballet Premiere

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Nashville Ballet is excited to bring world-renowned Choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and London-based Director Nancy Meckler‘s beguiling performance of A Streetcar Named Desire to the heart of the South in November 2019.

For the first time ever, Tennessee Williams‘ legendary tale will be performed by a United States-based ballet company on one of the South’s premier stages. Considered Williams’ greatest work, A Streetcar Named Desire dramatizes the life of Blanche DuBois, an aging Southern belle who is forced to leave her aristocratic life and flee to a dilapidated New Orleans tenement after facing a series of tragic losses.

“This ballet represents the perseverance of women who have felt unheard,” said Meckler. “People often assume that female-led performances are fairytales; however, A Streetcar Named Desire is a fictional representation of the challenging reality female artists face in making their voices heard. I hope it will show aspiring artists, particularly choreographers, that women have the right to come out of the shadows and find success – even in what used to be a male-dominated industry.”

For the second time this year, Nashville Ballet will bring yet another boundary-pushing performance to Polk Theater. This adaptation is unique as the story will unfold through the singular perspective of Blanche DuBois. With Lopez Ochoa’s masterful choreography, audiences can expect a new interpretation of Williams’ work; one that humanizes the timeless tragedies of societal expectation and victimization, both of which still ring true for women today.

Read the full article on Broadway World.

The NY Times Gives a Shoutout to Co-Lab Dance, Led by Lauren Post

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New York Times: 6 Dance Performances to See in N.Y.C. This Weekend

By Gia Kourlas

5 September 2019

JUSTIN CABRILLOS at the Chocolate Factory Theater (Sept. 7, 7 p.m.). As part of a creative residency curated by Blaze Ferrer, this choreographer will offer a work-in-progress showing of “As of It,” which press materials describe as a “physical kaleidoscope of trance and emotion.” As he writes on his website, Cabrillos, who will appear with the performers Maira Duarte and Matt Shalzi, views the body “as a run-on sentence.” To see that in action, check out this free public showing. R.S.V.P. to blaze@chocolatefactorytheater.org.
chocolatefactorytheater.org

CO-LAB DANCE at Manhattan Movement & Arts Center (Sept. 6-7, 7:30 p.m.). Lauren Post, a member of American Ballet Theater, directs this group in an evening of new works by Xin Ying, Gemma Bond and Danielle Rowe, who choreographs her piece to a new score by Alton San Giovanni. Eight dancers from Ballet Theater — Zhong-Jing Fang, Carlos Gonzalez, Isadora Loyola, Tyler Maloney, Rachel Richardson, Jose Sebastian, Courtney Shealy and Cassandra Trenary — will grace the stage, along with Erez Milatin of New York Theater Ballet. The program will include music performed by the Momenta Quartet and a short film choreographed by Trenary for herself and the Ballet Theater soloist Calvin Royal III. 
colabdance.org

Read the full article in The New York Times.

Phoenix New Times: More Than a Dozen Women Accuse Art Maven Bill Tonnesen of Sexual Misconduct

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By Hannah Critchfield

6 September 2019

It’s hard to drive through the Valley without seeing a building or sculpture that’s been touched by the hands of Bill Tonnesen. As a landscape architect, designer, and artist, Tonnesen has been a visible presence in the metro Phoenix creative scene for two decades. He’s well known for his eclectic plans and projects, some of which, like a Phoenix memorial to the Jewish Holocaust, never moved from concept to reality, while others flourished, like the Lavatory, a provocative, “toilet-themed” immersive art museum that opened in November 2018 and often attracts younger people who post photos of the experience on social media. He’s been written about in the New York Times, Arizona Republic, and Phoenix Business Journal. People who have met Tonnesen describe him as wickedly intelligent, odd, and imposing. (In a self-published book, Tonnesen: Twelve Months to Fame and Fortune in the Art World, Tonnesen once said he resolved to be the world’s “third most famous artist” within a year.) Control is important to Tonnesen, and he has a lot of it – both creatively, in the local art scene, and financially, owning properties throughout metro Phoenix.

For at least a decade, rumors of sexual harassment have followed the 66-year-old artist. People long have accused Tonnesen of using his position in the arts world to exploit the young, vulnerable women with whom he often surrounds himself. Last week, a Facebook post describing one such incident went viral in the Phoenix community, generating thousands of views and hundreds of shares and comments. The Lavatory has since temporarily closed, and Tonnesen’s own Instagram has been deleted.

Read the full article in The Phoenix New Times.

Young Voices: Ballet Shaken Up

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By Joel Campbell

7 September 2019

SOUTH AFRICAN choreographer Dada Masilo’s Giselle is bringing ballet into the 21st century. The Soweto-born choreographer and dancer has taken the classic favourite and thoroughly shaken it up so audiences can anticipate the unexpected.

The original ballet, which premiered in Paris in 1841, tells the story of innocent peasant girl Giselle who falls in love with the disguised nobleman Albrecht. When she discovers the truth about her lover and that he will never be hers, Giselle is consumed with grief and dies of a broken heart.

When a remorseful Albrecht visits Giselle’s grave, he evokes the wrath of the Wilis (the spirits of girls who have been betrayed in love) and they exact a heavy penance. Masilo, whose reinterpretations of other classics including Romeo and Juliet, Carmen and Swan Lake built her an international reputation, felt driven to create a new Giselle.

“It’s the challenge of looking at the ballet from a different perspective and dealing with issues that are relevant now,” she said. “In these stories we are dealing with power struggles, war, greed, domestic violence, rape.

“These are the things I see every day. I’m revisiting the classical ballets to tackle these issues and to start a dialogue with people. To ask, ‘What are we doing about this?’ I begin with study of the original work. It’s important to know the rules before breaking them.

“In the traditional ballet there is a clear narrative, but the characters are rather two-dimensional.

Read the full article on Young Voices.

Charlotte Ballet/Todd Rosenberg Photography 2017

New York Times: Want to Feel Like a Russian Ballerina? Start With the Tutu

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By Bianca Ladipo

“We have some of the best costumes. Come, look,” Tatyana Mazur says as she guides me to the back closet of the small dance studio she runs with her husband, Roman Mazur, in the corner of an unassuming strip-mall in Buffalo Grove, Ill.

Inside, I am met with an explosion of velvet, tulle and satin. The dozens of dresses, tutus and elaborate headpieces stored here comprise a rare collection of Soviet-era dance costumes, still in use more than 40 years after they were made.

12 years ago, when I was 14, I wore one of these costumes. The bodices, bejeweled with hundreds of hand sewn sequins stood in stark contrast to the minimalist costumes of modern ballet productions. The faux gemstones may have seemed large and gaudy up close, but onstage they subtly caught the stage lights, illuminating dancers as they moved. Every decorative element was exaggerated to be visible from the last row of any theater.

Many of the pieces in Tatyana’s collection are delicate and noticeably weak from years of wear. Decades of sweat stains have discolored the fabric lining and the once vibrant satin has faded to pastel. The velvet pulls at the seams, worn-out and frayed. Columns of sizing hooks leave a record of differently shaped Russian, Ukrainian and now American dancers.

Read the full article in The New York Times.

Dallas Opera Rightfully Takes Action Following Allegations of Sexual Harassment by Domingo

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New York Times: Dallas Opera Cancels Gala Starring Plácido Domingo

By Michael Cooper

5 September 2019

The Dallas Opera canceled its big-ticket March 2020 gala concert with the opera star Plácido Domingo on Thursday amid new accusations that he had sexually harassed multiple women.

The Dallas company, where the Spanish-born Mr. Domingo made his United States debut in 1961 on his way to opera stardom, became the third major American institution to cut ties with him over the recent allegations, joining the Philadelphia Orchestra and the San Francisco Opera. Mr. Domingo is still scheduled to sing later this month at the Metropolitan Opera in New York; the Met has said it was awaiting the outcome of an investigation by the Los Angeles Opera into the allegations against Mr. Domingo, the company’s general director.

Dallas pulled the plug on its gala after The Associated Press, which reported the first round of mostly anonymous allegations against Mr. Domingo last month, published a new report Thursday in which a singer named Angela Turner Wilson went on the record and accused Mr. Domingo of reaching into her robe and grabbing her bare breast during a makeup call when they were appearing together in Massenet’s “Le Cid” at the Washington Opera in 1999.

Read the full article in The New York Times.

Former Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Dancers’ Company: FLOCK

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FLOCK, a company founded by a male/female duo of former Hubbard Street Dance Chicago dancers is evidence of the support and mentorship that HSDC artistic director Glenn Edgerton provides his dancers. Co-founder Alice Klock, in particular, has a history of support in her choreographic endeavors from the company. Klock was the winner of Hubbard Street’s International Commissioning Project and was the company’s choreographic fellow in 2017. Co-founder Florian Lochner, too, was a fellow in 2017.

The two branched out together to form Flock that same year, and the company’s mission is rooted in the equity and inclusion that is difficult to find in larger dance companies.

“It is a priority of ours to create work in which the roles of everyone in the creation are balanced. We are very conscious of the tendency in dance to fall back on traditional gender roles. We construct all of our pieces to avoid these and to open up to new definitions of what it means to be vulnerable or strong. When teaching we find a way to invest in everyone in the room equally as we believe everyone has something individual and powerful to share. ”

Watch the Dance Magazine feature of the pair and their company, FLOCK, below:

Learn more about FLOCK on its website.

Dance Australia: Amelia’s Diary #2

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This is the second entry to my diary, and as my week in residency at the Sydney Opera House as part of the Emerging Female Classical Choreographer Initiative has come to a close, I am looking back on this incredible week reflecting and absorbing all the new information, people and experiences. I was given advice that I cannot wait to put into action starting out in my career, and as a young choreographer.

 Walking up to the incredible Sydney Opera House on the first day and every day after that, I was feeling very special and thinking about all the great artists and people who have walked into the same house. Once I arrived at the stage door on the first day, I was introduced to Rehearsal Room 77. A beautiful, cosy studio which I would call my creative space for the week. I was able to focus solely on being a choreographer and putting myself into that mindset, which time hasn’t allowed in the past because of being a dancer taking my main focus during my 5 professional years.   

 I was able to work with 4 pre-professional dancers and 1 understudy who are all students of Tanya Pearson Coaching Academy. It was interesting for me to work with students and have the freedom to give them my ideas and I admire how much they threw themselves into my piece. It was also a challenge for me to be able to communicate and adapt my ideas in a way which their bodies understood.


Read more at https://www.danceaustralia.com.au/news/amelia-s-diary-2#XfeI6E46MeHif21f.99

My Times: Arts Beat: Teaching choreography can be a conundrum

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By Wendy Taucher

4 September 2019

As director of the World Choreography Institute, I am often asked if choreography can be taught. My answer is an emphatic “maybe.” 

Nature versus nurture in choreography presents the argument: Can creativity be taught, or is it a gift? The jury is out, with research and vociferous opinions coming down on both sides. I tend to come down on the side of “it’s a gift,” and that inspired artistic creation cannot be taught. Structural technique, and methods of analysis, rehearsal, and experimentation can — and should be — taught. Especially in choreography.

Why especially? Because it’s not done. Not enough, anyway. The reasons for this are multifaceted, complex, and exist as much by habit as by economics and logistics. The lack of choreographic training exists in all dance genres, each with its own particular issues, but all tending to put choreographers in the position of producing too many works in too little time.

Creating choreography poses more problems than making new work in any other art form. Painters need canvas, paints, and brushes. Playwrights need paper and pen, or the contemporary equivalent. Composers need knowledge of notation, an instrument, or the ability to hear music in their head. They can work alone. Choreographers need bodies and space. Space is expensive, and dancers should be. And that’s prohibitive, often causing choreographers to premiere works before they are fully cooked. 

Read the full article on My Times.