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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

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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

BalletX: Meet the Creative Team Behind ‘The Little Prince’!

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BalletX presents The Little Prince, opening July 10-21 at The Wilma Theater. This world premiere full-length story ballet is unlike anything the company has done before!
Meet the amazing collaborators behind The Little Prince, and secure your seats today–tickets going fast!!!
Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Choreographer
Won the UK’s Critics’ Circle National Award for Best Classical Choreography for Streetcar Named Desire, and is the 2019 recipient of Jacob Pillow’s Dance Award.
Peter Salem, Composer/Musician
Won the Best Television Programme Music category at the Music and Sound Awards 2016 for composing the soundtrack to BBC’s hit TV show Call the Midwife.
Matt Saunders, Set Designer
Designed Opera Philadelphia’s critically acclaimed 2017 premiere We Shall Not Be Moved, which toured to NYC’s Apollo Theater and London’s Hackney Empire Theatre.
Danielle Truss, Costume Designer
Costume creator for Tulsa Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Des Canadiens and Linea Recta for Ballet Hispanico. Costume shop manager at Grand Rapids Ballet.
Michael Korsch, Lighting Designer
Longtime resident lighting designer/technical director for Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Ballet Arizona, and the Laguna Dance Festival, among several leading companies.
Nancy Meckler, Dramaturg
Theater director whose credits include productions with the Kennedy Center, Shakespeare’s Globe, and the UK’s Shared Experience, where she was Artistic Director for twenty-two years.

Learn more on BalletX’s website!

New York Times: Obama Signs Equal-Pay Legislation

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By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

29 January 2009

WASHINGTON — President Obama signed his first bill into law on Thursday, approving equal-pay legislation that he said would “send a clear message that making our economy work means making sure it works for everybody.”

Mr. Obama was surrounded by a group of beaming lawmakers, most but not all of them Democrats, in the East Room of the White House as he affixed his signature to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a law named for an Alabama woman who at the end of a 19-year career as a supervisor in a tire factory complained that she had been paid less than men.

After a Supreme Court ruling against her, Congress approved the legislation that expands workers’ rights to sue in this kind of case, relaxing the statute of limitations.

“It is fitting that with the very first bill I sign — the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — we are upholding one of this nation’s first principles: that we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness,” the president said.

He said was signing the bill not only in honor of Ms. Ledbetter — who stood behind him, shaking her head and clasping her hands in seeming disbelief — but in honor of his own grandmother, “who worked in a bank all her life, and even after she hit that glass ceiling, kept getting up again” and for his daughters, “because I want them to grow up in a nation that values their contributions, where there are no limits to their dreams.”

Read the full article in The New York Times.

Dance Magazine: Brooklyn Mack Thought It Was a Prank When ABT Asked Him to Guest—and Now He’s Dancing the Opening Night of Le Corsaire

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By Marina Harss

11 June 2019

After almost a decade at The Washington Ballet, Brooklyn Mack has struck out on his own. Last summer, after unsuccessful contract negotiations with the company—now under the direction of Julie Kent—the 32-year-old star decided to go it alone. So far, his full-time freelance career has taken him to Hong Kong, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Georgia (the country, not the state) and various cities across the U.S. But his biggest debut is still to come. This month, he appears with American Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House for four performances of Le Corsaire, playing both Conrad and Ali.

How did the invitation come about?

I was contacted on Instagram by Kevin McKenzie’s assistant. At first, I thought I was being pranked!

Has ABT always been a goal for you?

Most kids dream about dancing at ABT, and I was no exception. Actually, I spent one year in the Studio Company when I was 18 (in 2005). Isabella Boylston, Cory Stearns and Thomas Forster were all there at the time. So I’m excited to reconnect.

Read the full interview on Dance Magazine’s blog.

Philanthropy Women: Time and Space to Create: Ways Funders Can Help Women Artists

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By Julia Travers

27 June 2019

Being a working artist is demanding. Most artists hold other jobs to support themselves, which limits their studio time.

“It’s a cycle. You don’t have the time to create the work, so you can’t create enough work to sell to support yourself financially, so you need to have the job, which takes up your time. It’s hard to get out of that loop,” says Rhode Island artist Kathy Hodge . Hodge is an award-winning artist with many exhibitions and shows to her name who also served as the Artist in Residence at multiple U.S. national parks. Because the gender gap is still prevalent in the art world, as in many sectors and professions, women artists like Hodge are in particular need of support.

Gender Disparity in the Arts

In 2019, the Freelands Foundation in England released its report, “Representation of Female Artists in Britain During 2018.” It’s the fourth study of its kind from the arts-focused charity that focuses on “the lack of sufficient support for female and emerging artists,” among other issues. The report’s author, Kate McMillan, an artist and fellow at King’s College, London, found while progress has been made, the “slow pace mirrors what is happening in other sectors across the world.” She cites “The Global Gender Gap Report 2018” from the World Economic Forum, which estimates it will take 108 years to achieve gender parity at current rates of change.

Read the full post on Philanthropy Women.

Scene from Citizen, Choreography by Laurie Stallings, Courtesy of American Ballet Theatre, Photo by Rosalie O'Connor

New York Times: Female Choreographers Take Center Stage in Ballet Theatre’s Fall Season

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By Michael Cooper

27 June 2019

American Ballet Theater’s Women’s Movement — a recent initiative to support female choreographers, who have often struggled to get their dances staged by major companies — will yield more fruit this fall, when the company will present world premieres of ballets by Twyla Tharp and Gemma Bond and the New York premiere of a Jessica Lang work.

The season, which the company announced Thursday, will open Oct. 16 with a gala featuring the premiere of the new Tharp ballet, which will be set to Brahms’s String Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 111. The gala will also feature the New York premiere of Ms. Lang’s “Let Me Sing Forevermore,” a pas de deux set to a medley of songs recorded by Tony Bennett.

The following week the company will give the world premiere of a new work by Ms. Bond, a member of its corps de ballet, which she is setting to Benjamin Britten’s “Suite on English Folk Tunes.” And Ballet Theater will bring back a number of other works by women during the fall season, including Ms. Tharp’s popular “Deuce Coupe,” set to music by the Beach Boys; Ms Lang’s “Garden Blue,” which had its premiere last fall; and Michelle Dorrance’s “Dream within a Dream (deferred),” set to the music of Duke Ellington.

Read the full article in The New York Times.

NYU: The Center for Ballet and the Arts Fellowship Announcement

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Announcing 2019-2010 Director’s Fellows

We are thrilled to announce CBA’s 2019 – 2020 Director’s Fellows: choreographer and filmmaker Kim Brandstrup and performing arts critic and author Alastair Macaulay.

The Director’s Fellowship gives a CBA residency to artists, scholars, and practitioners who have made significant contributions to the field of ballet. Director’s Fellows bring deep expertise and informed practical guidance to the residency, strengthening the work of CBA’s fellows, staff, and community at large.

Read the full press release on the website of The Center for Ballet and the Arts.

Independent: Birmingham Royal Ballet, (Un)leashed, Sadler’s Wells, review: Laura Day is a pugnacious female Peter in urban take on Peter and the Wolf

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By Zoë Anderson

In [Un]leashed, Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB) shows off alert, individual dancers in a programme by women choreographers. Didy Veldman’s new Sense of Time lacks focus, but the dancers highlight the delicacy of Jessica Lang’s Lyric Pieces and the nimble characterisation of Ruth Brill’s new Peter and the Wolf.

This London season will be BRB’s last under director David Bintley, who has led the company since 1995. It shows some of the key qualities of Bentley’s tenure: his commitment to new work, his record of programming work by women (all too rare among ballet directors) and, alongside this triple bill, his own popular romcom, Hobson’s Choice.

Lang’s Lyric Pieces, created in 2012, sets dancers moving fleetly through Grieg piano pieces, weaving in and out of a folding paper set. Maureya Lebowitz and Celine Gittens are standouts in a bright cast.

See the full article in The Independent.

Just Released: Boards of Directors & Trustees Analysis

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The following is a report on the gender distribution of leaders within the Top 50 domestic companies’ Boards of Directors and Boards of Trustees. The data is separated into two subsections: Chair Gender Distribution and Executive Committee Gender Distribution. DDP cites sources and expresses limitations at the end of the report.Download the June 2019 Report

Read more

The City Paper Bogata: Scottish Dance Theatre delivers its double bill Ritualia/TuTuMucky at Teatro Mayor

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21 June 2019

The Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo is bringing the very best of UK culture to Colombia as part of a year-long program to host the United Kingdom as its Guest Nation of Honor. Starting with the first-ever performance in the country by the Academy of Ancient Music to the much-anticipated concert in May of the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle, and recent piano recital by Benjamin Grosvenor, the main stage of the Teatro Mayor is also the venue for representatives of other artistic genres; including theatre with a romping – almost tribal – take on Dickens’ Oliver Twist by the Avant Guard Dance Company, and on June 22, the double bill “Ritualia/TuTuMucky” by the Scottish Dance Theatre.

Based in Dundee, Scotland, the Scottish Dance Theatre is also marking its first performance in Colombia with a work by Colette Sadler inspired by Bronislava Nijiaka’s ballet Les Noces and set to the music of Igor Stravinski. The second performance of the evening is TuTuMucky by the London choreographer Botis Seva.

With its focus on the physicality of dance, the Scottish Dance Theatre delivers an energetic production. Adding to a narrative that elevates classical dance with avant-garde sequences, Ritualia celebrates gender and the body as an extension of the natural world. “There is also the idea of the body as a way to gain power, to empower ourselves,” states Joan Clevillé, the theatre’s artistic director. “I think there’s a sense of urgency, of moving in a very visceral way and finding a very urban language. It’s a very different contrast between the two pieces.”

Read the full article in the City Paper Bogata.

Inside Philanthropy: Gender Norms Don’t Get Enough Attention from Funders. Here’s How Philanthropy Can do Better

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By Riki Wichins

20 June 2019

In many ways, social justice funding stands at a crossroads. The field has traditionally been animated by a strong impulse toward racial equity, using philanthropy as a means to challenge the infinite ways that that opportunity in America continues to be stratified by race and class.

At the same time, funders themselves are increasingly aware that race and class are “not enough,” that to really address complex and intractable issues of equity, there must be more. But what might that be?

One buzzy answer to this question is intersectionality—to recognize that those living in disinvested communities often must contend with several different kinds of oppression that interact, and that one or even two-dimensional models are not enough.

An intersectional approach can be particularly important when addressing individuals who make their lives at the borders of identity—who are not just black or Latinx, but also low-income, gay or trans, living with a disability, or living without proper immigration paperwork.

And then, of course, there’s also gender. Some social justice funders interpret addressing genderto mean increased equity for women and girls; others to mean funding issues affecting LGBTQ and other gender-nonconforming individuals.

By either measure, the field has far to go. Funding specifically devoted to women and girls totals only about 7 percent of total U.S. foundation grants (about $400 million); to LGBTQ issues, less than 2 percent (about $180 million).

And then there are gender norms. While virtually ignored in the U.S. when it comes to social justice funding, major international donors have thoroughly embraced it. Institutions like CARE, PEPFAR, UNAIDS, UNFPA, USAID, WHO and the World Bank have all implemented “gender transformative” initiatives that challenge rigid gender norms, and found them effective.

USAID no longer funds new programs that lack a strong analysis of gender norms and the inequities they cause; PEPFAR has made addressing masculine norms its No. 3 priority worldwide.

Read the full article on Inside Philanthropy.