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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
June 1st: Culture Forward Grant - The Svane Family Foundation Deadline 1, July 13th: Community Arts Grant - Zellerbach Family Foundation Deadline 2, September 1st: Culture Forward Grant - The Svane Family Foundation Deadline 2, September 14th: New England Dance Fund, October 13th: Community Arts Grant - Zellerbach Family Foundation Deadline 3, December 1st: Culture Forward Grant - The Svane Family Foundation Deadline 3, December 31st: National Dance Project Presentation Grants - New England Foundation for the Arts, December 31st: National Dance Project Travel Fund, December 31st: New England Presenter Travel Fund
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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
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.
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.
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.
| 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Watch a sneak peek of BalletX’s newest commission: The Little Prince. The work will be full-length – one of very few by women this season.
Courtesy of BalletX.
By Laura Joffre
16 June 2019
We are used to seeing Birmingham Royal Ballet in traditional classical productions, in which they always excel. But this mixed bill sees the company in a more contemporary mode, experimenting with distinctive styles in pieces by three female choreographers.
Jessica Lang’s Lyric Pieces, created for the company in 2012, illustrates Edvard Grieg’s piano suites with pure classical ballet. It is not the most innovative work, but harmonious ensembles and flawless dancing, particularly from elegant Yvette Knight and sharp and precise Maureya Lebowitz, raise the overall effect.
Read the full review in The Guardian.
14 June 2019
Men unable to change diapers; women cleaning while men kick their feet up on the couch; women having trouble with parking: Scenes like these, which play on gender stereotypes, are now banned in British advertisements. Britain’s advertising regulator announced the changes in December, but companies were given a six-month adjustment period before they took effect.
The U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority said in a statement that it will also ban ads that connect physical features with success in the romantic or social spheres; assign stereotypical personality traits to boys and girls, such as bravery for boys and tenderness for girls; suggest that new mothers should prioritize their looks or home cleanliness over their emotional health; and mock men for being bad at stereotypically “feminine” tasks, such as vacuuming, washing clothes or parenting.
The guidelines were developed after a report from the regulator found that gender-stereotypical imagery and rhetoric “can lead to unequal gender outcomes in public and private aspects of people’s lives.” The report came on the heels of a few British ads that perpetuated negative assumptions about women, including one for Protein World, a weight-loss drink, which paired a bikini-clad model with the question: “Are you beach body ready?” The posters inspired a Change.org petition with more than 70,000 signatures demanding the removal of the ads.
Read the full article in The New York Times.
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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
