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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

Pointe: How The Australian Ballet’s Alice Topp Went From Coryphée To Resident Choreographer

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By Marissa DeSantis

4 June 2019


Though Australian Ballet coryphée Alice Topp has been dancing since she was four, when it comes to choreographing, she’s just getting started. Topp created her first piece, Trace, on a whim in 2010 as part of The Australian Ballet’s annual Bodytorque program. Since then, she has gone on to make several main stage works for the company, as well as music videos for artists like Ben Folds and Megan Washington; in 2018 she was named one of the The Australian Ballet’s resident choreographers.

Topp plays what she calls “a fine Tetris” to balance her responsibilities as both dancer and choreographer. Yet despite her jet lag and packed schedule of rehearsals and sightseeing, she was bursting with energy when we met in New York during The Australian Ballet’s visit to the Joyce Theater last month, where her ballet Aurum was given its US premiere. “This is the first time my work is being performed overseas,” she says. “To be able to bring it to New York, which is my favorite city in the world—what a debut!”

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“I think the lack of female choreographers in ballet comes down to a combination of things, and I can only share this from my own experience. It’s not necessarily that the women work a lot harder, but we tend to be there until the end of the night in a lot of those big classical ballets. In Swan Lake, the guys are done after Act III, and we’re there at the very end—it’s the same with Giselle and the Willis and La Bayadère with the Kingdom of the Shades. I think it can be more demanding as a corps.

“Another big thing is just the nature of the work doesn’t lend itself to the individual artistic voice, so you never really nurture that. Those big scenes—the swans, shades, snowflakes, flowers—are about the women dancing in unison, and the guys don’t do as much of that. I think the guys tend to get away with a bit more individualism, and if they’ve got a bit of chutzpah and cowboy attitude, they stand out and it’s rewarded. Whereas women are taught to conform and to fit in, and not to stand out for the wrong reasons. Your goal for the first few years in the company is about fitting in—if you’re one of 24 swans and you spend all day, every day, thinking, ‘Is my arm higher than the other person?,’ or ‘I’m not on the red mark,’ you’re not exploring and exercising that creative part of your brain that’s making different artistic choices.

Read the full article on Pointe’s blog.

HuffPost: Behind The Tutus, Ballet Is A Boys’ Club. This Ballerina Wants To Fix That.

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By Chloe Angyal

15 March 2017

Ballerina Ashley Bouder is crying. She’s standing alone in a rehearsal studio in front of 20 or so dance journalists and several funders of her small self-titled ballet company, and she’s crying. And I’m pretty sure it’s my fault.

She’s just finished showing us a snippet of pas de deux that she choreographed, and that she’ll perform in just over a week’s time with her fellow New York City Ballet principal dancer Andrew Veyette. The entire evening of dancing is devoted to women choreographers and to women composers. In over 15 years of dancing with City Ballet, Bouder tells the assembled crowd, she’s danced works by about 40 choreographers and can count only seven women among them. She can’t name a single woman composer whose music she’s danced to ― not a single one.

Which brings us to why Bouder is crying. I’ve asked her why it matters to her that more women be allowed to choreograph ballets. What does gender have to do with it?, I ask, channeling the purportedly gender-blind proponents of pure, context-free meritocracy. Ballet is ballet, right? Does it really make a difference if it’s made by a man or a woman?

She takes a deep breath, and begins to answer, her voice breaking before she can get more than a few words out. “I think a lot of it is about telling little girls that they can. I have a daughter. As a kid, I was told that I can’t, a lot. For me, to have my voice be relevant, and for people to listen, is really important. To say what I have to say, even if they don’t like it. I get to say it.” The room erupts into applause, and Bouder wipes her eyes and nods, her short brown ponytail bobbing.

Read the full article on HuffPost.

Pointe: Dance Theatre of Harlem Kicks Off Ballet Across America with a New Ballet By Claudia Schreier

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By Theresa Ruth Howard

28 May 2019

The Kennedy Center’s Ballet Across America festival (May 28–June 2) is celebrating women leadership and creativity this year, kicking off with three evenings of performances by Dance Theatre of Harlem. (Miami City Ballet joins them in a shared program on May 31, followed by their own performances.) Led by artistic director Virginia Johnson and executive director Anna Glass, DTH is a natural programming choice; so is bringing choreographer Claudia Schreier’s new ballet for the company, Passage, which has an all-female creative team. The work premiered earlier this month in Norfolk, Virginia, and was originally commissioned by the 2019 Commemoration, American Evolution and the Virginia Arts Festival, which honored the 400th anniversary of the first Africans to English North America. The overarching theme of the ballet celebrates the fortitude of the human spirit and the enduring will to prevail, which is apropos given that this is the 50th anniversary of a company that has seen much tribulation and triumph.

Passage shares the program with three older DTH ballets: Balanchine’s Valse Fantaisie, Geoffrey Holder’s Dougla and Dianne McIntyre’s 2016 work Change. Schreier started working with the company last summer, shortly before the passing of founder Arthur Mitchell; hers was the first rehearsal at DTH after his loss. “Just walking through a hallowed hall… to see the studio that was the launching point for so many historical works brings a sense of gravitas to every thing,” Schreier remarks. “It’s an enormous responsibility to carry the knowledge that you, with the dancers, are carrying that legacy forward.”

Read the full article on Pointe’s blog.

Pointe Magazine on Ballet Across America

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Chava Lansky for Pointe Magazine writes, “The Kennedy Center’s fifth annual Ballet Across America festival runs from May 28-June 2, and it shines a spotlight on women’s creativity and leadershipby presenting two female-led companies: Dance Theatre of Harlem and Miami City Ballet. May 28-30, audiences can see DTH in George Balanchine’s Valse Fantasie, Dianne McIntyre’s Change, Claudia Schreier’s Passage and Geoffrey Holder’s Dougla. June 1-2, MCB presents Balanchine’s Walpurgisnacht Ballet, Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Carousel Pas de Deux, the jointly choreographed Brahms/Handel by Jerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp, and Justin Peck’s Heatscape. On May 31 the companies come together for a shared program; dancers from both ensembles present the world premiere of Pam Tanowitz’s Gustave Le Grey No. 1 to a score by Caroline Shaw.”

Read the full article on Pointe’s blog.

Watch Miami City Ballet’s preview for Ballet Across America below.

The Telegraph: From female nudes to the Ballet Russe: Natalia Goncharova, the avant-garde rebel painter

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By Rosamund Bartlett

1 June 2019

On March 24 1910, in the heart of old Moscow, the plush surroundings of a club for the cultural elite became the scene of a scandal. In the space of a few years, the Free Aesthetics Society had achieved renown for its weekly meetings devoted to contemporary poetry, music and art. On this occasion there was to be a lecture, and the first solo exhibition of a young artist.

It was a one-day event for members only, but word had got out, and a journalist of the old school bribed a member of staff in order to gain entry, intent on exposing the decadence of this den of aesthetes. In the next morning’s paper, he denounced as an abomination the 20 or so paintings on show, singling out a few that, in his…

Read the full article in The Telegraph.

Pointe: Modern Dance Choreographer Pam Tanowitz On Approaching The Ballet World as an “Outsider”

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By Chava Lansky

31 May 2019


Pam Tanowitz is on a roll. Though the choreographer long ago made a name for herself in the modern dance world, ballet companies are finally starting to take notice of her work. Earlier this month, Tanowitz created her first of two ballets for New York City Ballet; in June she’ll debut her first outdoor site-specific piece, conceived of with NYCB principal Sara Mearns; and tonight marks the premiere of Gustave Le Grey No. 1 at the Kennedy Center’s Ballet Across America festival, featuring dancers from Miami City Ballet and Dance Theatre of Harlem.

We caught up with Tanowitz just before she jetted off to London for a tour with her own company, Pam Tanowitz Dance, to hear about her relationship to ballet technique, her upcoming premiere and her advice for young dancers.

Ballet as an Influence

“I was never going to be the dancer/choreographer that started with three-year-old ballet class, so I’ve always been an outsider to this world,” says Tanowitz. “That’s actually a big influence on my work.” Tanowitz grew up studying modern dance in Westchester County, New York and later earned her degree in dance at Ohio State University, followed by an MFAat Sarah Lawrence College. It was there that she became enamored by Merce Cunningham’s technique, which continues to play a big role in her choreographic style. Yet ballet was always present: Not only did Tanowitz take classes, but she immersed herself deeply in dance history. “I watched tons of Balanchine and Robbins and Tharp,” she says, adding that her favorite ballet of all time is Jerome Robbins’ 1959 Moves.

Read the full article on Pointe’s blog.

Axios: Women’s sports are having a moment

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By Kendall Baker

8 May 2019

In the last few months, multiple big name brands have pumped significant dollars into women’s sports, signaling that an increase in media exposure could be having a seismic impact on the business of female athletics.

Driving the news: AT&T signed a multi-year partnership with the WNBA, becoming the first non-apparel company to have its logo featured on the front of all 12 team jerseys. Barclays made the “largest single investment in British women’s sports,” signing a three-year, $11 million sponsorship deal that will see the top league rebranded as the Barclays FA Women’s Super League.

  • Budweiser announced its first-ever sponsorship of women’s soccer, inking a deal with the English national team.
  • Nike has shifted its entire business around to take advantage of what they consider to be a massive opportunity.

WNBPA director Pam Wheeler told sports business outlet, JohnWallStreet, that she believes this heightened sponsorship interest is a byproduct of the increased visibility of women’s sports.

  • The proliferation of streaming services and the rise of social media has allowed the WNBA (and others) to reach more people, and the league recently parlayed that uptick in eyeballs into a multi-year deal with CBS Sports that will nearly double its national TV exposure.

The backdrop: Brands have historically ignored women’s pro sports, as have televised news and highlight shows — two realities that go hand-in-hand.

Read the full article on Axios.

New York Times: Employers Who Talk Up Gender Equity, but Silence Harassment Victims

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By Emily Steel

1 May 2019

SYDNEY, Australia — Kate Jenkins was hopeful when she opened Australia’s first national inquiry into workplace sexual harassment. As a longtime employment lawyer, she had negotiated settlements for companies dealing with harassment claims. Now, as the country’s sex discrimination commissioner, she knew chief executives who were emphatic about gender equity, in pay and promotion.

Yet when she asked businesses to waive nondisclosure agreements with employees — contracts that prevented people from confidentially telling the inquiry of past harassment — only about 30 companies and institutions signed off by the deadline.

Absent were the global consultants Deloitte, PWC and Accenture; the advertising groups Interpublic Group and Dentsu; and the bank Macquarie. All of them promote International Women’s Day, a celebration of women’s achievements, and many of their executives were listed with Male Champions of Change, an Australian group that encourages diversity in the workplace.

“They all gave me technical legal reasons, but as a lawyer, I know,” Ms Jenkins said. “It is not like murder. We are asking them to waive for just one purpose. They totally could have done it.”

Read the full article in The New York Times.

Gabrielle Lamb – Upcoming Works in NYC

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The work of choreographer Gabrielle Lamb, Full Circles, will take the stage in New Chamber Ballet‘s season finale this summer in New York. Lamb wrote for an email newsletter, “New Chamber Ballet performs with seating in the round, a unique arrangement that challenged me to look at my choreography from a 360 perspective.  Please join us June 7th (8pm) and 8th (7:30pm) in New York CIty Center’s Studio 5, and arrive early to get a seat in the inner circle.”

CelloPointe will perform a brand-new creation by Lamb in New York City, entitled Dandelion Clocks. You can buy tickets to this performance here.

Learn more about Gabrielle Lamb here.

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

American Ballet Theatre: From the Page to the Stage The American Premiere of JANE EYRE

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Watch ABT’s video below discussing the upcoming US premiere of Jane Eyre, a work of Cathy Marston. Video by Ezra Hurwitz.

Don’t miss the American Premiere of JANE EYRE June 4 – 10

Buy tickets via ABT.