Emma Portner isn’t thrilled that people are still finding her choreography from a 2012 Facebook video. "The whole reason I got into performing is because it is this fleeting thing that disappears,” she says. “She feels mortified at having her youthful creative efforts permanently online.” - The Guardian (UK)
Terminus was founded in 2017-18 by five dancers who left Atlanta Ballet after longtime artistic director John McFall was forced out. Now four of those five charter members have retired from the stage, new dancers have replaced them, and the company has grown notably. - Atlanta Magazine
Interest in adult ballet has increased by 75% over the last three to five years... And the number of adult ballet summer intensive programs have nearly doubled since the pandemic, according to the weekly online ballet-centric magazine Pointe. - Los Angeles Times
With DBDT management having fired all the dancers (with an unconvincing explanation) after they tried to unionize, both the National Labor Relations Board and the city of Dallas are investigating the company. There will be no quick resolution: NLRB investigations take months. - KERA (Dallas)
James Nelson who began his career as a dancer and went on to to serve in a succession of roles with Houston Ballet: company manager, general manager and then chief executive in February 2012, taking over from C.C. Conner. - Houston Press
In dancer shorthand, this is what’s known as being thrown on. It’s scary sounding, isn’t it? Phelan, on Instagram, wrote that she was given about four minutes’ notice. - The New York Times
When management fired the entire main company in August, the dancers said it was because they tried to unionize; management said that a social media video the dancers made violated longstanding rules covering DBDT members' behavior. The dancers respond that those rules are rigid and severely outdated. - KERA (Dallas)
Dance Data Project's 2024 survey of the 150 largest ballet and classically-based companies in the U.S. shows little change in the gender balance among artistic directors, still roughly 60% male and 40% female. And more women were replaced by men last year than vice versa. - Dance Data Project
Unicorns are, unsurprisingly, hard to find. In dance, that’s led to a sort of executive director musical chairs, with some successful executives rotating through multiple organizations. - Dance Magazine
Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, accused by many former dancers and staff members of body shaming and bullying, apologized and said, “I embrace the idea that the leadership style that people expect today involves more open dialogue, and more awareness of — and respect for — everyone’s limits.” - The New York Times
Today, fliers and social media posts use labels including “dissident tango” and “inclusive tango,” while a growing number of the nontraditional lessons and events use “queer tango” – increasingly accepted as the most all-are-welcome way of describing the fluid and open atmosphere of the events. - Christian Science Monitor
Researchers in Germany and France have analyzed the stylized movements of some female gibbons, and they've found that, defining dance as "an intentional movement that’s rhythmic and doesn’t serve a physical purpose" (as does, say, walking or scratching an itch), the gibbons' movements qualify. - The New York Times
Stanford Makishi, vice president and artistic director of dance at New York City Center: "We literally have companies written on Post-it notes on a giant whiteboard, and we’re constantly moving around Post-it notes. It is the most low-tech way of programming that you could possibly imagine.” - Pointe Magazine
Four Loves, a 30-minute ballet with a cast of more than 20, is inspired by C.S. Lewis's book The Four Loves, which examines storge (familial love), philia (friendship), eros (romantic love), and agape (spiritual love). Farley describes his piece as "like a cosmic daughter of (Balanchine's) Four Temperaments." - Dance Magazine
