The star accidentally found his way into the musical. "As a high schooler at Thomas Wootton in Rockville, he sang and danced to Jackson’s 'Billie Jean,' a recorded performance that would end up on YouTube and later garner the attention of a producer from MJ: The Musical." - Baltimore Sun
In 1992, in a Manhattan gay club, eight hunky dancers did stripteases on the bar to raise money for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Thus was born the annual benefit Broadway Bares. Here's how Broadway babes rip off their clothes for charity. The big question: Velcro or snaps? - The New York Times
"For (the) students, ballroom dancing is a form of release, finding rhythm in music away from their country's many social and economic pressures. For that one hour, they push Syria's 11-year war from their minds: the politics, the anxiety over the economic crisis and the country's constantly depreciating currency." - AP
"A new study by Vanderbilt Genetics Institute researchers ... found a genetic link to our ability — and inability — to move to musical rhythm in time. Using data from more than 600,000 participants, the study identified 69 genetic variants related to the ability to move in synchrony with music." - Mel Magazine
It's named after pioneering pilot Charles Lindbergh, it was a staple of social dancing in the 1930s, and it regained popularity in the swing revival of the 1980s and '90s, but — as Black Americans today are reminding us — the Lindy Hop was born in the Harlem Renaissance. - KQED (San Francisco)
“Before the war started we danced for our company and each dancer felt like they danced for themselves,” he says, “But now we are motivated to dance for our country. Before we were dancing for Kyiv City Ballet, now we have become something bigger.” - Globe & Mail (Canada)
"Almost" because the Pillow's second theatre, the Doris Duke, burned down in 2020; rebuilding won't be complete until 2024. But the flagship Ted Shawn Theatre's renovation is just about finished, and it will host ten weeks of performances for the festival's 90th season. - Dance Magazine
Aurélie Dupont, who is 49 and has been at the company since the age of 10, was appointed hastily following the resignation of Benjamin Millepied in 2016; two years later, an internal survey revealed extensive discontent and dysfunction. She departs on July 31. - Le Monde (in English)
The hybrid of dance, costuming, satirical mimicry and other ingredients that has provided community to several generations of Black and Hispanic queer people is featured in a new HBO Max competition show, Legendary, that hopes to do for voguing what RuPaul's Drag Race did for drag. - The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Siphe November, who's 23 and has risen through the ranks to become the youngest principal dancer in the National Ballet of Canada's history, "has incredible technique, ... passion he brings to each movement and a magnetic pull that draws you in while he’s onstage." - The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Says the choreographer, who grew up in the country and has family there, "When I am in the studio, I am fully focused on the dancers and the ballet. I can still do that. But I have not choreographed since the war started." - The New York Times
"Griffin was teaching jazz dance in the styles of Eugene Louis Faccuito and Gus Giordano, two white jazz dancers considered pioneers in the field. Griffin alleges the program's director of education said he should be teaching choreography like Garth Fagan, a Jamaican modern dance choreographer, instead." - The Kansas City Star
Half of Laura Fernandez's family is Ukrainian, so when the then-Stanislavsky Theatre first soloist heard her Russian peers describe "the destruction of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol as a 'liberation,'" she knew she had to go. - The Guardian (UK)
That's a summary, but: "Latinos age 55 and over who participated in a culturally relevant Latin dance program for eight months significantly improved their working memory compared with peers in the control group who attended health education workshops." - Neuroscience News
Theresa Ruth Howard, guest curating at the Kennedy Center, "envisioned gathering an international lineup of dancers for something that’s rare in the traditional ballet world: to work in a space where being Black is the norm rather than the exception." - MSN (Washington Post)
