Makhloot had an entire crew of professional hip-hop dancers in Kabul (including one woman) and hoped to compete in breaking at the 2024 Olympics. Fahima performed and taught sema, the meditative whirling dance of the Sufis. Both had to flee quickly when the Taliban took over. - Dance Teacher
"Choreographer Amy Gardner used to consistently run into the same problem: When jobs popped up in different cities, whether for Nick Jonas or Neiman Marcus, finding dancers wasn't easy, and casting was slowing down her momentum." So she started Dance Hypha. - Dance Magazine
"When Indigenous Enterprise appeared on World of Dance, Kenneth Shirley described the group's style as 'Native American with a little bit of hip-hop.' And the influence of hip-hop is discernible in footwork and bounce, but most of all in attitude." - The New York Times
The truth is that culture writing that doesn't involve celebrities or popular culture or scandal fills an increasingly small niche in the mainstream press. - Dance Magazine
Jennifer Homans: "Balanchine, it seems, has become orthodox: classical, beautiful, the radical edges zipped up and smoothed. This is not the dancers' fault, nor is it something anyone can undo." - The New Yorker
The pandemic hurt a lot, but "nearly two-thirds of dance educators said teaching had become more difficult in recent years, while half of teachers said external pressure for students to take traditionally academic subjects was the key reason for dance’s decline." - The Stage (UK)
One choreographer - a former econ major at Macalester College - says, "If I walk out of here in downtown Minneapolis, I don’t know what will happen to me. Will I be stopped? With Atlantis, my power is beyond what I see. It’s the idea of conquering death." - Sahan Journal
Choreographer Madeline Hollander has brought together New York City dancers, from big and small companies and from Broadway shows, and given them a task: to perform choreography that was canceled or postponed during the pandemic. - The New York Times
If dance artists turn on the critics who take the trouble to notice them, artists will have an even harder time trying to connect with audiences. They will wind up alone in the dark, surrounded by empty chairs, talking to themselves. - Village Voice
The data project shows that, despite recent improvement, works performed by major ballet companies are still overwhelmingly choreographed by men. - MSN (Chicago Tribune)
As dance companies are returning to the stage, the ghosts of those that no longer exist haunt the field. … Dance advocates see the vanished organizations as troubling signs that the art form, routinely under financial stress, may be shrinking, its structures drastically changing. - MSN (The Washington Post)
Le Rouge et Le Noir, based on Stendhal's novel, has choreography, costumes and set design by Pierre Lacotte, 89, who's been with the company since starting as a student in 1942. He's known for his reconstructions of 19th-century classics such as Philippe Taglioni's original La Sylphide. - Pointe Magazine
Boris Charmatz, a 48-year-old French choreographer, has been appointed to lead Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch as of next September — with a mandate to expand the repertory of the company, which has continued to labor in Bausch's shadow since her sudden death in 2009. - Le Monde (in French)
When Gina Gibney founded her troupe in 1991, it was your basic single-choreographer ensemble, picking up per-project freelancers. Now The Gibney Company has 12 dancers as full-time employees with benefits, three directors, and a focus on activism, working particularly with domestic violence survivors. - Dance Magazine
Morgan Bullock: “Sometimes I’m like, ‘Am I being pranked? Is this real?’” she says. But her new journey with Riverdance is far from a joke. - Irish Times
