“Watch your thumbs,” the ballet teacher said, and I looked toward my left thumb, held in second position. After a few seconds I realized what she actually meant was to tuck my thumb into my palm. I tend to take things literally. I was diagnosed with autism a few months ago, at age 25, but […]
Beyond the Super Bowl: Dance Artist-Athlete Taja Riley Is Demanding Better Treatment for Dancers
Eight mandatory rehearsals. One nondisclosure agreement. Zero pay. These were a few of the specifications laid out in a casting call for dancers to be a part of the 2022 Super Bowl halftime show. After news got out that some dancers would be working as volunteers, and receiving no real benefits besides the exposure opportunity […]
Ailey’s Jacqueline Green on Representation in Dance
As a Black girl from the inner city of Baltimore, I hadn’t known anything about the codified world of dance growing up. Ballet was something I had only seen on TV—and who I saw in it never looked like me. I never thought that would be my future. My first introduction to dance was at […]
Relieve Daily Stress With Dance!
Fred Astaire Dance Studios urges people to cut loose on the dance floor to help reduce stress and alleviate anxiety during trying times. Watching Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unfold on national television and social media is mobilizing Americans to take action by providing humanitarian aid and support for the people of the democratic nation. At […]
Meet Sam Chouinard, Choreographer for Olympic Gold Medalist Figure Skaters
Have you ever watched figure skating and wondered who choreographs the athletes’ programs? Well, meet Sam Chouinard, a Canadian choreographer who works with some of the world’s highest-ranking skaters. For the Beijing 2022 Olympics, he’s collaborated with athletes from the U.S., Canada, China, Spain, France, Great Britain and Japan. Most notably, Chouinard choreographed the “Rocket […]
The Ballet Job Market Needs a Market (Re)Design
The pandemic has contributed to many shifts in the dance world, as the community has outspokenly criticized longstanding practices and cultural norms. However, no one has called into question the structure (or, rather, the lack thereof) of the job market. As a now-retired ballet dancer of nearly a decade and a PhD student in economics […]
Jason Brown Is the Ultimate Dancers’ Skater at the Winter Olympics
For dance-inclined fans, singles figure skating can be a frustrating sport to watch. Sure, choreography, music and costumes are part of it; but over the past decade, they have often felt like an afterthought in the race to pack programs with increasingly hard (meaning quadruple) jumps. At the Beijing Winter Olympics, which opened today, technical […]
Is Dance “Enough” to Meaningfully Address Something Like Black Lives Matter?
2016: I was asked to create a duet for RAWdance (Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein) in San Francisco at a time when my heart was caught in a perpetual state of reeling from the constant murders of African Americans by law enforcement, most recently the murder of Walter Scott, who was shot in the […]