2013: Reimagining the Post-Apocalypse Dance Company
Dance companies and their supporting institutions will have to make
strategic and risky decisions about how they plan to distribute their
art to audiences. These decisions will play a significant role in
determining their future: whether it is bright or even exists at all.
After Sandy: Post-Disaster Community Engagement
Silver linings can be hard to find, they are unpredictable, and maybe
they are not in the place you are looking. When disaster occurs,
understanding what it means to be community engaged is one of the most
positive opportunities an arts organization can realize in a
community-wide crisis.
Two Shoes, Same Foot: Vernacular Dance & Concert Dance
Does concert dance happen in a concert hall? Master Juba or William Henry Lane performed in
theaters and halls across the United States in the mid-19th century. Does “concert dance” imply
some level of professional commitment or success? Lane, a black percussive dancer, toured
internationally, receiving top billing over his all-white
minstrel troupe. Does “concert dance”
suggest some level of peer review or development of craft? Percussive dancer Emily Oleson ponders these issues and others. Read on.
Two Shoes, Same Foot: Vernacular Dance & Concert Dance, Part 2
As a teenager I was reluctant to openly study hip-hop dance although I
loved the music, like much of my generation, because I had a vague fear I
might be “stealing” it. It took a lot of pain and discomfort from many
areas of my dance training to realize that no matter what my focus was
going to be, racism was an element of so many stories in American dance
history that it could not be avoided – and that ignoring it would not
make it go away. It might make it worse.
After Sandy the Show Must Go On
It’s been a week since Hurricane Sandy left its mark on many dance companies and
theaters in the New York and New Jersey area. We hear accounts of lost rehearsal time, cancelled shows, destroyed offices, lives altered. While
the New Jersey and New York areas bore the brunt of the storm, we in the dance field will be experiencing the after-effects of this natural disaster for months and years to come. What have we learned from other events, like Hurricanes Katrina and Gustav?
The Big Bang, Quantum Physics and the Drive To Make Dances
Dance has always been there and humanity and the tiny musical strands of which it is made have been vibrating in one way or another since the beginning of known history.
The Multi-Faceted Body of Diversity
Discussions about diversity — dealing with race, gender, identification, politics, in or outside of dance — are discussions we will never stop having, whether we choose to participate or not. But to shy away from them, because they are uncomfortable or they shatter our safe reality, only provides more unanswered questions and more space for marginalization and the muting of underrepresented people, artistic practices, and the continued segregation of any ‘other’ not socially recognized.
Dancing in the Field: #dusaconf 2012
Institutions are set up, in part, to provide job security for key
positions, and an overall sense of constancy of support for the art. The
problem is that definition leaves out a lot of artists and arts
workers: the white elephant in the room at most Dance/USA events I’ve
attended in the past. Now more than ever it seems the big ballet
companies, the experimental independent artists, emerging leaders, and
everyone in between feel the pains of struggling to sustain.
Is Dance a Field in Danger?
A young woman started to cry as she described her personal struggles with a career in dance, and the difficulty of working multiple jobs in the service industry without access to adequate health care or insurance.
This could be you.
This could be your dance student.
Framing Discourse Around Equity
By Jennifer EdwardsThe following conversation took place on Twitter during the Dance/USA Forum in New York on January 11, 2013:Me: #APAPnyc So in this conversation of shifting demographics and “diversity” I have heard the word “queer” exactly once.Ellen Chenoweth: @jenniferedwards great point, would like to see graphs around age and demographics there too.AXIS Dance Company: @jenniferedwards true. We also see[m] to be forgetting disability as a form of diversity here #Apapnyc @danceusaorgDanc…