During the 11 years that Jean Freebury danced for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, she discovered the value of being specific not just with your movement but also with your rhythm. “Merce had metered phrases, and also unmetered phrases where the rhythm would come out of the movement itself,” she says. Sometimes, there were even […]
Tracie Stanfield doesn’t want students to just dance to music. She wants them to partner with it. “It should be a duet,” says the contemporary lyrical and contemporary jazz teacher. “I want it to look like they inspire the music—not that they’re dancing to the lyrics.” Dancers of all backgrounds take Stanfield’s fusion classes at […]
Germany-based choreographer and dancer Nick Palmquist is tall. He’s 6′ 3″, so he knows his choreography is going to look different on other (probably shorter) dancers’ bodies. “When [other dancers] hold on to [movement] longer, it becomes more sentimental, whereas I have to hit things a little harder because I’m a taller person, so it might […]