by Rachel Caldwell | Jun 10, 2020 | Higher Ed, News
Since March, hundreds of dance majors have been using platforms like Zoom to continue their educations, dancing from the safety of their homes as coronavirus has swept the nation. What many educators initially hoped would be a temporary setback—a few weeks of online...
by Rachel Rizzuto | Apr 15, 2020 | Higher Ed, teacher stories
Betsy Brandt gets more than a few questions about what, exactly, she offers the choreographers she works with—the likes of Jennifer Monson and Sara Hook, to name a couple. “I help people make dances,” she says simply about her role as dance dramaturg....
by Ellie Kusner | Mar 26, 2020 | Higher Ed, Teaching Tips
On Wednesday, March 18, I was supposed to return to Juilliard and teach Pilates after a two-week spring break. Instead, I rolled a mat onto my bedroom floor, logged in to Zoom and was greeted by a gallery of 50 small-screen images of young ambitious dancers, trying to...
by Rachel Rizzuto | Mar 4, 2020 | Higher Ed, teacher stories
David Roussève has spent the last 35 years creating dance theater work that’s both fiercely political and personal. He took on AIDS with The Whispers of Angels (1995), same-sex marriage with Jumping the Broom (2005) and the Twitter generation with Stardust...
by Kathryn Holmes | Feb 12, 2020 | Higher Ed, teacher stories
Barbara Bashaw has always been a pioneer. Since kicking off her career in education by building a dance program from the ground up at an elementary school in Brooklyn, she’s gone on to become an inspiring force in teacher training. Now, as director of the new...
by Jenny Ouellette | Jan 7, 2020 | For Parents
Q: My tween is begging me to go to a faraway summer intensive, claiming “all my friends are going.” How do I know if she’s ready?A: It can feel like a rite of passage for serious dancers to attend an intensive at a major ballet school. They dance all...
by Rachel Rizzuto | Nov 7, 2019 | Higher Ed, teacher stories
Since she was hired in 2006 to create a dance program at Washington & Lee University in Virginia, Jenefer Davies has operated as, essentially, a one-woman show. She’s the only full-time faculty member (with regular adjunct support). Over the last 13 years,...
by Jenny Ouellette | Oct 31, 2019 | technique
While leading a rehearsal of Balanchine’s Serenade, Stacey Calvert can’t help but join in, marking at the front of the studio with a grin on her face. It’s a Friday morning at the University of South Carolina—where Calvert taught and staged works for...
by Ellie Kusner | Sep 30, 2019 | Health & Body, Higher Ed
It’s the middle of the semester and two dancers are sitting out of class, you’re worried about one student’s mental health and another has developed an eating disorder. Sound familiar? College can be a tumultuous time. To help address the additional...
by Jill Randall | Sep 27, 2019 | News
Space to rehearse and perform. Guest teaching gigs. Relationship building. Deepened college curriculum. Financial support. These are valuable gifts to artists and college departments alike. The CUNY Dance Initiative (CDI), now heading into its sixth year, successfully...