Once upon a time, a long, long time ago back in the 1980s, ski ballet was a sport. At the Olympics. Yes, it’s hard to fathom, but there was, in fact, an event, (technically a demonstration sport) at the 1988 Calgary Games and the 1992 Albertville Games, that entailed performing to music on a ski […]
Growing up in Brownsville, Texas, Gene Tapia was a victim of bullying. “I had a stutter as a kid,” he says. “I was chased after school and almost beaten up all the time.” Shedding light on this sensitive subject was the inspiration behind Tapia’s video What About Us. Shot by L.A.-based photographer and videographer Chris […]
Healing through movement has proven to be a powerful salve for pain, trauma and even disease. In an effort to explore her own grief, dancer and writer Suzanne Guillette created a piece titled Moving, for You: A Tribute to Empathy. The project, which initially honored a collection of other people’s written personal stories of grief […]
When Espen Giljane teaches rond de jambe en dehors, the accent is always in second position, not to the front—and it’s the same for en dedans. For the double rond de jambe on count 4, he describes the movement as two half-size circles around second position. “It’s like whisking an egg with your leg,” he […]
Last night’s 60th-annual Grammy Awards at Madison Square Garden in New York City celebrated more than just the music industry. From performances by Lady Gaga and Elton John to the powerful political activism sprinkled throughout, there was a little something for everyone. Even Broadway diva Patti Lupone showed up to belt Evita’s “Don’t Cry For […]
Explaining spinal flexion to your dancers can be tricky. But we’ve got you covered. Watch this video for the full script. Spinal alignment is like turnout, says Michael Kelly Bruce, associate professor of dance at The Ohio State University. “It’s a mechanism, not an aesthetic.” But as with turnout, dancers’ visual goals often lead them […]
Two competition routines are equal in technical proficiency, artistry and choreography. One consists of all girls, the other includes a boy. Guess which takes home first prize? If you guessed the one with the boy, you may be privy to an unspoken and much-debated phenomenon in the competition dance world: The Boy Factor. According to […]
This sequence takes dancers through several foundational poses of the Giordano jazz technique. These positions aren’t stagnant—they flow together with continuous energy. Nan Giordano stresses that the dancer’s powerful gaze is quintessential to authentic technique. “That’s my dad’s look—the Giordano eyes,” she says. “All the intensity comes through the eyes, focusing and imagining, but not […]
In Pamela Pietro’s contemporary class, “everything has to have lineage,” she says. Each early exercise or phrase is a foundation for something that happens later. The floor spirals she begins class with (based on her mentor Irene Dowd’s spirals) return in the form of the spiral turns her students do while standing. Pamela Pietro is […]
Mikhail Nikolaevitch Baryshnikov is one of the greatest male ballet dancers of all time, ranked with Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev. Hailed for his performances with American Ballet Theatre in the 1970s and ’80s, Baryshnikov has had a wide-ranging career, spanning the realms of choreography, performance, direction, film, television and theater. After training at the […]