The Grandma-Sees-All

When your crotch splits mid-performance and your grandma is left staring at your dance belt… From Luke Willis: I was performing with Aspen Santa Fe Ballet in Nicolo Fonte’s piece “Left Unsaid.” We wore Gucci suits and ripped the shit out of them. One performance my grandma flew out to see me. […]

October 6, 2014  |  Read Article

The Art of being a Woman/Beast

BY KATIE GAYDOS As a dancer in the Bay Area, I’ve found myself lately shying away from writing critical responses to local dance performances. I assumed writing about the work of people I encounter on a regular basis within the dance community would violate some professional boundary between the personal […]

October 4, 2014  |  Read Article

The Shimmy Switch

When you accidentally switch costumes with the dancer next to you who is definitely a different size, and then you are asked to shimmy… From Jessica Bremner: I was in a high school dance troupe and we were doing a jazz routine to “Teach Me How to Shimmy” by Smokey […]

October 2, 2014  |  Read Article

Costumes Gone Awry

BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT Meet Ann… as in Anna Pavolva. And then meet Vas… as in Vaslav Nijinsky. You may have heard of them. They were famous dancers in the early 20th century. In fact, they were so famous that they were made into paper dolls almost 100 years later. How’s […]

September 29, 2014  |  Read Article

A Hard Lesson, A New Path

Editorial Note: Where are you in dance right now? I’ve posed this question to twelve high-school dancers the past two years. My intention is to ask them each year for as long as they respond, hopefully chronicling their growth through the practice of dance. One young dancer, Annie Aguilar, responded late this year. […]

September 25, 2014  |  Read Article