Paris, December 13-24. Our last stop on the Legacy Tour before our final shows in New York at the Park Avenue Armory.  Paris is like a second home to the company. We go there every year and our list of favorite places to visit has grown: La Duree (dessert royalty), Per a Cheval (cute lunch re… Read More >

One of the realities of the Legacy Tour and the final days of the company is the succession of farewells and all of the activities surrounding the celebration and commemoration of a long history. The shows are the main attraction, but the subsequent events are just as dazzling and just as draining… Read More >

On our final world tour, traveling to unknown cities such as Mexico 
City makes me think fondly of Merce. The dancers are thrust into
 unfamiliar places and encouraged to push through our fatigue to
 experience something new. It's not unlike dancing in the Cunningham
 Company or being expo… Read More >

After days and days of rehearsals and travel, The Washington Ballet is finally hitting the stage tonight in Turkey at the 9th Bodrum International Ballet Festival! The trip so far has been full of amazing new experiences, and I cannot wait to share our performances with the wonderful people … Read More >

Week 9: Frankfurt, Germany  Isn’t it funny when you realize what your calling in life is? Some people search years to find that one thing that satisfies their passionate heart, while others seem to find that one niche that fulfills them completely. For me that is perfor… Read More >

Week 7: Returning to Köln, Germany
, brought back some of my fondest memories as a dancer with Ailey. I say this because Köln was the first tour stop with the company when I joined in 1997. Seeing landmarks like the Dom Cathedral and the walking bridge across the Rhine… Read More >

Week 5: Following a morning flight from Berlin, the company arrived at Swissotel, Zurich at 3:30 p.m. My wife Linda and I had to meet artistic director Robert Battle, rehearsal director Matthew Rushing, and company manager Dacquiri T. Smittick in the lobby of the hotel by 5 p.m. t… Read More >

Week 3: I am in St. Petersburg, Russia, standing in front of one of the world’s most famous theaters, the Mariinsky. This is my second time performing in this historic venue for the White Nights Festival (not to be confused with the 1985 movie White Nights that feat… Read More >

Fifteen years. Wow. I’m entering my 15th year as a dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater! I remember my very first tour with the Company. We embarked on a 10-week international tour, and here I am 15 years later on an international tour with the exact same length of time. So many th… Read More >

Do women artists speak in a different voice? ODC hosted “Women Who Frame the World: A Symposium on Creativity,” April 13–14. Co-artistic director Brenda Way urged the 100 mostly dance community participants to explore “risk, appetite, and meaning” with seven lively ar… Read More >

Pretty much everything that I know about China has been gathered from the ballets I’ve danced, so I was a little disappointed to learn that the men here are not pushed around in large tea boxes from which they spring forth to perform split-jumps. Nor have I seen anyo… Read More >

Four significant dance critics, Sarah Kaufman, Wendy Lesser, John Rockwell and Lewis Segal (i.d.s below), spoke at U.C. Berkeley on Friday to some 80 students, dancers, and fellow critics, about the changing nature of arts journalism.

Kaufman challenged critics to go… Read More >

“YOU HAVE TO STOP DANCING!” These are the words no professional dancer ever wants to hear. But this happened to me.

Hi, My is Lloyd Knight and I am a soloist for the Martha Graham Dance Company. I’ve been dancing for MGDC since 2005. Since I was a little b… Read More >

The Glass Menagerie? Fantastic! Seventeen years ago, our dance group jointly gave birth to Faith Healing, Jane Comfort’s brilliant deconstruction of Tennessee William’s play, The Glass Menagerie. We were working with an amazing team … Read More >

In America, Balanchine's famous quote does not apply offstage. Last week The Richmond Ballet convened a panel to examine the question, Why aren't more women in charge of ballet companies? I came away from a discussion of and by a group of female artistic direc… Read More >

TV changes everything. I arrived at Times Square on Friday night for our “flash mob” performance and found a crowd of tourists staring at the cameras, lights and production crews setting up for the event. I immediately knew our sponta… Read More >

I’m as red as a cooked lobster. Not just my hands, which have been red due to a mild case of carpel-tunnel syndrome caused by a week of using chopsticks, but my whole body is bright red from soaking in a scalding bath in an attempt to undo the damage done to me from dancing Symphony in T… Read More >