Search results for: taylor stanley

Collage of 30 pictures of artists

30 Over 30: Dance Pros Who Prove Success Can Happen at Any Age

Maybe even more than most industries, the dance field is obsessed with youth. We fawn over prodigies, we love to predict the next big thing. Yes, Dance Magazine itself is 100 percent guilty of this, with features like “25 to Watch” and On the Rise. But just because a performing career can be short doesn’t […]

Words of Wisdom: Bo Spassoff Shares His Takeaways From Nearly Four Decades at The Rock School

As the saying goes, “Legends aren’t born; they’re made.” Several of today’s leading ballet stars—Isaac and Esteban Hernández, Christine Shevchenko, Michaela DePrince, Beckanne Sisk, Derek Dunn, Taylor Stanley—have one big commonality in the training that shaped them: They all studied with the husband-and-wife team of Bo and Stephanie Spassoff. This month marks a turning point […]

Dancing While Black: 8 Pros on How Ballet Can Work Toward Racial Equity

For years, conversations around racism in ballet were typically held behind closed doors. They took place only between company leadership and diversity consultants, and were often met with empty signifiers and performative gestures. Consequently, the dominance of white, Eurocentric ideals and aesthetics have remained as prominent as ever. Tokenism, microaggressions, biased recruitment and prejudicial pedagogy […]

The BAAND Together Dance Festival Celebrates Art and Unity

“We’re baaaaaack!” So began the evening at Damrosch Park, with Robert Battle emceeing. It was the opening night of the free BAAND Together Dance Festival, a nifty collaboration between five of New York City’s top companies: Ballet Hispánico, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet and Dance Theatre of Harlem. […]

7 Shows Hitting Screens, Stages or Scenic Settings This Month

Spring is in the air, and performance calendars are (dare we say it?) almost as busy as they ever have been, if still largely housed on the internet. This mix of online screenings, outdoor events and indoor performances for limited audiences caught our eye this month. Caged In Stefanie Batten Bland’s Kolonial Maria Baranova, Courtesy […]

4 Virtual Performances We've Got Our Eyes on This Month

Spring is here, and while we’re not packing into theaters the way we have in previous years just yet, there’s still a good amount of dance happening. Ballet in Bloom Pacific Northwest Ballet in Alexei Ratmansky’s Pictures at an Exhibition Angela Sterling, Courtesy PNB Pacific Northwest Ballet is skipping the April showers and blooming directly […]

How a Freelancer’s Career Compares to a Full-Time Company Member’s

When Kaitlyn Gilliland was an apprentice with New York City Ballet in 2006, choreographer Eliot Feld created Étoile Polaire for her, a 12-minute solo that predicted the person and artist Gilliland would eventually become—a force transitioning gracefully through different realms with a powerful sense of self. After leaving NYCB, Gilliland went on to have a […]