As youngsters, my brother, Gregory, and I went to the Apollo Theater in Harlem to watch tap greats like Teddy Hale, Bunny Briggs, the Step Brothers and Coles & Atkins. Most of those guys would come on the stage and just tap.

Despite your most valiant efforts, costume mishaps are going to happen from time to time, and your students need to know how to handle them. The most important priority is protecting the dancer.

Dancers stack their calendars with in-person classes, competitions and social commitments. Read for advice on balancing a busy schedule, or determining when—and what—to cut back.

Improvisation is a skill that can be learned, and it’s one that is becoming increasingly crucial for dancers in nearly any style.

Advice is tricky. It can be presumptuous, judgmental. Medicinal. Obligatory. Revelatory? I don’t consider myself to be an advice giver, and yet I regularly share a morsel that one of my college professors gave me two decades ago: “When you find a teacher you admire, even if not an educator in the formal sense, go […]

Finding your balance can sometimes feel like making a new discovery every day. “Emotions play a huge part in balance,” says Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater dancer Belén Indhira Pereyra. “Where is your state of mind that day? Something could be happening in the family world or in the friendship world—or internally. Maybe you ate […]

What will it take to build more female leaders in ballet? Dr. Linda Hamilton, the creator of Dance Magazine‘s longstanding advice column, Advice for Dancers, interviews New York City Ballet star Ashley Bouder about her work on the Ashley Bouder Project and the ways in which she’s fighting for more female leadership in the ballet […]

Why can’t I jump as high as my male partner? We both have to perform the same series of jetés in a workshop performance and practicing isn’t helping. I’m starting to panic. —Amy, Cincinnati, OH The gender gap between men and women for jump height is significant whether you’re playing basketball or dancing ballet. Research […]