An artistic residency sounds like a dream: You get concentrated time and space to work on your choreography, often with artists of other disciplines to serve as collaborators or encourage new modes of thinking, usually within an idyllic and distraction-free setting. It’s no surprise, then, that the application process can be competitive and daunting. Do […]

Though choreography might seem, at first glance, like a dictatorship, it operates more like a team than some might realize. “Choreography is a collaborative thing, whether you’re a dancer, the choreographer, a designer, the composer,” says Remi Wörtmeyer, who recently choreographed a piece for Dutch National Ballet with Wubkje Kuindersma and Ernst Meisner. If you […]

Like most children, Billy Bell tried a bit of everything. Sports, martial arts, academics, dance classes and video games all mixed together into one happy, busy, West Palm Beach upbringing. But when it came to picking which interest to follow into adulthood, he felt he had to choose between two worlds. Through the door on […]

Jamar Roberts stands still, all six feet and four inches of him, arms quietly at his sides. As a man’s voice is heard—the first two words of text are “Black is”—Roberts steps into a wide stance, arms held out to their fullest wingspan. He fills every inch of the stage with his presence. Then he […]

In much of the dance world, the process of becoming successful as a choreographer can seem frustratingly oblique. On Broadway, however, that path is surprisingly linear and well defined. Most people end up following a sequence of positions that includes becoming dance captain of a show, then assistant choreographer, then associate choreographer and, finally, main […]

When theaters shut down in New York City early last year, Pam Tanowitz didn’t know what to do with herself. She had just returned to Manhattan from Los Angeles, where her company, Pam Tanowitz Dance, had performed Four Quartets, her epic work set to T.S. Eliot’s poem of the same name. Coming up on her […]

Too many people are told early on in their lives that they “can’t dance.” It’s something that can stick with them into adulthood. Commercial choreographers all too often encounter the detrimental effects of this myth when they’re paired with actors, musicians or models who’ve taken these words to heart and ended up afraid of dancing. […]

When the world as we knew it came to a wild halt in March, I felt like I’d slammed up against the wall of life. Suddenly, I was forced to take a good hard look at the ways I’d been flying forward without ground beneath my feet. COVID-19 unearthed many painful truths about being a […]