There’s an inherent tension anytime a new dancer breathes life into an existing work onstage. Interpreting a role is always a push and pull, says Ronni Favors, rehearsal director for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, between what the performer brings and what was already there. “Alvin said, ‘I like dancers who can color movement, who […]

Here are the latest promotions, appointments, and departures, as well as notable awards and accomplishments, from August 2023.

Here are the latest promotions, appointments and departures, as well as notable awards and accomplishments, from October 2022. Also of note: new or newly available funding opportunities for dance artists.

Whether you first watched it in a theater two decades ago or on Netflix last week, odds are you feel a deep connection to Center Stage. The cult classic, which premiered May 12, 2000, is arguably the greatest dance film ever made. (Dance obsessives might take issue with the “cult” before “classic,” not to mention […]

Chiara Valle is just one of many dancers heading back to the studio this fall as companies ramp up for the season. But her journey back has been far more difficult than most. Valle has been a trainee at The Washington Ballet since 2016, starting at the same time as artistic director Julie Kent. But […]

A scholar of Russian literature and culture, Dr. Natalie Rouland works for the Kennan Institute, a DC think tank invested in building bridges between the United States and Russia. She also advises The Washington Ballet’s artistic director Julie Kent on staging classical ballets, serving as the company’s first scholar in residence. A native of Lexington, […]

“Julie Kent was my first ballet crush,” Harry Warshaw admits with a shy smile. The curly-haired 17-year-old has just learned a variation from Swan Lake. “I remember watching Center Stage when I was about 10 or 11 just to see her.” Now he is taking technique class with the former American Ballet Theatre star and […]

Seventy one years ago today, a new movie hit theaters: The Red Shoes. For a certain generation of dancers, this was the movie—the one that initially inspired them to step inside the studio. For others, it was the first film they ever saw that finally “got” them. When Moira Shearer’s character Victoria Page answers the […]