“What if you could learn from the world’s best dance teachers in your living room?” This is the question that Dancio poses on their website. Dancio is a new startup that offers full length videos of ballet classes taught by master teachers. As founder Caitlin Trainor puts it, “these superstar teachers can be available to […]

With her fearless demeanor onstage, it’s easy to see how Washington Ballet apprentice Sarah Steele attracted the keen eye of former American Ballet Theatre stars Julie Kent and Ethan Stiefel. Promoted mid-season from the studio company by artistic director Kent, Steele was cast by Stiefel as the lead in Frontier, his world premiere for The […]

In the ballet world, the phrase “going to college” is sometimes regarded as the musings of a dancer who’s not really serious about their craft. Although schools like Juilliard and Bennington College have made degrees acceptable for modern dancers for decades, the competitive ballet world (which often follows a philosophy of “the younger the better”) […]

I have always been extremely dramatic. I think “extremely” might even be an understatement. As a child, I was constantly in costume. Never clothes. Always a costume. When I was 8 we moved into a new house, and took a home video to send to my dad’s family. My siblings were performing a song for […]

Ethan Stiefel’s love of motorcycles has been well documented over the years, perhaps most memorably when he played ballet bad boy Cooper Nielsen in the popular 2000 dance movie Center Stage. So it seems fitting that the former American Ballet Theatre star’s Harley-Davidson played a role in the creation of his world premiere for The […]

Each year, the Benois de la Danse selects the best male and female ballet dancer and a top choreographer from an impressive group of international artists. But just because it draws on a worldwide talent pool doesn’t mean the names are all unrecognizable. This year’s Moscow-based awards highlight the performances of many Dance Magazine favorites—and […]

As she was stepping into her new role as artistic director of The Washington Ballet this July, ballet icon Julie Kent made a natural fit for the cover of our first-ever Feminist Issue. At the time, she was still just starting to get her feet wet. Writer Marina Harss’ profile of Kent covered some of her dreams for the troupe, like […]

After dying for the last time on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House, body limp on a cold slab of marble beside her Romeo, Julie Kent rose as she had countless times before to receive the audience’s acclaim. As she stood there, surrounded by tearful colleagues and looking impossibly young in Juliet’s wispy sheath, […]