Gillian Murphy on stage wearing a white feathered tutu. She arches back in a tendu derriere

ABT’s Gillian Murphy on Finding Balance Between Control and Abandon

I was an introverted kid, but I constantly hummed, waltzed, and twirled through the house, wearing out the tips of my sneakers because I enjoyed standing on my toes. When my parents took me to ballet classes, I felt liberated and in my element learning a language that allowed me to express my internal world. […]

Lorin Latarro posing against a dark backdrop. She is wearing a white button down, black pants, and red heels.

How Lorin Latarro Embodies New Ways of Moving When Choreographing

The feeling of losing oneself to movement and music. The feeling of being completely in flow with a dance partner. The feeling of zero separation between body and mind and work and life. Those are the reasons I danced. I always felt most in my skin onstage while dancing. Now, as a choreographer, there are […]

a female dancer wearing purple joggers and an orange tank posing in a contracted position with one leg lifted and her arms connected overhead

Rena Butler’s Internal Shift From Performer to Choreographer

Yet since transitioning from primarily a dance artist to primarily a choreographic artist, I’ve found my collaborators and mindset shifting from week to week. Going on the road to work on multiple projects a year, living out of a suitcase, isn’t the easiest lifestyle. You are perpetually encountering new artists and spaces. With that comes the dreaded impostor syndrome: Am I experienced enough? How will people receive what I’ve created? Will the dancers connect with what I’m building? Those questions had been holding me hostage.

a male instructor smiling while watching a class full of students

Choreographer Al Blackstone on Growing Up in a Dancing Family

Dance was inescapable in my childhood. My parents are dance teachers and ran a school out of our New Jersey home for more than 40 years. When I was old enough to answer the phone, instead of “Blackstone residence,” I was instructed to say “STUDIO!” Photos from an early ’90s family trip reveal my dad proudly wearing a T-shirt that says “Dance or Die—New York City.” I remember feeling embarrassed that he was wearing something that so loudly proclaimed his love of dance to all the other “normal” families.

an instructor standing in the middle of a studio with students lying on their backs on the floor

Choreographer Ching Ching Wong on Finding a Home in Dance

I dance because dance is home. Home as I have built it, home as it feels, and home where I find the people I love and who love me. Through dance I have tasted freedom, instinct, abandon, and trust. I have learned how to make mistakes, how to fail, how to collaborate, how to be disappointed, how to work hard, how to be proud of both myself and of others. This home has raised me and it has shaped the woman I am. I have found my voice. Dance has shown me that magic is real and this life we have is singular and spectacular.

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