Margaret Fuhrer:

Hi dance friends, and welcome to The Dance Edit podcast. I’m Margaret Fuhrer.

Courtney Escoyne:

And I’m Courtney Escoyne.

Margaret Fuhrer:

We are editors at Dance Media. And we will start things off today with our headline rundown, including information about the tragic death of a young dancer in Raleigh, an explanation of the controversy involving John Neumeier’s production of Othello, and news about Marcelo Gomes, which, that’s a phrase I have not uttered for a long time, “news about Marcelo Gomes.”

Then we will slow down for a longer discussion of Andy Blankenbuehler’s musical Only Gold, which just ended its run off-Broadway. Because Blankenbuehler recently gave some very candid, very insightful interviews about the specific challenges of trying to make a dance-centric musical. And Courtney and I also both recently saw the show and have a lot of thoughts of our own. So I’m looking forward to that geek fest with you, Courtney.

First though, if you haven’t had a chance to listen to last week’s special Thanksgiving interview episode, I highly recommend that you make a little time for that. It’s a great conversation with current Ballet Hispánico leader Eduardo Vilaro, and former Ballet Hispánico executive director Verdery Roosevelt, who talked about how they’ve worked to preserve and build on company founder Tina Ramirez’s legacy. And also about their own really beautiful mentee mentor relationship. And heads up that next week we’ll air our next interview; this one is with Liza Yntema and Becky Ferrell of Dance Data Project. They are doing such incredible work to fight gender inequity in the dance world.

If you are into these new interview episodes we’ve been doing, let us know. Leave us a rating and/or a review on your favorite podcast app. We really do love hearing from you all. I know we keep saying it, but that doesn’t make it less true.

All right, now let’s get into our list of headlines, starting out with the kind of news you hope never to report.

Courtney Escoyne:

A young dancer was killed after being struck by a truck during a holiday parade in Raleigh, North Carolina. She was performing alongside fellow dancers from local studio CC & Co Dance Complex in the city’s annual Christmas parade.

Margaret Fuhrer:

Utter heartbreak. A GoFundMe has been created to help the young dancer’s family establish a nonprofit organization in her honor, and we have a link to that in the show notes.

Next today we have a story of rebuilding. Two years after a devastating fire destroyed Jacob’s Pillow’s Doris Duke Theatre, the Pillow has received a $10 million gift to construct a reimagined Doris Duke, turning it into a space focused on dance and technology. The gift came from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, a longtime Pillow supporter, and the new theater, which will include special live streaming equipment, is scheduled to open in 2025.

Courtney Escoyne:

Good news, glad to hear it.

The Royal Danish Ballet has canceled its planned performances of John Neumeier’s Othello. According to reporting in arts magazine Diapason, dancers expressed concerns during rehearsals about “racist stereotypes” in the ballet’s choreography during a dream sequence. Director Nicolaj Hubbë reportedly said on Danish television that while he does not believe the 1985 ballet to be racist, he did not “want to send young dancers on stage who feel bad about their role.”

Margaret Fuhrer:

Yes, a lot of people having a lot of thoughts about this online. The story that Courtney mentioned we have linked in the show notes. It does a good job explaining all the nuances of this situation.

In other European ballet news, Marcelo Gomes—who has kept a pretty low profile since his 2017 resignation from American Ballet Theatre following accusations of sexual misconduct—has a new job. Gomes will be artistic manager of Dresden’s Semperoper Ballett for the 2023 to 24 season, following current artistic director Aaron Watkins’ move to English National Ballet. The announcement noted that the artistic director position will be filled permanently in the following season, the 2024 to 25 season, so this is a temporary role for Gomes. He made his debut as a dancer at the Semperoper Ballet during the 2018/2019 season, and he joined the company as a principal and ballet master in 2020.

Courtney Escoyne:

Very surprising to see his name popping up again, and also it always blows my mind a little bit when we get news about, the permanent decision for the director won’t be made until ‘X’ date, because it’s like a little bit of a political thing, like actual local government politics. It’s fascinating to me.

In other ballet-related news, Maria Tallchief is going to be appearing on official US currency. Next year, the US mint will release a $1 coin celebrating the Five Moons ballerinas: Maria Marjorie Tallchief, Rosella Hightower, Moscelyne Larkin, and Yvonne Chouteau. It’s part of the $1 Native American coin program through which the US mint has celebrated influential Native American figures and tribes since 2009. The collectibles will become available on February 6th, 2023, and while they won’t be going into general circulation, they will be legal tender. Though honestly, I can’t imagine spending one of these if I had it.

Margaret Fuhrer:

So stinking cool. I just want dancers on all the currency everywhere. Let’s do it. We have a link to Pointe magazine story about this in the show notes.

American Ballet Theatre has announced its 2023 Metropolitan Opera House season, which, by the way, will only be four weeks long. Last year it was five weeks, for many years before that it was eight weeks, so that’s noteworthy. Anchoring the season will be Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate, a co-production with the Royal Ballet that premiered in London last summer, and which is apparently the most logistically complex work ABT has ever staged. That was a surprise to me, to hear that. This is the last season programmed by outgoing artistic director Kevin McKenzie, so stay tuned to see how Susan Jaffe might shake things up come the fall.

Courtney Escoyne:

And on the topic of American Ballet Theatre, Forbes released its annual 30 Under 30 list, and we were delighted to see that amongst the 2023 class is none other than ABT soloist and all around cool guy, Gabe Stone Shayer. So big congrats there.

Margaret Fuhrer:

Yay. That’s so awesome.

The Trisha Brown Dance Company recently announced that it will do something it has never done before: commission a dance by somebody not named Trisha Brown. The new work, by company alum Judith Sánchez Ruíz, is called Let’s Talk About Bleeding, and it will premiere during the troupe’s 2023 season at the Joyce Theater. So, a new direction, maybe, for the Trisha Brown Dance Company.

Courtney Escoyne:

It’s been interesting watching the trajectory of that company since Trisha Brown’s death.

Margaret Fuhrer:

Trying to figure out what it will be.

Courtney Escoyne:

Yeah, very curious.

And Mikhail Baryshnikov will be back on stage this march for the US premiere of The Hunting Gun, a stage adaptation of a 1949 Japanese novella, at Baryshnikov Arts Center. He’ll play the hunter referenced in the title opposite Japanese film star Miki Nakatani, who plays his wife, his mistress, and her daughter. It sounds like a fascinating, I think mostly play, but very curious about it.

Margaret Fuhrer:

Here is a bit of just pure happiness for you. Two dancers who met while competing on “So You Think You Can Dance” are now engaged. Koine Iwasaki, aka Koko, and Chris Nyemchek, aka Kiki, made it to the top four on season 14 of the show back in 2017, and revealed that they were dating a few weeks later. Fans have ‘shipped Koko and Kiki pretty hard since then, and they announced their engagement on Instagram a few days ago. Congrats to them.

Courtney Escoyne:

Congrats. You love to see it.

And we are wrapping up this rundown with a handful of obits. Irene Cara, the singer behind “Flashdance: What a Feeling” and star of the movie Fame, for which she sang the title track, died at age 63. Patricia Ruane, a star of London Festival Ballet who originated the role of Juliet in Rudolf Nureyev’s Romeo and Juliet, and served as a ballet mistress at Paris Opéra Ballet during his directorship, died at age 77. And Alice Teirstein, the dancer, choreographer and dance educator who founded New York City’s Young Dance Makers Company, died just last week on November 25th.

Margaret Fuhrer:

That’s a hard week of losses. Irene in particular, I mean, my gosh, especially in Fame, just like an era-defining artist.

So that’s the end of our headline rundown this episode. But as usual, here’s your reminder to also take a look at the dance media events calendar, which has lots more information about things we don’t always have time to get to here on the podcast, especially performance runs and because it’s almost that time of year auditions. So to see the full list and to add your own events to it, head to dancemediacalendar.com.

Okay, time now for our longer discussion segment, which today is about the musical Only Gold, a.k.a Andy Blankenbuehler’s baby. Blankenbuehler is of course a Tony Award-winning Broadway choreographer, probably best known for his work on Hamilton. But he didn’t just choreograph Only Gold. He also directed and co-wrote it. And he’s been at work on this project for more than a decade.

This musical starred some of the most extraordinary dance artists working in musical theater today during its off-Broadway run, which just ended last week. It also features music by singer songwriter Kate Nash, who appeared as a kind of narrator in the show. And given that pedigree, I think a lot of people just expected that it would transfer to Broadway. But then the reviews were…way harsh, Tai. Very harsh.

Blankenbuehler gave two really great interviews recently, one to the Washington Post and one especially candid one to Dance Magazine. And in them he talked about why he thinks this kind of show is important, and what makes it so hard to do, and how he’s envisioning the future of Only Gold, even if it’s not a Broadway feature. And Courtney, I know you and I are just itching to talk about the show itself and also the way it was received by critics. Apologies in advance, everybody, if we end up on a rant or two here.

Courtney Escoyne:

I mean, I was telling Margaret before we started recording, I got out of this musical, got on the subway and sat down and spent my entire ride home texting one of my musical theater friends, like talking through all my thoughts and feelings about this musical. Then I walked into my apartment, sat down in my roommate’s room, and then talked her ear off for another 45 minutes.

Margaret Fuhrer:

Multiple downloads!

Courtney Escoyne:

Oh my goodness. Because here’s the thing, the choreography in the show, this is some of the best dancing in a theatrical context I have ever seen. And so, one of the things that’s really striking about it, which makes it very different from what we typically see in a standard, whatever that means, musical is of the three lead characters or actresses, one of them is primarily an actor and a singer. She delivers most of her stuff through singing, as you expect in classical musical theater. The role played by “So You Think You Can Dance” alum Gaby Diaz sings a bit, but has extraordinary numbers where she is just dancing. And the role played by Karine Plantadit, who is the queen, she has some spoken lines, but she never sings. Her solo numbers are pure dance. And I understood so incredibly clearly what was happening in her life as well as if not better than some “I want” songs that I’ve seen in Broadway musicals. It was extraordinary. Just the dancing in the show is extraordinary.

Margaret Fuhrer:

Yeah. And actually—this is far from a perfect show. We are not saying it’s a perfect show, it’s definitely flawed. And Andy knows that. He acknowledges that very candidly in the Dance Magazine interview in particular. The character’s motivations aren’t entirely clear. The writing feels like the writing of somebody new to writing musicals, which is exactly what it is. But the dancing is where the storytelling is at its best.

And I actually wanted to talk about how the dance in this work differs from Andy’s other work on Broadway. Because I think in Hamilton and in In the Heights and these other shows he’s choreographed, the choreography is essentially… It’s essential, but it’s essential as a mood-building element. You feel character’s feelings especially clearly when they’re dancing, you feel tensions in a relationship especially clearly when those two characters are in motion. And yes, mood building is of course its own kind of storytelling, but it’s an amplification of storytelling that’s already in the script, that’s already in the lyrics.

And that’s pretty typical of Broadway. And I think it’s actually one of the reasons why, as Andy laments in the Washington Post interview, dance is often seen as frosting, something extra, something wonderful, but inessential. In Only Gold, it’s not just that the characters burst into dance when words cease to be enough, it’s that we cannot fully understand their inner lives without the dancing. Like, I could not figure out why Gaby Diaz’s character was so unhappy until her incredible solo to “Mouthwash,” which suddenly made who she was more clear—not just how is she feeling, but who is she? And that’s incredibly hard to do. I think that’s one of the hardest things to do in musical theater, is to have dance lead the storytelling that way.

Courtney Escoyne:

In The Washington Post, Andy said, “In many ways, choreographers, we are writers, we’re just physical writers. And I think that’s where our industry at large sometimes doesn’t have faith in dance because they think that dance is just finishing an idea or putting the final coat of paint on an idea. But if we do our job well, the audience is learning so much more. If you do it well, you’re writing characters.”

Margaret Fuhrer:

That’s really it.

Courtney Escoyne:

Well, and I think for Karine, I think something that was so striking is that her character, the Queen, she’s initially presented as being kind of very cold, sort of frosty, very regal, doesn’t say much, doesn’t react to much. And then when you see her start to move, you suddenly understand there is this rich inner life that’s happening in here. You just have to actually stop and pay attention to her. And that’s kind of the key thing about her and the king’s relationship that needs to be repaired, is stopping and paying attention. And it’s so unusual to do that in essentially a danced dream sequence, but not in a one-off Oklahoma dream ballet style way, in a way that was really integral to understanding the story.

Margaret Fuhrer:

I also think that doing that successfully is something that theater critics in general—not all of them, but in general—are spectacularly bad at evaluating. I mean, to be fair, musical theater critics have a ton to do. They are expected to be experts in all these genres of performance, acting and singing and songwriting and dancing. But most of them, their points of entry to this world are music and words, not movement. Which would be fine if they demonstrated a real interest in learning about dance and an openness to that. And instead, a lot of them just don’t. They evaluate dance as an afterthought or in a very superficial manner. They condescend to it a little bit, partly because I think they’re afraid of revealing a lack of understanding. And Only Gold absolutely suffered from that treatment in its critical reception, which was really frustrating.

Courtney Escoyne:

It is billed as a dance musical. That is what it is. It’s not saying it’s a classic musical, it is a dance musical and it is equally, if not more important to understanding the story than any other element of it. And also, just, like, it was choreographed within an inch of its life. The amount of detail in this show—I could re watch that first act multiple times and probably still not catch everything the ensemble was doing.

Margaret Fuhrer:

And just all the dancers in that ensemble, too, are so… Not a weak link among them. The people that you go, us dance folks go to Broadway to watch, they were all in the show together, which was kind of fantastic.

I think really, I just want more shows like this show, that make a good strong argument for the dance-driven musical. Not, like, the dance-forward operetta, where there’s no dialogue, à la Twyla Tharp, but a true musical with both talking and dancing. Because I think that chemistry is so hard to get right, but when it is right—when a show has both the piercing specificity of words and then the more mysterious poetry of dance working together harmoniously, hen they’re both just sending little lightning bolts through you all the time—there’s nothing better than that. So I love that Andy is committed, and he says that’s in the Dance Magazine interview too, he is committed to having people both talking and dancing in these shows. I hope he keeps doing that.

Courtney Escoyne:

I agree. And it’s also… I mean, we’ve been hearing about this project for so long and getting excited when we’re like, “Oh my gosh, there’s a workshop happening. Did you hear who’s at this workshop? Have you seen the cast?” And so when we started hearing, “No, they’re opening off Broadway.” We all were a little bit like, “Wait, is this really going to happen? Is it happening?”

And I mean, I know a lot of my getting home and talking the ear off of people in my life about it, a lot of it was me being like, “I can’t wait to see where this goes from here.” And so I hope even… And I think Andy is going to keep doing his thing and keep pushing the envelope the way that he does because that’s interesting to him. And I love and appreciate that he is a choreographer who absolutely could have just rested on his heels after Hamilton and has not done that. And so I can’t wait to see what he does next. I can’t wait to see what I hope will be the next life of this show whatever it turns into. There’s still work to be done, but it deserves to be seen more.

Margaret Fuhrer:

And he talks a little in the Dance Magazine piece about how he has a vision for it living on as like a touring piece, à la Matthew Bourne’s rep, with a pickup cast performing at different theaters.

Courtney Escoyne:

Those are two choreographers I would love to get in a room together.

Margaret Fuhrer:

Oh, it seems like they would probably both love that too. That would be the ultimate Dance Edit podcast episode.

Courtney Escoyne:

Write it down, write it down, write it down. [laughter]

Margaret Fuhrer:

By the way, I didn’t mean to be quite so harsh on critics, because yes, they do have a lot to do. But I also wanted to say that my criticism, I want it to go both ways. I want critics to also call out subpar choreography in musicals as knowledgeably and constructively as they call out a subpar book or subpar songwriting. Because I won’t name names, but I’ve seen some shows that have gotten generally glowing reviews where I was just totally underwhelmed by the dance aspect in particular. So yeah, I want that to cut both directions.

Courtney Escoyne:

I just want Sylviane Gold to watch everything and then talk to me about it, because she just has such a wealth of knowledge about dance on Broadway and how that’s evolved over the years. Y’all, go read the Dance Magazine story, because she and Andy have been talking to each other for a decade at this point and it’s so good.

Margaret Fuhrer:

Yeah. That chemistry is great. Yes, Sylvia, of course, the author of this Andy Blankenbuehler interview. We have that linked in the show notes and we also have a link to the Washington Post story. Both very much worth the read.

All right, that’s it for us this week. Thanks everyone for joining. We’ll be back in two weeks for more discussion of the news that’s move in the dance world. Keep learning, keep advocating, and keep dancing.

Courtney Escoyne:

Mind how you go, friends.