Margaret Fuhrer:
Hi, dance friends, and welcome to The Dance Edit podcast. I’m Margaret Fuhrer.
Amy Brandt:
And I’m Amy Brandt.
Margaret Fuhrer:
We are editors at Dance Media, back together again for the first time in 2023. Happy New Year.
Amy Brandt:
Happy New Year!
Margaret Fuhrer:
Today we’ll start with a headline rundown featuring several weeks’ worth of dance news, from Dance Magazine’s big 25 to Watch list to the new Broadway labor deal to yet more dance-world leadership changes. And then we’ll have a deeper dive discussion on one of the biggest recent news stories, which is choreographer Alexei Ratmansky’s move from American Ballet Theatre to New York City Ballet. A lot of people have had a variety of thoughts about that development and what it portends for the ballet world, and I know we do too, so we’ll get into that.
Before we begin though, here is a little teaser for our next interview episode, which will air a week from today. It features the ballet star Natalia Osipova, who was—and I was not expecting this really—just a wide open book during our conversation. We talked about everything from her thoughts on the invasion of Ukraine and the role of the artist during a time of war to that video that’s gone viral on TikTok showing the hole she cut out of the box of her pointe shoe to accommodate her pinky bunion. [laughter] We really… We went there, so make sure you don’t miss this one. Again, it’ll be out next Thursday, January 19th.
Amy Brandt:
I can’t wait to listen to that.
Margaret Fuhrer:
It’s fun and thoughtful and, yeah, she is as ever just a fascinating character.
Okay, now it’s time for our list of headlines. Let’s get right into it.
Amy Brandt:
Dance Magazine has announced their 2023 25 to Watch list. The 98 year old publication released its annual list of rising dance talent last month, and they include some pretty exciting young names, including cover girl Dandara Veiga from Ballet Hispánico. Some other artists included in the list are Pacific Northwest Ballet dancer Ashton Edwards, ISHIDA Dance Company, which is based in Texas, tapper Amanda Castro, choreographer Vidya Patel, and so many more. If you haven’t already, go and check out this list of rising stars. They have very exciting careers in the works.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Yeah, as always, just a fantastic list. We, of course, have that linked for you in the show notes.
Here is an update on a story that still feels surreal. It’s been almost a month now since the death of dance star Stephen “tWitch” Boss at age 40, which rocked the dance world—so many different corners of it, his reach and his influence are so enormous. Last week, Boss was laid to rest at a small family funeral. A larger ceremony for friends and other loved ones will reportedly be held at a later date. We’ll let you know more details about that as we hear them.
Amy Brandt:
Another young voice we’ve just lost is 32 year old Stephanie Bissonnette. The dancer, teacher and choreographer died in December. Bissonnette starred as Dawn Schweitzer in the Broadway production of Mean Girls and is also featured in the documentary ensemble about the struggles of Broadway dancers during the COVID-19 shutdown. She was also a very popular teacher at Broadway Dance Center. A cause of death hasn’t been officially released, but she did suffer from a rare form of brain cancer and documented that pretty publicly on her social media. Another very sad loss.
Margaret Fuhrer:
I got to know Stephanie a little bit when she was part of Dance Spirit‘s Mean Girls cover back in 2018, and then she was generous enough to share the story of her cancer diagnosis with the magazine in 2020. She was such an extraordinary talent. It’s been a really hard month for the dance community.
Amy Brandt:
Yeah.
Margaret Fuhrer:
I wish I could say we’re moving on to happier news now, but not quite. A theater in Milan recently canceled a series of performances by ballet dancer Sergei Polunin following online protests centered around Polunin’s support of Vladimir Putin. Polunin was supposed to perform at the Arcimboldi Theater on January 28th and 29th. The theater said the cancellation was an act of “political and moral responsibility.”
Amy Brandt:
The Royal New Zealand Ballet has announced that artistic director Patricia Barker will be retiring from the company in March. The former Pacific Northwest Ballet principal ballerina will be returning to the United States to take on a variety of roles, including on the board of Seattle based Whim W’him Contemporary Dance Company. Barker, who previously led Grand Rapids Ballet, took the helm of Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2017 and is credited with increasing commissions from New Zealand based choreographers. It has not been the easiest run for her, I have to say. There was COVID-19 of course, but also her husband, Michael Auer, who was a ballet master at the company, was recently accused of inappropriate behavior and fired from the company, which prompted calls for Barker’s resignation. She will have her final performance in March. Former Australian Ballet artistic director David McAllister is stepping in to lead the company in the interim as they look for a new leader.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Yeah. A lot of turmoil at Royal New Zealand Ballet right now. We have a link in the show notes that gets into the context behind those musical chairs happening.
And we have another leadership change to report. David Binder, who has been artistic director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music since 2019, will step down in July. That is a remarkably short tenure; his two predecessors stayed for 35 and 32 years. And it also follows the 2021 exit of the organization’s president Katy Clark, who spent just five years in that post. So, the upheaval continues.
Amy Brandt:
In other news, a new Broadway labor agreement ratified by Actors’ Equity will offer pay increases, paid sick leave and, according to The New York Times, allow producers to make short-term hires to cover absent actors. This last point of negotiation is obviously a product of the pandemic, as shows have become increasingly dependent on swings and understudies and other replacements to cover sick cast members. The contract caps the number of rules a swing can cover in one performance, but in a concession from Equity to producers also allows for shows to hire actors for short contracts to cover cast member absences.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Here’s yet more news of big organizational change. Dance/NYC announced that it is developing a new leadership structure that will be more democratic and collectively driven. The first step in that process is executive director Alejandra Duque Cifuentes shifting into a new role as the organization’s strategy and research consultant. An interim leadership team of four women will oversee Dance/NYC’s work while the institution’s board simultaneously establishes a committee to come up with a new longer term leadership model.
We’re seeing more and more of this kind of equity-oriented restructuring in the dance world. Last year, Hope Mohr Dance became Bridge Live Arts, for example, reflecting its ongoing equity efforts. Gibney recently went through a similar transformation. I’m eager to see how this type of thinking might ripple out through the dance world, and beyond the dance world too.
Amy Brandt:
Yeah. Yeah, I know. It’s been such a different power dynamic in the dance industry for so, so long.
In honor of its 10th anniversary, ArtsDesk has named its ArtsDesk 100, a group of exciting early career artists leading new frontiers in art and performance. They include lots of folks from the dance world—yay!—including Kyle Abraham, ABT’s Aran Bell, Rena Butler, Raja Feather Kelly, Jovani Furlan, Melissa Toogood…quite a number of dancers, I have to say. Thank you ArtsDesk for acknowledging the dance industry in your top 100, and congratulations to all of them.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Yes, and we’ve got that whole list in the show notes too.
Well, it is the end of a very specific era. The controversial television personality Abby Lee Miller has sold the Pennsylvania dance studio that was home to the TV show “Dance Moms.” Miller and her Abby Lee Dance Company appeared on the Lifetime show, which was filmed primarily in that studio space, for seven seasons from 2011 to 2017. So, uh, goodbye to all that.
Amy Brandt:
The new Noah Baumbach movie White Noise has an unexpected surprise as the credits roll: a big madcap dance number choreographed by David Neumann. If you haven’t seen it yet, please go check it out. It takes place in a supermarket, as it does at the end of the book White Noise by Don DeLillo, which the movie is adapted from. The movie itself is a dark comedy on death and how we distract our fear of mortality through consumerism and entertainment and drugs and all of that. In the LA Times, Baumbach said, “I suppose one way of looking at the end of the book and of the movie is that we’re all just shopping until it’s over and we die. It’s a dance of life, which is also a dance of death. We like to think of them as separate but they’re not. They’re the same.” Anyway, go check it out. Neumann did a fantastic job, and apparently they looked at death dances from around the world for inspiration in creating this.
Margaret Fuhrer:
My husband and I just watched that movie hoping it would be a nice middle ground between his preference for thrillers and my preference for arthouse stuff. It’s kind of… The movie itself is sort of a hot mess, but the dance is just fantastic. It’s weird and poignant and really funny, really funny in that way that David Neumann is so good at doing.
Amy Brandt:
I think you can just watch the dance in its entirety. You don’t have to actually have to watch the whole movie if you don’t want to. There’s video footage, there’s behind the scenes breakdowns and everything that you can find on YouTube.
Margaret Fuhrer:
There’s all kinds of stuff on YouTube. We’ve got that in the show notes too.
All right, that is the end of our headline rundown this episode but don’t forget to check out the Dance Media events calendar too because it has lots more information about all kinds of dance world events, particularly auditions which we don’t cover here on the podcast. To see the full list and add your own events to it, head to dancemediacalendar.com.
Okay, now it is time to talk Ratmansky, as many people have been doing for the past few weeks. Back at the end of December, news broke that choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, who had been American Ballet Theatre’s artist in residence since 2009, would be leaving ABT in June. Then last week, the other shoe dropped: New York City Ballet announced that Ratmansky would become its artist in residence beginning in August. He will create at least one work a year for City Ballet under a five year contract. Ratmansky, of course, has a longstanding relationship with Citi Ballet, for which he’s made six works since 2006.
Reactions to this transition were…large. There’s pretty broad consensus on Ratmansky’s status as either the most exciting choreographer or one of the most exciting choreographers working in ballet today. Some people celebrated this news as a coup for City Ballet, which a lot of ballet folks see as a more natural artistic home for Ratmansky. And then others pointed out that he’s said some not so great things about gender in ballet and about women’s bodies, and wondered aloud whether he’s the person we want for this kind of creative leadership position.
We want to kind of get into all of that. How might this change, which will be felt deeply at two of ballet’s largest and most influential companies, how will that affect the ballet world more broadly? And what does it reveal about shifting or not-shifting values at ABT and City Ballet and in ballet as a whole?
Amy Brandt:
The first thing I thought of when I heard the news that he was leaving ABT was, I really wondered, “Will he stay in the United States or will he go back to Europe and be just kind of a free agent?” But the fact that he’s continuing to make the United States his creative home… What really interests me about that is sort of, what does this mean for American ballet long-term? We have now two of our country’s biggest major ballet companies steeped and fluent in Ratmansky’s style of movement, which is sort of unusual. I mean, ABT’s always been the classical warhorse company, New York City Ballet is the house of Balanchine, and Ratmansky kind of brings the two together in an interesting way. All of these dancers, these top level dancers, are going to carry that with them when they go out into the dance world after their dance careers are over. There’ll be this kind of influential diaspora, I guess.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Mm-hmm.
Amy Brandt:
I’m really curious to see sort of the longterm influence of Ratmansky working at these two companies and what that will look like in 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. That’s kind of what interests me the most about this move, the fact that he’s staying here and is going to have a catalog of work in our two biggest companies.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think there’s something interesting happening here. A lot of people for a long time have thought of ABT as less progressive, more oriented toward the past and of City Ballet as more progressive, more forward-thinking. I mean that both artistically in terms of repertory and commissions and in terms of the cultures of these organizations too. City Ballet in the past few years, especially since the ousting of Peter Martins, I think has actively tried to cultivate a more progressive culture.
But now we see Susan Jaffe coming into ABT, and it does feel like a “let’s shake off the cobwebs” moment, both artistically and culturally. Her vision, as she has talked about publicly—I mean, on this podcast!—is quite progressive on both fronts.
I don’t mean to imply that I know anything about the backstory of Ratmansky’s departure from that company—whether or not he was not asked to renew his contract or whether he chose to leave, I don’t know. But the fact that an established white male choreographer is leaving this big post in a way that might make room for some different types of creative voices at ABT, something that Susan has said she wants to do, that’s interesting and exciting.
Then artistically speaking, on the City Ballet side of things, I know I’m not alone in thinking that Ratmansky has made a lot of his most interesting and most innovative work on City Ballet dancers. They seem to inspire a different kind of creativity in him. The whole idea of music first, it all comes from the music, their priorities are aligned that way. I would happily watch Concerto DSCH or Pictures at an Exhibition every night for the next 20 years. I just think those ballets are magnificent.
Then on the other hand, though, it’s complicated. I mean, many of the City Ballet dancers did celebrate the announcement. They said they loved working with Ratmansky. But not all of them. Ashley Bouder recently said on the Instagram account Dancers & Motherhood that Ratmansky criticized her body when she returned to the studio after having a baby. Then there’s his old 2017 Facebook post about how when it comes to gender roles “there is no equality in ballet”. That still really rankles.
Amy Brandt:
Mm-hmm.
Margaret Fuhrer:
I think what it comes down to is that Ratmansky is essentially a conservative figure in ballet. He loves ballet’s past, he loves tradition. He spent years reconstructing 100+ year old ballets, for goodness’ sake. That conservative streak in him, I do wonder how it will affect City Ballet’s dancers and the overall environment at the company, which then, as you’ve said, Amy, will trickle out through the City Ballet diaspora, as it already is trickling out now through the ABT diaspora.
Amy Brandt:
Yeah, and at City Ballet too there’s also another choreographic presence there. There’s Justin Peck who is younger and does kind of have a more progressive slant on things, you know…
Margaret Fuhrer:
Mm-hmm.
Amy Brandt:
… as far as creating gender neutral roles in his ballets and all of that.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Yeah. It is interesting that we haven’t heard any quotes from Justin about this new appointment anywhere, or he hasn’t posted on his social accounts. I’m curious too as to how he feels about all of this.
Amy Brandt:
Mm-hmm.
Margaret Fuhrer:
One thing I will say is that, and this is in the ballet world in particular, much of the art that I love most, the art that gets me to the theater, is made by exactly the type of people we don’t need to be helping right now: well-established older white men. Often the artists who do need support, who have really inspiring and forward-thinking ideas about how ballet can reflect a 21st century world, their art itself hasn’t quite gelled yet. Which doesn’t speak to their talent, I don’t think. It just speaks to the fact that they’ve been denied opportunities over and over again and the ballet world is only just beginning to open itself to their ideas and perspectives.
Amy Brandt:
Right. I could see how some people may see this as a missed opportunity to bring a woman or a person of color into a position this large, a missed opportunity for City Ballet, but I also can see where New York City Ballet is coming from. They want to hang on to this choreographic voice.
Margaret Fuhrer:
I mean, I guess maybe the optimistic spin on this is that hopefully these kinds of decisions will get easier with time as ballet companies do devote more resources to cultivating the next generation of choreographic talent and diverse voices within that pool of talent. It won’t be like, “Do we choose the artist or the art?” You know?
Amy Brandt:
Right.
Margaret Fuhrer:
In the way that it often feels right now.
Amy Brandt:
In some ways too, I see… In some of the coverage on Ratmansky’s decision, the word that gets… He has a little more freedom, artistic freedom, at City Ballet. He’s got one ballet a year. I don’t know what the terms were for his contract at American Ballet Theatre, but also at ABT Susan Jaffe now has more freedom, if you will, to kind of put her own stamp on things, to start with a clean slate, like her next season next year will be… She’ll kind of be free to explore a little bit more as far as choreographers she can bring in.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Yeah. Yeah.
Amy Brandt:
I don’t know.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Sort of more room for experimentation on both sides of the Lincoln Center Plaza.
Amy Brandt:
And no artist wants to get too comfortable. I think he made a point about starting to feel comfortable and knowing the dancers too well and all of that. I think that it is important to kind of switch things up at a certain point.
Margaret Fuhrer:
Yeah. We have some additional reading about Ratmansky’s big move linked for you in the show notes. Obviously lots of thoughts, lots of feelings about it happening.
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 moving the dance world. Don’t miss Natalia Osipova’s interview next week. In the meantime, keep learning, keep advocating and keep dancing.
Amy Brandt:
Bye, everyone.