BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT

Joe Landini is a choreographer and arts administrator in San Francisco, CA and the founder and current director of operations at SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts. SAFEhouse was founded in 2007 and has been housed in four different venues around San Francisco over the years. Each of these four spaces has been an integral part of the freelance contemporary dance community in the Bay Area by being an accessible incubator for works in progress. Here, Joe shares what his ride has been like running SAFEhouse in its various iterations over the years and how it intersects with his own choreography and creative endeavors, like his recent 90 Days of Creativity.

Photo by Robbie Sweeny

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Can you tell me a little about your dance history and what shaped who you are as an artist today?

I started off as a jazz dancer when I was 17. I had terrible alignment, so I went into ballet. Then I blew out my knees, since I was waiting tables and doing ballet, which is a bad combination. I did rehab. After rehab, I went to UC Irvine and did my undergraduate degree. That’s where I got turned onto contemporary dance. I worked professionally as a choreographer for a few years and then went back to school and got my masters at Trinity Laban Conservatoire in London. When I finished my masters, I moved to San Francisco and opened SAFEhouse and The Garage at the same time. SAFEhouse was originally the nonprofit, and The Garage was a nickname for the space. The Garage had two locations in San Francisco, and they were underground artmaking, very DIY. When SAFEhouse moved to its third location, it was upstairs above a Burger King and obviously wasn’t a garage, so for branding purposes it made sense to change the name to SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts, which was the name of the nonprofit anyway.

What was the impetus behind starting SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts?

I had done an 11-year internship with a producer in San Francisco called Footloose who ran Shotwell Studios. After 11 years, I had a lot of philosophical differences with them; I had developed my own style as an arts administrator. In 2007, San Francisco was coming out of the .com crash and there was a lot of affordable property. I knew exactly what I wanted, so I just walked up and down the streets looking for a garage with high ceilings and storefront access. I found a handwritten note on a garage south of Market. I called the number on the note, and it was an older Russian woman named Ludmilla, who was about 80, who asked if I wanted to look at it now. I said sure, so she said she would send someone over with the key. This older Latino gentleman biked up, gave me the key, and biked away. I opened the door, and it was literally an old garage with car parts. It had a sunken floor that was perfect to build a sprung floor for dancers, and it had this amazing basement. I called her back and said I’d take it. That was the first location of The Garage.

It was a very classic black box theater. I had collected a lot of theater equipment through the years. There was a space I had managed called the Jon Sims Center. They went bankrupt and I purchased their equipment: old metal risers and a lighting system. We were there for three or four years and made our neighbors insane with noise, so they kicked us out.

The flagship programs at The Garage were RAW and AIRspace. RAW stood for Resident Artist Workshop. It started with my previous employer, Footloose. Originally it was called Raw and Uncut, but I shortened it to RAW and came up with the acronym. AIRspace was given to me by the Jon Sims Center when they went out of business, and it had funding attached to it. It was specifically for LGBTQ artists. Those two sister programs sat side by side, though RAW was much larger.

I had all these friends from Footloose and Jon Sims, and we were all struggling with the same set of circumstances, which was no one had rehearsal space. It made sense to me that a time share model would work, and that model ended up being successful. My twist was it was more of a collective; we took turns cleaning the bathroom and typing up programs.

We got 501c3 status pretty early on. There’s permanent funding in San Francisco called Grants for the Arts, and I wanted to get on their roster. Once a 501c3 got on their roster, they were guaranteed funding every year, which makes a really big difference. They are very supportive of venues because the funding comes from the Hotel Tax Fund. People visit San Francisco and pay taxes on hotel rooms to see shows. It’s not officially permanent funding anymore, but it’s still consistent. You have to reapply every year and maintain a certain level of work to be eligible.

Photo by Robbie Sweeny

What are some of the different iterations of SAFEhouse over the years?

After we got kicked out of our first location, we shopped around, as property was still affordable. This was in 2010. We found another good deal on another garage a few streets away. By that point we had a lot of momentum. Funders knew who we were. We recreated what we had at the first Garage. It was the same size but without the basement.

Funders wanted us to be closer to downtown and pledged to increase our funding if we moved. The second Garage was eight blocks from Market Street, and funders wanted us to be closer to public transportation. It was also a dodgy walk. A company called KUNST-STOFF had just left a functional space on the second floor above a Burger King with a gorgeous view right on Market Street. We moved in 2015. We were in the middle of Central Market, and we really flourished. At that point, the tech community had taken hold in the Bay Area and leases were skyrocketing. Burger King, who was our landlord, wanted to increase our rent by 40 percent. At that point, we left because our lease would have been 60 percent of our budget with none left over to pay artists. Our first Garage space was $2,000 a month; the second Garage was $3,000 a month; at the third location above Burger King, we paid $6,000.

By that point, I had developed a good relationship with the mayor’s office. I found a storefront in the Tenderloin in 1995 and waited 20 years for it to become available. It was an old porn theater and gay strip joint. I always thought it would be a great dance space. They said the strip joint was closing and if I was willing to take on the lease, they could give me the funding to renovate it. It ended up being $200,000 to renovate it. We still had our space above the Burger King, so the city literally paid our rent on the new location while it was being renovated. We opened in 2017. We got a 15-year lease and discounted rent. It’s small and intimate, exactly the same size as the first Garage. It’s also close to several other theaters and arts groups.

What has been your experience directing SAFEhouse all these years, especially as the city has changed?

It’s been good and bad, mostly good. We’ve specialized in works in progress for 15 years, and I ran everything by myself for 10 years. After 10 years, it was hard seeing so much unfinished work. Now I can appreciate what an amazing honor it is to see work before it’s finished.

SAFEhouse has been experimenting with distributed leadership and challenges around equity, which has been a big deal as a white led organization. We’ve had some successes and a lot of failures. The distributed leadership has been an interesting experiment. We made a conscious choice to go to BIPOC communities to look for staff. We worked with an equity coach for a year and that was eye opening. It sometimes feels like an uphill battle to dismantle some of white supremacist practices in the arts. We tried to be a cooperative but all we managed to do was attract more white artists. We switched to distributed leadership because it felt like we could be more intentional. That has been successful to a degree. The big challenge now is finding enough funding to pay a large staff.

Coming out of COVID is really hard. Audiences haven’t come back to contemporary dance. The larger venues have done better, but we have fewer resources for marketing. It’s going to be interesting to see what the next few years look like. We’re still asking people to be vaxed and masked whereas some of the larger venues are not. There are some audiences who don’t want to wear masks, and other audiences who don’t feel safe with just vaccinations. We try to find some middle road that’s comfortable for the largest segment of people, but with all those challenges it’s been hard to get audiences to come back.

Photo by Robbie Sweeny

How does your choreography intertwine with all this?

Distributed leadership has allowed me time to focus on my own work because I no longer have to take on all the responsibilities as an executive director. I just celebrated 30 years of choreographing. I’ve made a lot of site specific and score-based work rooted in audience participation and challenging the role of the viewer. I’ve made site specific work at ODC, Fort Mason, and the Joe Goode Annex. When I was at Laban, I studied European dance theater and that has informed my work. I play with the idea of immersive work where the audience is drawn organically in as co-conspirator. It’s not just audience participation; the audience is driving the work. I find that really rewarding.

What is 90 Days of Creativity and how is it organized?

Once SAFEhouse started the distributed leadership model, I had the space to explore my next phase of creativity. I wanted to do something new, so I explored creative coaching. It felt like an area of strength because I had mentored so many artists. I had this idea of finding a group of artists to work together for 90 days. The group works together on Zoom every Monday. It’s a very gentle accountability session to set goals and check in with people. Each week we have a theme. Some of the themes we’ve tackled are creative methods, fears, the role of audience, etc. Each day I post something on my website or on Instagram about creativity or something creative happening in the Bay Area.

Soon we start four weeks of live workshops. The participants will come to SAFEhouse and lead some aspect of the workshop, and then I’ll help them create a performance score. We have musicians, writers, actors, and choreographers. For four weeks, they’ll bring what they’ve been working on into the room, and we’ll workshop it. On the 90th day, there will be some sort of gathering and sharing.

What has been your experience of 90 Days of Creativity thus far?

It’s been pretty organic. I needed a break from making work; my 30^th anniversary show was challenging coming out of COVID. It’s been a nice change to focus on other people rather than myself. In a month, we’ll start the process again with another 90 Days of Creativity. The next round will have two levels – a free level and a paid level. The other thing we’re going to add is professional development. That’s always been something our community has struggled with. It’ll be hybrid; the Zoom sessions will continue alongside the live workshop component. People from other parts of the country have been participating in the Zoom component, which has been interesting.

What’s next for you? Is there another project of focus you’d like to share more about?

I’ve been invited to participate in a couple of pop-up spaces. Because I’ve run four spaces, people say, “We have space, someone call Joe.” I’m also trying to figure out what’s next for me choreographically. I want to do more traveling and teaching, get out into the world a little bit more.

Illustration by Maggie Stack

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To learn more, visit safehousearts.org and joelandinidance.com.

The post Saving Space appeared first on Stance on Dance.

This year marks Stance on Dance’s 10th birthday. In honor of the occasion (and a bit of a coincidence as well), I am pleased to announce that Stance on Dance has become a nonprofit and received 501c3 status. Stance on Dance’s nonprofit mission is to educate the dance community and wider audiences about dance from the perspective of underrepresented voices and access points. One way my board and I are fulfilling our mission is by launching a twice-yearly print publication that features and supports more dance writers and thus shares more perspectives. We will also distribute copies to dance educational institutions and to our donors who make this possible.

Allow me to wax philosophic about how Stance on Dance got to this point. I started Stance on Dance as a blog in 2012. As a freelance dancer in the San Francisco Bay Area at the time, I felt frustrated with the ways dance was written about. It was often written about by people without a deep knowledge of the artform, it was often review and preview oriented (and the show is but the tip of the iceberg), and it tended to follow the money and cover major ballet and modern companies while overlooking the varied world of freelance artists who pour their energy (and often their earnings) into making their art exist.

My idea was simple enough: I would publish interviews with fellow dance artists in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as solicit and edit content from colleagues. The blog often had a tone of being “on the ground,” as opposed to the more formal reviews and previews I contributed to various publications around San Francisco. I took pride in it being by and for dance artists. I published content once to twice a week, and it generally consisted of interviews conducted by me, essays by various colleagues, cartoons drawn by my roommate Maggie Stack satirizing the dance world, and music recommendations by my friend Jake Padilla. As time went on, my friend Ryan Kelley wrote drink recommendations to pair with various shows, a calendar listing with a twist.

From the get go, I loved producing content about dance and organizing an editorial calendar. And while the bawdy cartoons and drink recommendations were fun, it was the interviews with various dance artists that gained the most traction. I had an affinity for writing, but I was by no means a trained journalist. I was a dancer. As a result of Stance on Dance’s growth during that first year, I started to look into graduate programs in arts journalism. Around the same time, the cost of living in San Francisco started to skyrocket due to the tech bubble, and I felt trapped as a dancer barely making ends meet. I decided my time in San Francisco had come to a close.

In 2013, I entered a master’s program in Arts Journalism at the University of Southern California on scholarship and, through moving to Los Angeles, Stance on Dance began to cover artists beyond the Bay Area. As I developed a more journalistic tone, the blog became more professional in its coverage, transforming from a site that was mostly circulated amongst colleagues, to an online publication that was beginning to command a serious readership. My master’s thesis was a redevelopment of Stance on Dance with a sleek redesign, a more engaged social media presence, and employment of metrics to track and understand readership.

In 2013, I also began working on what would become the book Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond, where I interviewed more than 50 dance artists over the age of 50 up and down the West Coast. I worked with Portland based photographer Gregory Bartning, who beautifully captured each interviewee. Our goal was to showcase the beauty and form in a dancer of any age, as well as to demonstrate how artistry enrichens with time. The compilation was published as a hardcover book in 2017.

After graduate school, I had the amazing opportunity to travel to South Africa to cover the National Arts Festival for Cue Newspaper, a printed daily arts newspaper that existed for the duration of the festival. Aside from the experience being a cultural whirlwind, I also began to appreciate for the first time how different print is from online content. Instead of an endless vertical scroll, themes could be developed across articles with the aid of good design. The reader’s attention is also different, with more sustained focus, as opposed to distraction after receiving notifications on a device. One day during my time in South Africa, I outlined a plan for a print version of Stance on Dance. Of course, I had graduate school debt, no job, and I didn’t even know where I would live next, but the seed was planted.

Upon returning to the states, I moved to Santa Fe, NM, and took a job as the editor of Fine Lifestyles Santa Fe, a glossy magazine that covered restaurants and shops in town. I didn’t care much for the content, but I relished the experience of working closely with a team of writers, photographers, sales reps, and designers to produce a print magazine. I took careful notes on the process, always having in the back of my mind that one day I might apply these skills to a print version of Stance on Dance.

Throughout grad school, my time in South Africa, and my time in Santa Fe working for the magazine, I continued to produce weekly (and often bi-weekly) content for Stance on Dance. As a result of working on the dancing over 50 book project as well as through my various experiences post graduate school, Stance on Dance increasingly became devoted to elevating the voices of those who are often marginalized in the dance world. These include older dancers, dancers of color, dancers who identify as LGBTQ, dancers who have a disability, fat dancers, dancers who live outside major metropolitan areas, women in leadership positions, dancers working outside well-funded institutions, and dancers who practice forms outside the Western canon. Through focusing on perspectives that have traditionally been marginalized in dance journalism, Stance on Dance found its footing as a journal where ideas and ways of working that challenge the status quo are covered and celebrated.

In 2017, I embarked on a second book project, this time in collaboration with Austin/Finland based dance educator Silva Laukkanen, interviewing professional dancers with disabilities. Breadth of Bodies: Discussing Disability in Dance came out this spring 2022 and features 35 professional dancers with disabilities in 15 countries. Through our interviews, Silva and I deepened our knowledge of problematic stereotypes, barriers to education, access issues, and terminology preferences. These interviews are accompanied with whimsical illustrations by San Francisco based artist Liz Brent-Maldonado.

That brings us to the present. After years of publishing weekly online content covering dance artists from many practices and places, Stance on Dance is excited to announce the launch of a twice-a-year print publication that will further promote dance and the many perspectives of its practitioners. This first issue features an interview by Sophia Diehl with dance movement therapist Giulia Carotenuto, an essay by Katie Flashner on relocating her life and dance practice from southern California to Maine, an essay by Cherie Hill on advocating for equity in dance spaces, an essay by Bhumi Patel on decolonizing praxis, three original dance inspired illustrations by Camille Taft, and an interview by Nikhita Winkler with French dance artist Illan Riviere. I also have contributed an interview with Miami-based choreographer Pioneer Winter on his intergenerational and physically integrated dance company, and an interview (translated and facilitated by Lorie House) with Colombian butoh artist Brenda Polo and her collaborators who are studying the effects of butoh on the brain. We will eventually publish all this content on stanceondance.com, but I believe the design and opportunity for more sustained reading brings the content to life in a different, hopefully more enjoyable, way.

Where will you read your copy of Stance on Dance? And will you share it with your friends?

I hope you will consider supporting Stance on Dance in this exciting new format by helping spread the word or becoming a donor/subscriber. Many thanks to those of you who have supported and followed Stance on Dance in its many iterations over the past decade!

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To donate to support dance journlism and recieve two issues of Stance on Dance in print a year, visit stanceondance.com/support.

To learn more about the Spring/Summer 2022 issue or to order a single copy, visit stanceondance.com/print-publication.

The post Stance on Dance’s Journey to Print appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Welcome to the 65th annual International Dance with Pets (IDP) competition. I’m your host, Fido Schnauzer, and we’re coming to you live from our beautiful new sports arena in the remote Arctic. We’re so excited to have you join us for this spectacular extravaganza!

Thanks to this year’s sponsor, Classy Collars, because every pet deserves to look sharp.

This year, the competition is steeper than ever. These elite pet dance-thletes train all year in studios around the world to prepare for this moment. Here’s a peek at this year’s most heated events.

The Bulgarians are favored to win this year’s team competition with their ever-popular Snatched Wildebeests routine, but the Swiss are a strong contender with their Turkeys Gonna Back It Up mashup.

The “underdogs” are not to be counted out of this competition! Kuwait’s team has put together a striking number, Tenterfield Terrier Tango Tryst, while the Canadians are looking better than ever with their Tik Tok phenomenon Chihuahua Bolero.

Don’t forget to watch the couple’s competition, where New Zealand’s own Cheryl Cheree and her cat, Spice, will attempt to perform a perfect polka. Also look for Uruguay’s Florencia Rodriguez with her goat, Rodrigo, and their undulating rumba (if you’ve never seen a goat undulate, don’t miss this!)

No IDP is complete without the popular but unpredictable interpretive category. Will the up-and-coming crowd favorite Clifford the Koala win the Contact Improv with Hedgehogs category? Will Partita the Pig finally be able to convincingly emote while improvising to Bach’s Partita for Violin No. 2?

Of course, the reason most of you are tuning in is just to watch the opening number featuring the all-cat ballet troupe, Purrfect Pointe. Will Doozle and Sigyn actually stay en pointe and complete their daring pas de deux, or wander off in search of cat nip?

Stay tuned! We will be there first to interview this year’s pet champions and will even provide commentary and in-depth analysis.

The post The International Dance with Pets Competition appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Lucy McCrudden is the founder of UK-based Dance Mama, a resource for pregnant and parenting dance professionals, through which she shares the stories of other dance professionals who are parenting as well as provides several mechanisms of support. One of these supports is Dance Mama Live!, a 10-month professional development online program. Here, Lucy talks about why it is important to her as a dance industry professional and mother of two to find ways to support other parenting dance professionals, as well as why the dance industry’s lack of support for parents is a deficit to the industry overall.

Lucy McCrudden, photo by Pierre Tappon

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Can you tell me a little about your own dance history – what shaped who you are today?

My first stage appearance was in my mum’s womb in a local production of the musical La Belle Helene (perhaps she is the original Dance Mama!). I started my dance journey proper back in the mid-80s at age four at my local dance school in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, studying the ‘holy trinity’ of ballet, tap and modern. This was dovetailed with my parents’ involvement in their local amateur musical theatre company and weekend music school. The Royal Shakespeare Company is based in my hometown and fortuitously, I had the opportunity of taking part in two professional productions with them before I was 12 years old.

At 18, I won a Dance and Drama Award to study my honours degree at world-renowned conservatoire, Laban (now Trinity Laban), and before graduating had embarked on my teaching career. I taught at over 250 schools in 18 months all over the UK with the education company Wise Moves, and then consolidated this experience as a dance artist in residence at DanceXchange based in Birmingham. Here I was nurtured to teach all levels (including their resident professional company), choreograph, and devise learning projects connected with visiting mainstage companies to the Hippodrome Theatre such as Carlos Acosta and Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures. Soon after this a role came up at London Contemporary Dance School which became Manager of the government-funded Centre for Advanced Training programme, which I led for six years.

I then left to return to freelancing, and delivered projects for Rambert, English National Ballet and Yorke Dance Project before becoming pregnant with my first child. On my return to freelance work, I took a management role in Rambert’s Learning & Participation team. When I was on maternity leave, pregnant with my second child, the opportunity to become head of this department came up which I successfully applied for and which was the company’s first job-share when my son was just eight days old. On returning to work the second time I felt little had changed to help support parents working in my sector and left to focus my energies on developing Dance Mama.

How did Dance Mama come about?

While I was pregnant with my eldest child, I felt very lucky that I had an empathetic line manager who supported me to teach, write and deliver projects at Rambert. However, the official industry guidance was a solitary factsheet, and as brilliant as that information was (and it’s still available on www.dancemama.org/resources), I felt it wasn’t animated enough to support me as much as I needed. After my daughter was born, I felt so strongly about this lack of support that I wrote an article in One Dance UK’s magazine. In writing this article, I interviewed colleagues across the sector at all different stages of parenthood and it was the stories that I felt needed volume and space. So, I set up a free site and put them up there on my own initiative and kept adding to it alongside my employed roles.

British choreographer Rosie Kay commented that “Dance Mama has been really invaluable for me to read – I really don’t know how other women do it,” which gave me an understanding that it was a valuable resource and not only were people using it, they needed it.

When I returned from my second maternity leave, I felt little had changed, although the Parents in Performing Arts Campaign was gathering momentum and invited me to be an ambassador. I decided to use the energy and time that I had to focus on developing Dance Mama and refreshed the site in 2018 and developed my business plan to grow Dance Mama into a resource that creates connection, inspiration and information for parents in the dance sector on and off stage.

Approximately how many stories have been shared on Dance Mama? What are some of the biggest themes that emerge from those stories?

There are now approximately 60 stories on the site of men and women in all sorts of roles and family set-ups from a variety of backgrounds who share their experience through a similar set of questions. I was inspired by James Caan’s approach in Inside the Actors Studio (which I watched on my first maternity leave) and had always admired a ‘Day in the Life’ column in the Sunday Times (sadly not in it anymore) as it gave a snapshot into how people operate. I decided to take the same approach with the interviews on the site as, although there are similar themes, it highlights that everyone’s journey is unique. These stories have now developed into video and audio format over the pandemic. This was in my original plan and has been accelerated by the pandemic giving way to the rise of Zoom and audience acceptance of broadcasting from domestic settings. These ‘In Conversations…’ have now been transferred to a podcast, making it even easier for people to listen in whilst they are doing the school run or chores.

The main themes that surface from the stories are: isolation, challenges with childcare provision and costs, navigating raising a family on limited means, lack of systemic support for post-natal rehabilitation, identity and loss of it, discrimination and the challenge of juggling competing priorities, to name but a few. There are a mix of positive and negative experiences, but sadly (and the reason why I am amplifying these issues) they lean toward the latter. It is very difficult to be a working parent in dance and this leads to talent retention issues and poor representation of women leaders in the sector.

Dance Mama also offers a variety of resources including a 10-month program, mentorship, classes, workshops, and resources for parents who work in dance. Can you share a little about how you developed these?

These mechanisms of support really stem from my experience over almost two decades in the learning sector, married with my own personal experience as a mother. I took approximately two to three months at the end of 2018 to formulate exactly what I felt was missing and could be useful to individuals, as I felt that with the development of other organisations like the PIPA Campaign, systemic support was getting attention. However, systemic change can be quite slow and, in order for parents to stay in the sector, they have to rely on their own resilience and tenacity. These are qualities that dancers cultivate navigating our unpredictable careers anyway and I wanted to find out how could I help people dial this up further. The answer I felt was to keep them inspired, make the connection and engagement fun and accessible. Parents have very little time, so they need to have ease and speed at finding content that will inspire them.

Dance Mama Live! is the flagship focus for 2021. It’s 10-month programme of professional development and this was created both pre and during the pandemic. Its original pilot form was in-person at Sadler’s Wells and was intended to run on a monthly basis on-site. Then, just as we were about to apply for funding, the pandemic hit. It took a few months to figure out not only how to pivot, but if my intended partner organisations were going to have the means to take part with the heavy impact that COVID had on all of us. I was always keen to do something online as I felt that it was the most efficient way for isolated new parents and busy parents to get connected to their artform and colleagues.

We tried again for funding and at a dramatic three days after the third national UK lockdown was announced – success! This was quite overwhelming as I was required to homeschool, so I made the difficult decision to deliver Dance Mama Live! as well as homeschool which meant very long days that could be exceptionally stressful at times, as essentially I was working two full-time jobs. However, the thought that people would be left even longer without a point of connection was more important to me than the difficulty. Feedback from the almost 80-strong enrollers so far has been very positive and Dance Mama Live! has supported people greatly.

From your perspective, how has the pandemic affected parents who work in dance?

The pandemic without a doubt has had a huge negative impact for parents who work in dance in a variety of hideous ways. Firstly, the long closure of theatres and studios has meant that people have had to find work elsewhere, and for some this temporary measure may become permanent with a loss of faith in their own abilities and the industry, combined with more regular predictable income from other sectors– even if the work they are doing is not fulfilling in the same way. For parents of children who are not at school, the social isolation has had a detrimental impact, as having adult conversation, empathy, and company is vital in ensuring good mental health while raising young children. This is something we have all experienced during this time, and anyone who felt this before has experienced an amplification of these feelings.

Then for those with school-age children, the time taken up to either emergency homeschool and/or work simultaneously has been wildly stressful and bottle-necked any work that was in play previous to these periods. This toxic concoction is reflected in the PIPA Campaign’s recent research highlighting that an alarming “80% of respondents were wholly or partly self-employed: many failed to qualify, or only qualified for a small amount of SEISS support, frequently this was because of having taken a period of maternity leave or reduced working hours due to care responsibilities.”

Since you started Dance Mama, have you seen more awareness and acceptance that dance professionals can be parents, or has it stayed the same or gotten worse?

Attitudes are moving in a better direction, but progress is slow. This is due to the same old challenges dance faces – marginalisation of the artform and its complexities making it difficult for external sectors to understand and support, and therefore, lack of funding. The sector is also over-subscribed with performers and people wanting to work in it which means that it’s a ‘buyer’s market’ so-to-speak, and choreographers and leaders can often value what are quick and easy solutions to their recruitment and don’t have the interest or will to support artists or employees who may have high artistic value but carry more caring needs. The emphasis here being product-focused, rather than enriching the process to the product, which arguably would render an even-better artistic product.

Is there anything upcoming you want to specifically promote or draw attention to?

I would probably say the podcast at this moment in time as more content will be added from the Dance Mama Live! sessions and released at a later date in the year.

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Learn more at www.dancemama.org or listen to the podcast here. Follow Lucy on Twitter or Facebook @thedancemama and on Instagram @lucymccrudden.

The post Supporting Dance Parents appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Do you remember reading Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in high school and, like most kids, being gripped by the epic tale of corruption and betrayal? Now you can re-live your favorite drama in ballet form with Invincible Ballet Theatre’s upcoming production of The Ides of March.

Choreographed by Sterling Rejectori to an original score by Flora Mod, this tale of the ages brings to life all the splendor and tumult of Rome in a three-act ballet that will make you want to find and dust off your high school Shakespeare anthology!

The heartthrob virtuoso Ivan LaPool dances the part of Caesar, while the broody and nimble Jacque DeShoo dances Brutus, who must choose between his handsome and power-hungry best friend or the fate of the Roman Republic. Look for breakout star Sara Bluhart’s solo, who deftly dances the part of Brutus’ wife Portia with empathy. And don’t forget the brilliant costuming by Breeze Ronbo, who makes those togas and tunics look both dignified and graceful.

Rejectori’s choreography incorporates whole scenes where the dancers en masse face away from the audience and look over their shoulders in attempts to “watch their backs” in the most ingenious ways. And at the fateful moment when Brutus murders Caesar, the choreography and score climax in such a way that when Caesar mouths, “Et tu, Brutè? Then fall Caesar!”, the audience shrinks in their seats at the sheer magnitude of the moment.

Other brilliant performances include Shoreen Shashini’s portrayal of the soothsayer – who is both spooky and entertaining, kind of like a Roman Drosselmeyer – and Flippo Gorgon’s Ghost of Caesar. The Ghost’s haunting costume, while only appearing for a few minutes in the third act, incorporates more than 50 yards of chiffon. It’s telling of the monumental cost Invincible Ballet Theatre has put into bringing this extravaganza to life.

The Ides of March is playing for one night only – March 15th – so get your tickets now! Price of entry also buys you a Caesar salad at intermission!

The post The Ides of March: Now A Ballet! appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Our guide to help dancers everywhere get in the holiday spirit!

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Do artfully place mistletoe around the studio to snatch a smooch from your crush between combinations.

Don’t think that getting rid of your foot fungus counts as an actual gift.

Do jingle up your dance belt with some fun sleigh bells. Think Blitzen!

Don’t stow a flask in your faux fur dance belt. You might miss the combination while you’re discreetly sipping.

Do light up your tights with LED lights!

Don’t leave your dance belt outside to dry on a cold winter’s night.

Do have a Happy Holidays from Stance on Dance! See you in 2020!

Don’t forget to buy new tights to ring in the new decade!

The post Do’s and Don’ts This Holiday Season appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Calling all ballet students! Tired of the usual ballet training at the barre, stuck in a studio all day with only mirrors to look at? Now trending: Ballet Dressage! Combine your barre and center work with “the art of riding and training a horse in a manner that develops obedience, flexibility, and balance.” In other words, train with the horses with the wind at your back!

Ballet’s great and all, but if you’re looking for something even more reminiscent of European elitism, combining ballet and dressage is your answer. Tired of paying for expensive lessons? Now you can pay for expensive lessons with the added expense of stable fees! You and the horses can share the joy of grueling hours and the undying thirst for perfection all in an outdoor setting!

Never done dressage before? Don’t worry about it! As long as you know a thing or two about ballet, you can practice your pirouettes and various steps involving leg lifts with horses as your classmates. The capriole – a very difficult dressage step – is kind of like a gargouillade, so you’ll be fine! Just think – you and the horses might share some tricks of the trade; soon you’ll be doing an adept leg-yield on your hands and knees as your horse friends master tombe pas de bourree!

Don’t spend any more time in the studio with stuffy bunheads; let your mane free! Be the first to join Ballet Dressage now!

The post Tired of Your Ballet Routine? Spice It Up with Dressage! appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Whether you’re a beginner looking to wriggle your toes for the first time or a seasoned dancer hoping to get in a good sweat and boogey, finding the right dance school can be difficult. That’s why we’ve put together this checklist to help you find the school for you!

1. Is it ADA compliant?
2. Do the classes offered match your interests and schedule?
3. Do the teachers have extensive experience? Are any of them famous?
4. Is their Instagram feed inviting and dynamic?
5. Speaking of which, what’s their phone policy? Are they blue-tooth and speaker-phone friendly?
6. Are the mirrors forgiving?
7. Can you bring your service lizard to class with you?
8. Is there a coffee shop or deli nearby for after-class gossip or for when you get hangry?
9. Is the lost and found always full of fashionable forgotten items you want in your wardrobe?
10. Does the student body dress in fashionable dance attire coordinating head pieces with their leggings?
11. Does it have a monthly cash give-away you can enter?

If you answered yes to all the above questions, it looks like you’ve found the perfect dance studio!

The post How To Choose The Right Dance School For You appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Be sure to wear sunblock and sunglasses for this year’s Fourth of July outdoor-site-specific-performance!

The bright summer sunlight will leave you in a squinting haze, causing you to bang your head and see 50 stars. And your arms and legs – once adorned by your artfully bold costume – will be reminiscent of the 13 stripes of the American flag.

Move over Stars and Stripes; there’s a new most patriotic dancer!

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Image descriptions: In the first illustration, a dancer lunges on a lawn wearing star-shaped glasses, red and blue stripes and star covered shorts, and waving an American flag. In the second illustration, the same dancer is illustrated from the chest up, sunburnt in the shape of stars around the eyes and stripes around the arms.

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Merry Christmas! To the tune of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” we bring you “Rudolf the Ballet Dancer!”

If video doesn’t load, click here to watch and giggle!

You’ve heard legend of Balanchine, Misha and Ethan

Constantly surrounded by pretty women

But do you recall… the most swooned-after dance-man of all?

Rudolf the ballet dancer

Famous from the Muppet Show

His partners were Miss Piggy

And a nice dame named Margot

All of the other ladies

Used to laugh at his bad hair

His technique was quite perfect

Still they didn’t seem to care

Then one foggy Christmas Eve

Jim Henson rang his phone

“Rudolf, grace my show tonight

That will set those ladies right.”

After the Muppet Show aired

All the girls swooned as he danced

But they learned it’s not women

That he wanted in his pants!

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