Conversations on Dance

Today we are joined by mother-daughter duo, Gladisa Guadalupe, and Marla Minadeo. Gladisa is the co-Founder and Artistic Director of the Cleveland Ballet and her daughter, Marla, is a dancer in the company. We talk with the pair about how they each were introduced to ballet, balancing their professional life with their family life, the many incarnations of Cleveland Ballet, and what the company ha...

On today's episode of Conversations On Dance, we are joined by Nel Shelby, dance videographer and founder of Nel Shelby Productions. Nel tells us about her dance training and aspirations, falling in love with film and how she's blended these two passions together to become one of the industry's most in demand video producers. Nel also talks about the experience filming Lincoln Center's 9/11 tribut...

Today we are joined by New York City Ballet dancer Gretchen Smith, from the 2021 Vail Dance Festival earlier this month. Gretchen was born in Evansville, Indiana, and began her dance training at the age of seven with Evansville Dance Theatre.  She began studying at the School of American Ballet during the 2003 summer course and enrolled as a full-time student that fall. She went on to join th...

Today, we are chatting with friend of the pod and American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer, James Whiteside, from the 2021 Vail Dance Festival. James tells us all about his new (self-proclaimed) “almost-memoir” that just hit bookshelves called “Center Center.” We hear about how long he has dreamt of writing a book, how the idea came about, what the writing process was like, and what he hopes reade...

We were busy at the Vail Dance Festival during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. With the news that was coming out of USA Women's Gymnastics with Simone Biles pulling out of elements of the competition, we had to debrief with our friend (and gymnastics super fan) Kate Penner. She gives us a low down on what happened and we chat about the parallels we see between gymnastics and ballet. This episode was reco...

Today we are sharing with you our final LIVE event recording from the 2021 Vail Dance Festival. In this episode, we are joined by New York City Ballet Resident Choreographer, Justin Peck, and dancer and actor, Robbie Fairchild. These two have been friends since they were students at the School of American Ballet, working together throughout their time with New York City Ballet. They talk about how...

Today we are joined by Esteban Hernandez, principal dancer with the San Francisco Ballet. Esteban talks to us about training with his father and siblings, moving abroad at a young age to study ballet, and how he found his dream company in San Francisco Ballet.  Esteban will be making his return to the stage on August 13 th  and 14 th  at the Frost Amphitheater for Stanford Univ...

LIVE from the Vail Dance Festival, we are joined by choreographer, Cleo Parker Robinson. Cleo is the found of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance. She gives us background on her career, coming, and her choreography. She also tells us about the work that she created for the 2021 Vail Dance Festival. This episode was recorded LIVE from the Vail Dance Festival, This episode was recorded on August 8, 2021 at t...

In our next installment of LIVE from the Vail Dance Festival, we are joined by New York City Ballet principal dancer, Lauren Lovette, and Memphis Jookin star, Lil Buck. We chat with the pair about what this past year has been like for them, how they continued to find inspiration, about their friendship, and their new work they have created just for the festival. This episode was recorded LIVE from...

In our next installment of LIVE from the Vail Dance Festival, we are joined by New York City Ballet pianist, Cameron Grant. Cameron has played for the ballet for nearly 40 years, and shares with us some of his wealth of experiences and stories. This episode was recorded LIVE from the Vail Dance Festival, This episode was recorded on August 6, 2021 at the Manor Vail Lodge. Experience the Vail Dance...

We are joined today by Jamar Roberts, dancer and Resident Choreographer at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, LIVE from the Vail Dance Festival. We talk with Jamar about his origins in dance, his love for visual art, how he got into choreography, and about his world premiere coming to the Vail Dance Festival this year. This episode was recorded LIVE from the Vail Dance Festival, This episode was...

We are joined today by Tiler Peck, principal dancer with New York City Ballet and Herman Cornejo, principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre. The pair tell us about their partnership here at the festival and Justin Peck's newest work. This episode was recorded LIVE from the Vail Dance Festival, This episode was recorded on August 4, 2021 at the Manor Vail Lodge. Experience the Vail Dance Festiv...

Today we are joined by Kate Penner, social media manager for the Vail Dance Festival. Kate tells us how her role has evolved since her first year at the festival, how the marketing team works with photographers and videographers, and we delve into how rights and permissions work. Then she announces that the NOW Premieres performance on August 9th will be available to livestream for FREE on Vail Da...

We are joined today by Christine Cox, Artistic & Executive Director of BalletX. This episode was recorded LIVE from the Vail Dance Festival, where BalletX is the resident company. We chat with Christine about her career, founding the company, her ambitious programming, and her entrepreneurial approach to building the company from the ground up. This episode was recorded on August 1, 2021 at th...

LIVE from Vail Dance Festival, today we chat with American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer and Vail Dance Festival Artist in Residence, Calvin Royal III. We hear from Calvin about his beginnings in dance, his promotion to principal, how he stayed inspired during the pandemic, and being artist in residence at this year's festival. This episode was recorded on July 31, 2021 at the Manor Vail Lodge....

Welcome to our first live podcast recording from the Vail Dance Festival. First up, we chat with New York City Ballet Artistic Director, Jonathan Stafford. We talk with Jon about his pathway to NYCB, some of the leadership roles he held while he was still dancing, the NYCB Interim Transition Team, his role as Artistic Director, leading the company through this past unprecedented year, and what com...

We have been off this month, but on Thursday we head to Vail for the Vail Dance Festival. So we hopped on our last zoom before we are back together in person recording episodes and live podcast recordings at the festival, just for a check in. Links: Tickets for live events July 30 – August 10 Master Classes August 2 & 3 This episode is brought to you by Yumiko (yumiko.com). The post (236...

We are off this week as we work to prepare for our live podcast events at the 2021 Vail Dance Festival later this month, so we are taking this opportunity to re-release an old episode. As we continue to highlight great summer dance reads, enjoy this chat with former American Ballet Theatre dancer and author Michael Langlois from May 2019. (Fortunately, as you will be able to tell, our technology a...

Rebecca pops in today to share some COD updates, including live events and master classes at Vail Dance Festival, and publishing schedule this month. Links: Live events: https://vaildance.org/festival-forums-2021/ Master classes: https://vaildance.org/master-class-series-2021/ Thank you to Yumiko for their continued support of COD. Shop online at Yumiko.com. Follow us on social media @conversation...

Today we are joined by Emily Meisner, the Director of National Dance Institute Collaborative for Teaching & Learning. We have a wonderful chat with Emily about the beginnings of National Dance Institute, founder Jacques d’Amboise's vision for NDI, how she became involved in the organization, and the amazing work that NDI Collaborative is doing. NDI Collaborative is a professional development p...

As we all know, over the past year businesses and organizations have had to get creative in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Arts organizations are no exception. Today we get to hear about how Joffrey Ballet found a unique way to get their dancers involved in the company's day-to-day operations. We speak with Joffrey Company Artist, April Daly, and Annie Lyonswright, Joffrey's Director of Annual...

This week we are joined by Jose Sebastian, dancer with American Ballet Theatre and Director of ABT Incubator. Jose, a native of New York City, started his dance training at age 8 with the School of American Ballet and continued training there for nearly 10 years. He joined ABT Studio Company in 2006 and American Ballet Theatre as an apprentice in January 2009 and became a member of the corps de ba...

This week we are joined by New York City Ballet Principal Dancer, Ashley Bouder. It has been over 4 years since we last had Ashley on the pod, so we have a lot of catch up on. We talk about what this last year has been like for her, about her college courses and teaching career, her advocacy efforts including her association with “Dancers Amplified,” and what she will be performing at this year's...

This week we are joined by Eugenia Zinovieva, Co-Director of Rhode Island Women's Choreography Project and dancer with Festival Ballet Providence. Born in Moscow, Russia, Eugenia moved to the United States at a young age and began her classical ballet training at the Boston Ballet School while also competing as a rhythmic gymnast. She graduated from the University of North Carolina School of the A...

Listener favorite and former Chief Dance Critic at the New York Times, Alastair Macaulay returns to the podcast this week. We realize that we have never asked Alastair his origin story in dance, so he gives us background on how the love affair began. We take a few detours to discuss the late Jacques d'Amboise, ‘Dances at a Gathering', Anthony Tudor, and stories of Balanchine Ballerinas. Then...