Conversations on Dance

This week on Conversations on Dance, we are joined by New York City Ballet dancer, Miriam Miller from last summer’s Vail Dance Festival.   Miriam was born in Iowa City, Iowa, and began her dance training in 2001. She attended summer courses at the School of American Ballet (SAB) in 2011 and 2012, enrolling as a full-time student during the 2012 winter term. Ms. Miller became an apprentice with NYC...

This week on Conversations on Dance, we are joined from the Kennedy Center by American Ballet Theatre soloist, Catherine Hurlin.  Born in New York City, Catherine began her dance training at Scarsdale Ballet Studio and Westchester Dance Academy.  She was awarded the Hope Award at the 2007 Youth American Grand Prix New York City Finals, and went on to receive a full scholarship to the Jacqueline Ke...

This week on ‘Conversations On Dance', we are joined by in-demand choreographer and artistic director of BalletMet, Edwaard Liang. Liang danced for the New York City Ballet, where he rose to the rank of soloist. He later joined the Netherlands Dance Theatre, and performed in the broadway show ‘Fosse'. These influences have shaped his choregraphic talents, which are sought all of the gl...

The Vail Dance Festival has announced their dates for their 2019 festival and to celebrate, we are diving into our archives from our time last year at the festival. Today we are joined by festival favorite, Herman Cornejo. Herman was born in Argentina and began his ballet studies at the age of eight. At the age of 14 he attended the School of American Ballet, and upon returning home he joined Ball...

Rebecca and Michael record an emergency podcast to discuss and react to the big news this week in the ballet world: the announcement of the appointment of Jonathan Stafford as artistic director and Wendy Whelan as associate artistic director of New York City Ballet.  Our sound quality isn't our best, and for that we apologize, but we had to drop everything and get on the phone to chat about the ne...

Today’s episode of Conversations on Dance was recorded at a live post-performance event at the Kennedy Center.  At the beginning of February, American Ballet Theatre brought Alexei Ratmansky’s “Harlequinade” to the Kennedy Center for a week of incredible performances. Following a Saturday matinee, we caught up with ABT soloist, Skylar Brandt, who had just danced the lead role of “Columbine.”  In t...

It's just Rebecca and Michael this week.  It's that time of year when company contracts are going out, which means that dancers across the country may not be getting their contracts renewed for the 2019-2020 season.  We put together a handful of bullet points to help dancers navigate this tough time and discuss what to do next.  We turn this challenging experience into something positive, this wee...

This week on Conversations on Dance we are bringing you a live podcast we recorded yesterday, February 4th, 2019 at the Kennedy Center. The Kennedy Center has wonderful Ballet and Contemporary Dance Class Series that offer advanced high school students the unique opportunity to learn from dancers from the nationally and internationally recognized companies that tour to the Kennedy Center.  Yesterd...

This week we head back into our vault from our time at the Vail Dance Festival last summer.   Today we speak with former Miami City Ballet Principal dancer, Patricia Delgado, and New York City Ballet Principal, Jared Angle.   Even though they have never danced in the same company, many gigs have brought them to dance together, especially at the Vail Dance Festival.   So we sat down with them to ta...

This week on Conversations On Dance, we are joined by San Francisco Ballet dancer Madison Keesler. Madison began her professional career at age 17, and soon found herself learning some of the most coveted roles in the repertoire. In addition to her time in San Francisco, she has danced extensively in Europe with the English National Ballet and Hamburg Ballet. We talk to Madison about why being wil...

This week on ‘Conversations On Dance', we are by joined by Marika Molnar, founder and president of Westside Dance Physical Therapy. Marika is often called the godmother of dance medicine, and with good reason. After helping to rehabilitate George Balanchine after a knee surgery, she became the first full time physical therapist on staff at the New York City Ballet. Since then, she has influe...

Today we are returning to our time at San Francisco Ballet last April for the company’s Unbound Festival.   This week we talk with Frances Chung, Principal Dancer with San Francisco Ballet. Frances was born in Vancouver, Canada and received her training at Goh Ballet Academy.     She   joined San Francisco Ballet as a member of the corps de ballet in 2001 and was promoted to principal dancer in 20...

This week on Conversations On Dance, we are joined by the chief dance critic of the New York Times, and one of our most frequent guests, Alastair Macaulay. Alastair, an expert on dance history, has previously guided us through histories of Balanchine's classic ballet ‘Serenade' and the work of Frederic Ashton. This week he delves into the true history of one of ballet's most revered choreogr...

This episode was recorded live on Saturday, December 8th, 2018 at the Yumiko New York Flagship Boutique.  We sit down with dancer and actress, Juliet Doherty.  Juliet comes from a family of dancers, spending her entire childhood in the studio.  Always active in musical theater, Juliet toured the world playing the coveted role of Clara alongside the renowned Radio City Rockettes in the Radio City C...

This week on Conversations On Dance we are joined by one of the ballet world's most celebrated pianists, Cameron Grant. Cameron joined the New York City Ballet in 1984, where he was appointed pianist of the New York City Ballet orchestra four years later. He has played nearly every major piano ballet in the repertoire, including Balanchine masterworks like ‘Davidsbundlertanze' and ‘Tch...

This week on Conversations On Dance, we are joined by Miami City Ballet dancer Eric Trope. While so much attention is understandably given to the physical health of dancers, Eric has been an outspoken advocate for supporting the mental health of dancers to the same extent. In this episode, we cover the difficulty of performing anxiety, dealing with body shaming and what can be done both individual...

Today we are joined by Miami City Ballet Artistic Director, Lourdes Lopez, and our former boss.   Born in Havana, Cuba and raised in Miami, Lopez began taking ballet lessons at the age of five and continued her training full time at the School of American Ballet when she was 14. George Balanchine chose her to join the   New York City Ballet corps de ballet shortly after her 16th birthday.   She da...

This week on Conversations On Dance, we spoke with Houston Ballet soloist Harper Watters. Though Harper's talents led to prominent roles with the Houston Ballet and two promotions, he gained attention both within the dance community and in pop culture at large, in viral videos of himself dancing in towering pink heels. We talk to Harper about how he has leveraged his social media stardom into crea...

This week on Conversations On Dance, we are joined by choreographer Arthur Pita. Pita graduated with a master's degree from London Contemporary Dance School, and has choreographed internationally in many different formats, including works for opera, musical theatre, plays and film. He has garnered attention for his imaginative and personal re-interpretations of classic narratives like Kafka's &#82...

This week we are joined by San Francisco Ballet Principal Dancer, Sasha De Sola.  Born in Winter Park, Florida, Sasha trained at the Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington, D.C. on a full merit scholarship.  In 2004, Ms. De Sola received a scholarship for studies at the Paris Opera Ballet School.  At the age of 17, Sasha joined San Francisco Ballet where she rose through the ranks and was promoted...

In today’s bonus episode we are continuing our coverage of San Francisco Ballet at the Kennedy Center as they showcase 6 works from the company’s Unbound: a festival of new works.   Today’s episode was recorded in April when we were in San Francisco as these works all premiered.   We talk with new corps member, Natasha Sheehan about training at San Francisco Ballet School, joining the company, and...

This week’s episode of ‘Conversations On Dance’ was recorded live at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Our guest is former New York City Ballet principal and Artistic Director of the San Francisco Ballet, Helgi Tomasson. The San Francisco Ballet is performing at the Kennedy Center this week, from October 23 – 28, 2018. They will be performing six works that premiered earlier this year at...

This week we are joined by Sarah Van Patten, Principal with   San Francisco Ballet.   Sarah trained at Ballet Workshop of New England, and danced with Massachusetts Youth Ballet. In 2000 at age 15, she joined the Royal Danish Ballet as an apprentice where John Neumeier cast her as Juliet in his Romeo and Juliet . Soon after, she was promoted to the rank of corps dancer, one of the youngest corps d...

This week on Conversations on Dance we are joined from the Vail Dance Festival by Stella Abrera, Principal with American Ballet Theatre.   Stella began her training in her home town of Pasadena, California.   Her family moved to Sydney, Australia where she spent three years studying the Royal Academy of Dancing (or RAD).   After returning to the States, Abrera joined American Ballet Theatre as a m...

This week on Conversations On Dance, we talk to Daniel Applebaum, dancer with the New York City Ballet. Daniel joined the company in 2005, and quickly became one of the most depended upon dancers, regularly dancing triple bills, morphing into   varied choreographic styles, and keeping dozens of ballets ready to go in his mind and body. Noted for his intelligence, elegance, musicality, and full out...