Conversations on Dance

Today we are revisiting the 2021 Vail Dance Festival and one of our favorite chats from the summer. This week on the pod, we sit down with NYC-based Musician, Caroline Shaw. Caroline is a vocalist, violinist, composer, and producers. She was the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013 for  Partita for 8 Voices , written for the Grammy-winning Roomful of Teeth, of which she...

This week we are joined by choreographer, Durante Verzola. Durante began to hone his choreographic talents while training to become a dancer at the Miami City Ballet School. While still dancing professionally at Pennsylvania Ballet and Suzanne Farrell Ballet, the choreographic notices continued to pour in and he's since created many works for Miami City Ballet, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet an...

Today on the podcast, we check in with our friends at St. Mary's College's LEAP Program. We last heard about LEAP from the program's Associate Director, Stephanie Miller, in episode 170 from January of 2020. When we spoke with her right before the pandemic, the program was working on launching an online program. Since then, the program has expanded exponentially to reach more dancers throughout th...

This week on Conversations on Dance, we are joined by Jacob Jonas, Director, Choreographer, and Artistic Director of Jacob Jonas the Company. Jacob started dancing at the age of 13 when he came across a street-performing group in Venice Beach.  From there, his passion for dance expanded into various technique and across many different mediums. He is the founding Artistic Director of Jacob Jon...

Today on Conversations on Dance, we talk with Marzia Memoli, chorus dancer with Martha Graham Dance Company. Marzia is from Palermo, Italy, where she started her dance and ballet training. She graduated from the Academy of Teatro Carcano in Milan and the Bejart’s school, where she performed with the Bejart Ballet Lausanne. In 2016, she joined the Martha Graham Dance Company. We initially chatted w...

Today on Conversations on Dance, we are joined by friend of the pod and New York City Ballet Soloist, Georgina Pazcoguin. This summer, Georgina's new book, “Swan Dive” was released, so we caught up with her between rehearsals and performances to chat. While she sat outside of the David H Koch Theater, she told us about the inspiration behind the book, her writing process, what she hopes readers ta...

Today we are joined by one of our former colleagues, Nathalia Arja, principal dancer with Miami City Ballet. Nathalia was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where she began taking dance classes at the age of five at her mother's ballet school. As a young dancer she competed in and won several dance competitions, where she was offered scholarships to various prestigious schools. At her mother's suggest...

Today we chat with New York City Ballet Principal Dancer, Russell Janzen, from the 2021 Vail Dance Festival. Russell was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and began his dance training at the age of six at The Rock School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He enrolled as a full-time student at the School of American Ballet in the winter of 2005. In June 2008, he joined the New York City Ballet as a memb...

On today's episode of Conversations On Dance we speak with Wes Chapman, former American Ballet Theatre principal, former director of Alabama Ballet, and sought after teacher and coach. Wes tells us about his illustrious career performing on the Met stage with ABT, how he came to direct Alabama Ballet, and how he now shepherds young dancers into their own professional careers as the chairman of the...

On this episode of Conversations on Dance, recorded at the 2021 Vail Dance Festival, we give you an inside look at two roles that are essential to every dance and ballet performance. Today we are joined by NYCB Assistant Stage Manager, Nicole Mitchell Mommen, and Lighting Director and Lighting Designer of Boston Ballet, Brandon Stirling Baker. Nicole was the stage manager at Miami City Ballet for...

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....