Conversations on Dance

This week we are joined from the 2019 Vail Dance Festival last summer by Charlotte Landreau, dancer with Martha Graham Dance Company.   A  native of France, she trained first as a rhythmic gymnast, where she was the third in France.  With her sights set on the Olympics, an injury forced her career  trajectory to shift.   She attended the Béjart School in Switzerland, studying acting and dance, bef...

This week we are joined from the 2019 Vail Dance Festival this past summer, by Christopher Grant, New York City Ballet dancer.  Christopher was born in Jamaica, Queens. He began his dance training at the School of American Ballet (SAB) in 2002.  In August 2015, he became an apprentice with NYCB and joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet in August 2016.  We talk with Chris about his...

This week we are sharing with you a live podcast recording from the 2019 Vail Dance Festival. Here we speak with Visual  Artist Kenneth Parris III and dancer Melissa Toogood on Tuesday July 30th, 2019.   Kenneth had many of his Merce Cunningham paintings and drawings featured throughout the festival this year, and many of these pieces feature Cunningham dancer and his wife, Melissa Toogood. We sit...

This week on Conversations on Dance, we talk with dancer turned photographer, Erin Baiano from the Vail Dance Festival. If you follow Vail Dance Festival on social media, it is Erin's beautiful photos that tell the story of the festival, from rehearsals to performances.  Erin grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and attended the School of American Ballet before joining American Ballet Theat...

This week we are joined from the 2019 Vail Dance Festival by Adji Cissoko, dancer with Alonzo King LINES Ballet.  Adji grew up in Munich, Germany where she trained at Ballet Academy Munich. She attended the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre on full scholarship, before joining the National Ballet of Canada in 2010. In 2014, she joined LINES Ballet. We talk with Adji about...

This week, on Conversations on Dance, we are joined by Eduardo Vilaro, Artistic Director of Ballet Hispánico. Eduardo recounts his early years adjusting to New York City life as a Cuban immigrant, what it was like building his first company from the ground up, and how Ballet Hispánico has carved out an identity for itself that is unique in the dance world. Ballet Hispánico, America's leading Latin...

This week on COD, we are joined by New York City Ballet dancer India Bradley. With a history of dance in her family, India began her training in her home state of Michigan. After training at DTH and SAB, India was accepted into NYCB. After just one year in the company, she has proven to be an in demand talent elsewhere, with a spate of additional performing opportunities that have included the Ash...

Today we are joined by Houston Ballet Principal Dancer, Connor Walsh. Born in Fairfax, Virginia, Connor began his training at the age of seven under the direction of his mother Constance Walsh. He has trained at The Kirov Academy of Ballet, The Harid Conservatory, and Houston Ballet’s Ben Stevenson Academy. In 2004, Walsh joined Houston Ballet’s company as a member of the corps de ballet. He was q...

This week on Conversations on Dance, we are joined by New York City Ballet dancer Preston Chamblee. Preston hails from North Carolina, where he began his dance training. After dancing at the School of American Ballet, Preston was accepted into the New York City Ballet and shortly after began to dance featured roles in ballets like ‘Morgen', ‘Rodeo' and ‘Year of the Rabbit'. Prest...

This week we are joined from the 2019 Vail Dance Festival by Julian MacKay, first soloist at the Mikhailovsky Theatre.  Born in Montana, he quickly discovered his passion for ballet as a young boy, moving to Russia to train at just 11 years old.  He went on to train at the Moscow State Ballet Academy for six years, graduating top of his class. He danced for 8 months at the Royal Ballet before retu...

This week it's just Rebecca and Michael.  We sit down to go through the responses from our listener survey.  We talk about some of the statistics that came to light from our questionnaire, go through some of the guest requests, talk about the ins and outs of creating the podcast, and go through your feed back.  If you have not yet taken our survey, it's not too late: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r...

This week we are joined by Christine Shevchenko, Principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre.   Christine was born in Ukraine, where she was chosen to train in rhythmic gymnastics and ballet at an Olympic school.   At eight years of age, she moved with her family to the United States where she trained for nine years at Pennsylvania Ballet’s Rock School.   In 2003, Christine became the youngest r...

This week we are joined by Yumiko Takeshima, founder of dance wear company, Yumiko.   Yumiko began dancing at the age of four in Sapporo Japan.   At the age of 14, she moved to San Francisco to study at San Francisco Ballet School.   Yumiko went on to dance with various companies, before ultimately ending up at Dutch National Ballet where she danced for over a decade.   While at Dutch National, ou...

It's just Rebecca and Michael this week, breaking down everything that happened surrounding Lara Spencer's comments on Prince George studying ballet on Good Morning America.  We are guessing that this story may have made it on your radar over the past few days, but we are here to break down the dance community's reaction, why it was important, and how Good Morning America reacted on Monday morning...

Today we are bringing you a live podcast recording from the Vail Dance Festival with New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Lauren Lovette.   We catch up on what she has been up to since we saw her last summer, talk about her choreography, and her position of Artist in Residence this year at the festival.   Unfortunately, we again had a technology glitch during this episode and are bringing you an...

Today we are bringing you a live podcast recording from the Vail Dance Festival with Jookin superstar, Lil Buck.   Charles “Lil Buck” Riley is an dancer, actor and model from Memphis, Tennessee who specializes in a style of street dance called jookin. He gained popularity after director Spike Jonze used his cell phone to record an interpretive performance of “ The Dying Swan ” by Lil Buck and Yo-Y...

Today we are bringing you a live podcast recording from the Vail Dance Festival with Festival Artistic Director Damian Woetzel and Janet Eilber, Martha Graham Dance Company Artistic Director.   The pair talks with us about the Graham legacy, their roles as artistic directors of their respective organizations, and what audiences can expect to see from the Martha Graham Dance Company this year in Va...

Today we are bringing you a live podcast recording from the Vail Dance Festival with New York City Ballet Principal Tiler Peck. In her 11th year at the Vail Dance Festival, Tiler continues to explore her work as a choreographer with a revival of last year's premiere ‘Lincoln Square' and new premiere to Caroline Shaw's ‘Thousandth Orange'. We talk to her about her choreographic inspirat...

Today we sit down with choreographer Pam Tanowitz from the Vail Dance Festival.  We spoke with Pam from a Live event at Washington DC’s Kennedy Center in episode 140 and today we get to chat with her about her new creation for Vail.  This is a small excerpt of a longer conversation on her work that we will be publishing in the coming weeks.  In this bonus episode, Pam gives us some insight into he...

New York City Ballet up-and-coming corps member, Roman Mejia, sits down with us from the Vail Dance Festival.  We talk about his year of dance since we last saw him in Vail, working with Edward Villella, and on performing Alexei Ratmansky's ‘Fandango' here at Vail Dance Festival on August 2nd, 2019. This episode is brought to you by Yumiko  and the Town of Vail.  This episode was recorded at...

American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer, Herman Cornejo, sits down with us from the Vail Dance Festival.  We talk about his year of dance since we last saw him in Vail, his 20th anniversary with ABT, and about what he is dancing this year at the festival.  You will want to listen to the end where he shares some BIG news with us! This episode is brought to you by Yumiko and the Town of Vail. The p...

Today we are bringing you a live podcast recording from the Vail Dance Festival on the Vail premiere of “The Little Prince.”   We are joined by choreographer, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and BalletX dancer who dances the title role in the peice, Roderick Phifer.   This episode was recorded on July 29th, 2019, one day before the ballet will hit the stage here in Vail on   the evening of July 30th. Tune i...

Today we are brining you a live podcast recording from the Vail Dance Festival with American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer, James Whiteside.   This episode was recorded on July 27th, the morning before the premier of his newest work, “New American Dream.”   Unfortunately, we did come up against some technical difficulties, so we are sharing this episode from a backup file, with a little lower qu...

This week we have the pleasure of diving into one of the works that will be presented this year at the Lake Tahoe Dance Festival, Agnes De Mille’s ‘The Other.'  We speak with dancers Stephen Hanna (formerly of NYCB) and Abi Stafford (Principal at NYCB) who will be performing this work at the festival. We are also joined by Diana Gonzalez-Duclert, who is setting the ballet on Stephen and Abi....

It's just Rebecca and Michael this week on the pod.  We talk about looking forward to this year's Vail Dance Festival, our 3 year anniversary, what Michael has been up to, and we answer your questions from social media. This episode is brought to you by Yumiko (yumiko.com.) The post (144) Rebecca and Michael: Catching Up & Vail Dance Festival Preview appeared first on tendusunderapalmtree.com...