Shawl-Anderson Dance Center: Celebrating a Half-Century of Making Dance and Community

In 1958, dance class was $2 at the studio Frank Shawl and Victor Anderson started above a liquor store on College Avenue in Berkeley. Adjusted for inflation, that means they […]

Bringing the Message: Naomi Diouf and Diamano Coura West African Dance Company

My conversation with Naomi Diouf, who with her husband Dr. Zakayria (Zak) Diouf is artistic director of Diamano Coura West African Dance Company, came about because of the upcoming celebration, […]

MAKING THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE: Jo Kreiter Brings Attention to Older Homeless Women

Isadora Duncan Award-winning choreographer Jo Kreiter draws from a variety of disciplines and lenses: gymnastics, Chinese pole acrobatics, social justice and urban revitalization, to name a few. Along with her apparatus-based aerial dance […]

Tips for the Business of Dance: Making Your Resolutions Real

It’s that season again when people dream of getting fit, learning a new skill, or accomplishing something grand in their personal or professional lives. After all, looking toward the new […]

The Body Politic: Baroque Dance Speaks Truth to Power in The Temple of Glory

Dance has never been more political than it is today, with artists creating work on themes of feminism, racism, inequality, violence and the fight for justice. The issues may be topical, […]

SPEAK: Shifting the Paradigm

Many of us teaching artists have unwittingly become stuck in dangerous perceptual habits. While this is happening across all levels of education, I want to focus on the issues of college […]

Lighting Your Work

“Lighting design is a collaborative profession in which the lighting designer collaborates with backgrounds, things, purposes and people. In the theatre the lighting designer’s collaboration is with all these at […]

Art Meets Life: The 30th Annual Planetary Dance

At the end of the movie Miss Congeniality, Sandra Bullock’s character tearfully confesses that she really does want world peace. Okay, it’s a little silly—and I’m not embarrassed to admit […]

A Legacy of Innovation Within Tradition: Talking About Creating New Work with Celine Schein and Rachna Nivas

I am in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco visiting the administrative offices of the Chitresh Das Dance Company (CDDC) and Chhandam School of Kathak, founded by dancer, choreographer and […]

Critical Dialogues: Rachel Howard and Gregory Dawson

What if, rather than writing a review, a critic sat down with a choreographer to have a two- way conversation about the work? That’s the experiment behind Critical Dialogues. For this […]