• Contributors
    • Catherine L. Tully, Owner/Editor
    • Dance Writers
      • Rachel Hellwig, Assistant Editor — Dance
      • Jessika Anspach McEliece, Contributor — Dance
      • Janice Barringer, Contributor – Dance
      • José Pablo Castro Cuevas, Contributor — Dance
      • Katie C. Sopoci Drake, Contributor – Dance
      • Ashley Ellis, Contributor — Dance
      • Samantha Hope Galler, Contributor – Dance
      • Cara Marie Gary, Contributor – Dance
      • Luis Eduardo Gonzalez, Contributor — Dance
      • Karen Musey, Contributor – Dance
      • Janet Rothwell (Neidhardt), Contributor — Dance
      • Matt de la Peña, Contributor – Dance
      • Lucy Vurusic Riner, Contributor – Dance
      • Alessa Rogers, Contributor — Dance
      • Emma Love Suddarth, Contributor — Dance
      • Andrea Thompson, Contributor – Dance
      • Sally Turkel, Contributor — Dance
      • Lauren Warnecke, Contributor – Dance
      • Sharon Wehner, Contributor – Dance
      • Ashley Werhun, Contributor — Dance
      • Dr. Frank Sinkoe, Contributor – Podiatry
      • Jessica Wilson, Assistant Editor – Dance
    • Dance Wellness Panel
      • Jan Dunn, MS, Editor
      • Gigi Berardi, PhD
      • James Garrick, MD
      • Robin Kish, MS, MFA
      • Moira McCormack, MS
      • Janice G. Plastino, PhD
      • Emma Redding, PhD
      • Erin Sanchez, MS
      • Selina Shah, MD, FACP
      • Nancy Wozny
      • Matthew Wyon, PhD
    • Music & Dance Writers
      • Scott Speck, Contributor – Music
    • Interns
      • Intern Wanted For 4dancers
    • Contact
  • About
    • About 4dancers
    • Advertise With 4dancers
    • Product Reviews on 4dancers
    • Disclosure
  • Contact

4dancers.org

A website for dancers, dance teachers and others interested in dance

Follow Us on Social!

Visit Us On YoutubeVisit Us On TwitterVisit Us On PinterestVisit Us On FacebookVisit Us On Instagram
  • 4dancers
    • Adult Ballet
    • Career
    • Auditions
    • Competition
    • Summer Intensives
    • Pointe Shoes & Footwear
      • Breaking In Shoes
      • Freed
      • Pointe Shoe Products
      • Vegan Ballet Slippers
      • Other Footwear
  • 4teachers
    • Teaching Tips
    • Dance History
    • Dance In The US
    • Studios
  • Choreography
  • Dance Wellness
    • Conditioning And Training
    • Foot Care
    • Injuries
    • Nutrition
      • Recipes/Snacks
  • Dance Resources
    • Dance Conferences
    • Dance Products
      • Books & Magazines
      • DVDs
      • Dance Clothing & Shoes
      • Dance Gifts
      • Flamenco & Spanish Dance
      • Product Reviews
    • Social Media
  • Editorial
    • Interviews
      • 10 Questions With…
      • Dance Blog Spotlight
      • Post Curtain Chat
      • Student Spotlight
    • Dance in the UK
    • Finding Balance
    • Musings
    • One Dancer’s Journey
    • Pas de Trois
    • SYTYCD
    • The Business Of Dance
    • Finis
  • Music & Dance
    • CD/Music Reviews

Nutcracker and the Importance of Diversity in the Arts

December 18, 2018 by 4dancers

Joffrey's Nutcracker
The Joffrey Ballet performs The Nutcracker. Photo by Cheryl Mann.

by Luis Gonzalez

The Joffrey Ballet’s version of The Nutcracker is set during the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The first act is set in December during the construction of the fair and before the grand opening. This setting includes immigrants from different ethnic backgrounds, low income families, and single mothers; people who are in unfavorable circumstances but work diligently to give themselves and their children a better future. Personally, this is my favorite part of the ballet because in terms of narrative, it’s the part with which I resonate the most. I also think it makes an important point to promote diversity in ballet and to give a new medium to a perspective that is often not included in classical ballet. The basic plot of the story still follows a parallel trajectory as the original, but important changes were made by the writer Brian Selznick which help make the traditionally opulent and arguably dated story resonate with the vibrant and culturally diverse city of Chicago.

My family came the United States from Colombia to give me and my siblings opportunities which might have been scarce in our own country. Latino’s are extremely family oriented and often form very strong and dependent bonds with family members. In my family we all lived within close proximity of each other and took every opportunity to celebrate that. Some of my favorite memories from growing up in Colombia are of long dining room tables where once every two weeks the entire family would gather at my grandmother’s house. Despite that, my parents still made the sacrifice of leaving their parents and friends behind for a better shot at their children’s dreams. I imagine the people in the first act of this ballet made similar sacrifices and experienced similar or even more complicated paradoxes in making those decisions.

I’ve danced six versions of The Nutcracker and every version had something different and special to offer. I remember my very first role was a party child. We were dressed in lavish Victorian clothes and I remember having a great time pretending to be someone else. I had just moved to the U.S. and, at my request, started dancing ballet. I didn’t speak English, and I didn’t fit in culturally, but I loved ballet and that was all that really mattered. I am grateful for every experience I’ve had with dance and for having dance in my life. At the time, dancing was the outlet I was granted to express myself and all of the difficulties that I experienced through trying to adjust to my new environment. The art form helped me through bullying in school, through figuring out my sexuality, through heartbreak…but think of how much more it could do if kids growing up today were dancing through stories to which they could relate.

This idea of diversity also extends to the impact that it has in ballets without a story. I personally know many dancers who left the art form altogether because of the frustration of not being able to see a body type, a skin color, or an ethnicity which resembled their own. Stories like this version of The Nutcracker make an effort to be inclusive and to show young kids that ballet is not only an artistic medium for people who look a certain way, but there are many prejudice notions and exclusive biases still in the ballet world which need to be addressed. Although ballet is an aesthetic art form in which the line that your body makes is an integral component of higher quality work, I also believe that you do not have to be born with the perfect conditions to learn how to make a beautiful line.

The Joffrey Ballet’s Nutcracker. Photo by Cheryl Mann.

As an older dancer, one starts to understand that there is room in every character for personal interpretation and that you can pull from personal experience to enhance character development. As a child however, that kind of abstract thought is not often attainable. I look at the kids now that are in the children’s cast of Nutcracker, some of them immigrants or children of immigrants, and I feel so happy that they are in a version where they can see themselves directly reflected in the narrative of the story. They can ask questions about the story and maybe learn some things about how their ancestors helped shape the building blocks of the United States. They may not realize now how it affects their idea of normalcy, or the perception the hold of themselves and what they are capable of in the world now, but eventually I think they will look back and be grateful for having been a part of an artistic venture which strived to include the experiences and the influence that immigrants have had in this country.

I have always believed that art was a very powerful thing, and as with all powerful things, it is a double-edged sword. The arts have been historically used through centuries for many reasons; to celebrate a moment of joy, to maintain appearances, exert power, or just to give a medium of expression to whoever needed it. It may sound silly to say, but in many ways the people in control of art organizations still have power over the trajectory of people’s lives (especially that of developing young minds) and they must understand how that responsibility could be used for the better. As it was in my case, ballet could be one of the best gifts that a person ever receives, but I have also seen it have very negative effects on people’s concepts of self-worth, mental health, and just generally feeling excluded from something that they love.

The reason I think it’s important for us as dancers to start conversations about topics like these is because just like children are the future of the world, we are the future of dance leadership. Someday dancers in companies today will be in management positions in different capacities. Whether it’s the directorship of a company, a ballet master position, a choreographer, a teacher, or a school owner, there will be situations where we will have agency over situations that may seem small at the time. In those moments I think it will be important for us to remember how the arts have shaped our lives, and how different they might have been if we had not had them, as well as how negatively they have affected other people. Being mindful of biases and treating people with equity are integral parts of creating a more cohesive and progressive reality. Implementing these principles towards the leadership of the future can create an environment for people that capitalizes on the increase of gradience in the colors and tell stories both on and off the stage that unite us instead of divide us.


Mr. Gonzalez, is originally from Bogota, Colombia, where he grew up before moving to Atlanta, Georgia. His training came primarily from the continued direction of Maniya Barredo, former prima ballerina of Atlanta Ballet, and current director of Metropolitan Ballet Theatre. Mr. Gonzalez has received the Star Student award at Regional Dance America’s SERBA, been awarded 3rd place at the Regional Youth American Grand Prix competition in 2008, given first place pas de deux at the American Ballet Competition in 2013, and selected to compete as the only representative of Colombia in the 2014 Jackson International Ballet Competition.


Luis Eduardo Gonzalez
Joffrey’s Luis Eduardo Gonzalez, Photo by Cheryl Mann

Mr. Gonzalez began his professional career with The Houston Ballet II, where he had the opportunity to dance works by Stanton Welch, among other renowned choreographers, as well as tour both nationally and internationally. At 18, he joined Orlando Ballet where he danced for three years and performed roles such as the Jester in Swan Lake, Peter in Peter and the Wolf, Ghoul’s trio in Vampire’s Ball, Franz’s friend in Coppelia, and Cavalier in the Sugar Plum Pas de deux in The Nutcracker.

Filed Under: 4dancers Tagged With: Brian Selznick, Cheryl Mann, Chicago World's Fair, christopher Wheeldon, classical ballet, Diversity, Diversity in Ballet, Diversity in the Arts, Joffrey's Nutcracker, the joffrey ballet, the nutcracker

Brooklyn Ballet: Revolutionaries and Romantics

April 13, 2012 by 4dancers

Brooklyn Ballet’s 2012 season, “Revolutionaries and Romantics” is currently underway, and it includes a performance at the Kumble Theater today, Friday, April 13th. We corresponded with Artistic Director Lynn Parkerson about live music, different dance styles and more. Here’s a behind-the-scenes peek…

Photo by Julie Lemberger

The project started with a conversation with Kumble Theater Director, Rodney Hurley. He wondered what kind of program Brooklyn Ballet would create to illuminate major influences in classical ballet at the turn of the century ca.1890-1920. My first thought was Isadora Duncan and the Russian ballet. Research suggests that Isadora had a profound influence on classical ballet. Michel Fokine, Anna Pavlova, Sergei Diaghilev were all mad about her performances. I was curious about the structural and artistic ideas of both Duncan and Fokine and sought to interweave Duncan’s Chopin Waltzes and Fokine’s Les Sylphides. I found wonderful similarities and harmonious contrasts, a dance of great ghosts. She is the Revolutionary, he is the Romantic. Her courage gave life to his romantic ideas heretofore suppressed by the constraints of the Russian Imperial Theater. There are other tie-ins to the theme. Isadora’s own work plums the depths of love and her Chopin Dances are all about romantic love. Isadora’s powerful Revolutionary Etude, one of her last works, expresses like no other work the spirit of Revolution.

Photo by Julie Lemberger

I like the way different dance styles connect with each other even though they are seemingly quite different. I like to find connections, then expand on them as opposed to fusing two styles. For example, when I add three African-based modern dancers to The Marzipan Dance from The Nutcracker, the dancers remain in separate opposing diagonals, the choreography of the ballet dancers, spiky, light and vertical, the choreography of the modern dancers low-slung, lateral, weighted. They dance in unison nonetheless, a rhythmically-related flirt fest!

I’ve also been working with pop and lock dancers since 2005, collaborating primarily with Michael “Mike Supreme” Fields. In this season our departure point was Stravinsky’s “Suite Italienne.” What is so interesting is how the “pop and lock” dancers respond to the Stravinsky in such a directly personal way. The ballet dancers, on the other hand, have step material through which the music is interpreted more abstractly. Still, when performed all together the dancers are characters on the stage, relating to each other in their given forms. The ballet dancers are at times improvising and the “pop and lock” dancers are choreographing. Both sets of dancers are exploring new territories.

Photo by Julie Lemberger

A whole world, of human interaction, of sound coming from human hands on acoustic instruments. The musicians–violinist Gil Morgenstern, director of The Reflection Series, and pianist Julius Abrahams–are world class. Their music soars and gives the dancers such a ground to dance on and an energy that changes from minute to minute, is slightly unpredictable, that forces the dancers to interact.

What is next for Brooklyn Ballet?

Next season I’d like to create a work that uses digital technology to map out floor patterns of the dancers in real time. I want to reveal the conscious use of space that I and all choreographers use as we create. Choreographers don’t take space for granted. I want to let the audience in on this. Music choices will include Harpsichord works by Louis and Francois Couperin. It is also Brooklyn Ballet’s 10th year anniversary so we’ll be celebrating our education and outreach programs as well.

BIO: Lynn Parkerson, Founding Artistic Director of Brooklyn Ballet, began ballet studies as a child with Barbara Bounds in Chapel Hill, NC. She later danced with the Boston and Chicago Ballets, performing many Nutcrackers and Balanchine ballets. In New York City, she was a trainee at the Harkness House for Ballet Arts and on scholarship at the Merce Cunningham School, where she studied technique and learned repertory. In addition, she trained in the Limón Technique with Libby Nye and ballet with the Corvinos. From 1986 to 1996, she performed the repertory of Isadora Duncan as interpreted by Hortense Koulouris and Julia Levien.

Ms. Parkerson began to choreograph while living in Munich, Germany, dancing with Birgitta Trommler’s TanzProject Munchen. Her work has been presented at many promi- nent international events and venues, including the Munich Theater Festival, Frankfurt’s Theatre am Turm, the Florence International Festival of Dance, Moers New Jazz Festival, Jazz Festival Baden-Baden and An Appalachian Summer Arts Festival in Boone, NC, among others. In New York City, she presented annual dance programs—notably the popular ballet series To the Pointe—as Director of Dance at Holy Trin- ity from 1991-2001. Her work has been supported by grants from the Harkness Foundation for Dance, Joyce Mertz-Gilm- ore Foundation and Con Edison. She was on the faculty at the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center from 1989-1996 and then served as its Assistant Director from 1996-1999. Ms. Parkerson has taught dance, improvisation, and choreogra- phy to children and adults in New York and abroad.

In recognition of her exceptional leadership contributions to Brooklyn’s cultural community, Ms. Parkerson received the Betty Smith Arts Award as part of the Women’s “Her- story” Induction Ceremony and Reception in 2007. Each year, the awards, named after some of the most outstand- ing women in Brooklyn “herstory,” are presented to six Brooklyn women. In 2006 she received the Paul Robeson Award for Artistic Excellence and Community Service.

 

Filed Under: 4dancers, Organizations Tagged With: anna pavlova, brooklyn ballet, classical ballet, fokine, isadora duncan, kumble theater, les sylphides, lynn parkerson, serge diaghilev

Musings: Point of View – Dance and the Camera

September 17, 2011 by Kimberly Peterson

by Kimberly Peterson

There are few examples of what dance and the camera can be that reach the caliber of Amelia from La La La Human Steps.

The 2002 production, choreographed by Edouard Locke, melds incredible feats of dance into a feature length production that is simultaneously engaging, challenging and entertaining. The excerpt below is from this longer work and is one of the most intricate and breathtaking uses of classical ballet I’ve seen performed.

 

While the technical proficiency can not be denied in this work, the use of the camera to break the formal presentation of this classic art-form is really groundbreaking and highlights things that would be missed in traditional presentation as well as in traditional documentary footage. This exemplifies the camera as a tool, a co-creator and an audience in and of itself.

Camera as Tool:
Framing the initial shot of the dance, the camera zooms in to focus our attention on the performer. Bringing us closely in line with her stillness, searching for movement and in doing so, bonding our connection to her.

The subtleties of the dance are highlighted through the use of the camera’s tools of rotation and distance, keeping the viewer focused on the elements the choreographer wants you to see, while ignoring the open space until the intricate spell is broken by the pedestrian movement. Further, such play in focus and space directs your attention to elements that perhaps would have been lost if conceiving this work in a traditional performance environment, such as the shadow play in the middle of the work (2:37-2:55). [Read more…]

Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: amelia, classical ballet, dance and camera, kimberly peterson, La La La Human Steps

Dance Artwork

Get Your Dance Career Info Here!

Dance ebook cover

Podcast

Disclosure – Affiliate & Ad Info

This site sometimes features advertising, affiliate marketing, or affiliate links, such as Amazon Associate links and others. When you click on these links, we get a small sum that helps to support the website operations. Thank you! There’s more detailed information on ads and our disclosure policy under the About tab in our navigation at the top of the site. We clearly mark any and all posts that contain these features.

Copyright Notice

Please note that all of the content on 4dancers.org is copyrighted. Do not copy, utilize, or distribute without express permission. We take cases of infringement seriously. All rights reserved ©2022.

Copyright © 2025 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in