Imagine the feeling you have when the sun hits your cheeks, warming them on a particularly brisk morning walk. Now, call to mind the burst of juicy goodness when you bite into that perfect summer ripe peach, its initial tartness smacking your tastebuds awake just in time to give way to the glorious sweetness of…
Shoba Narayan, who plays Princess Jasmine in Broadway’s Aladdin, just so happens to also be an award-winning bharatanatyam performer and teacher, as well as a classical violinist and trained ballet dancer. That sheer variety of artistic training has enabled Narayan to breathe vivid, original life into characters like Hamilton’s Eliza on tour, Wicked’s Nessarose and…
When COVID-19 smacked the world in the face during spring 2020, pushing a premiere of a new work three years ahead seemed sensible, responsive and strategic. It felt like if we just wait it out long enough, we’ll be able to do what we used to do. Now, we are fully into Season 3 of…
You know the clichéd question: If you could go back in time and tell your younger self one thing, what would it be? At the moment, I would very much like to go back eight months in time and beg that naive version of myself to meet with a physical therapist before diving back into rigorous training….
Why do I dance? I never really asked myself that question. My initial love for dance was visceral and complete; when I started as a teenager, my brain and body had found an activity that could consume my thoughts and my schedule, and I accepted that with joy. At 17, when I moved to New…
We’ve all been there: you get cut at an audition, you don’t get the role that you want, you don’t get into the program that you adore, you don’t get the grant that you were crossing your fingers for. One could argue that such rejection and disappointment is just part of a dance artist’s life,…
For Jody Gottfried Arnhold, dance and dance education are one and the same. The visionary philanthropist has spent her career dedicated to transforming the lives of New York City’s public school students through dance; first as a teacher, and then as the founder of the 92nd Street Y’s Dance Education Laboratory, a program designed to…
All dancers are amazing. That’s a fact. Every single dancer works hard, has discipline, is an artist in their own way and has a story to tell. And while all dancers have these things in common, the beauty is that each dancer is different. A different mind, a different body – uniquely their own. And…