Yet since transitioning from primarily a dance artist to primarily a choreographic artist, I’ve found my collaborators and mindset shifting from week to week. Going on the road to work on multiple projects a year, living out of a suitcase, isn’t the easiest lifestyle. You are perpetually encountering new artists and spaces. With that comes the dreaded impostor syndrome: Am I experienced enough? How will people receive what I’ve created? Will the dancers connect with what I’m building? Those questions had been holding me hostage.

Dance was inescapable in my childhood. My parents are dance teachers and ran a school out of our New Jersey home for more than 40 years. When I was old enough to answer the phone, instead of “Blackstone residence,” I was instructed to say “STUDIO!” Photos from an early ’90s family trip reveal my dad proudly wearing a T-shirt that says “Dance or Die—New York City.” I remember feeling embarrassed that he was wearing something that so loudly proclaimed his love of dance to all the other “normal” families.

Since 1956, the annual song competition, a sequined spectacle of original songs from member countries of the Euro­pean Broadcasting Union, has launched Abba, Celine Dion, and Riverdance, among other memorable acts. While Eurovision has long been immensely popular in Europe, until recently it has been much less widely known in the U.S.

Broadway choreography has long been an amalgam of different social dances and forms like jazz, tap, and ballet. But today’s shows are increasingly using movement makers from genres outside the musical theater world altogether, like experimental dance (David Neumann, Annie-B Parson, Raja Feather Kelly), commercial dance (Sonya Tayeh, JaQuel Knight, Keone and Mari Madrid), modern dance (Camille A. Brown), and physical theater (Steven Hoggett).

Borrow­ing from hip hop, popping, house, contemporary, and other genres, he dissects established moves to uncover their intricacies and repackages them in unexpected patterns that require astonishing coordination. Though highly technical, his choreography never lacks feeling, resonating with global audiences through cinematic digital shorts, as well as with live audiences at his full-length shows.

As a choreographer, recognition brings opportunity. However, making a name for yourself comes with certain drawbacks. When audiences and funders have particular expectations, taking your work in a new direction is more than just an artistic risk: It can mean losing favor with the people you need to sustain your work. How can a choreographer […]

Before he even knew what a choreographer really was, Keenan Cooks was certain that’s what he would do. Growing up in Boston, he looked up to his mom, who was a dancer. But he didn’t have a game plan for his career until he took part in Rhapsody James’ Motivating Excellence program. “That set this […]

Lights up on Washington Heights—because the trailer for the movie adaptation of the hit Broadway musical In the Heights has arrived. It’s our first look into Lin-Manuel Miranda’s latest venture into film—because LMM isn’t stopping at three Tony awards, a Grammy award, and an Emmy. As an added bonus, we get to take a first […]