Skimpy rehearsal periods, wretched studios, lousy music tapes, dancer injuries. You think choreographers have problems now? Ha! Those traditional vexations pale in comparison to the challenge of confronting the ego of a genuine opera diva. Yet dancemakers are taking the plunge and besieging the world’s opera stages. In some of the most prestigious opera houses, […]

Dawn Fay Ballet Memphis doesn’t rank its dancers in the typical hierarchical sense. However, if there were a scale, Dawn Fay would undoubtedly land on top as the company’s prima. Watching Fay dance is a bit like listening to Melissa Etheridge sing rock or Diana Krall jazz: She is soulful, insightful, a powerhouse of strength. […]

When he was 7 years old, future choreographer Tere O’Connor donned a white V-neck tennis sweater, a pair of very short shorts, and his father’s trout fishing boots and sashayed down the street of his blue-collar neighborhood in Webster, New York. That inspired act of creativity was probably his first choreographed performance. “It was like […]

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Interviewed by Joseph Carman, Steven Sucato, and Wendy Perron. Growing up in Korea, being a male dancer was looked down upon. For six years, my mother kept the fact that I was taking dance classes a secret from my father, because of traditional views Koreans have on gender roles and that men don’t dance. In my […]