The decision on four Scott Rudin Broadway contracts has sparked a broader conversation on the overall use of nondisclosure agreements with regards to Actors’ Equity Association’s 50,000-plus members nationwide.

Passover was going to be a challenge. During her years as a modern Orthodox Jewish student at the School of American Ballet, Dena Abergel had stayed with a family in the city every Friday so she could attend Friday night and Saturday classes without taking the train home to New Jersey, in accordance with her […]

On May 6, there was a tear in the universe and a void opened up when Debora Chase-Hicks died. For a large portion of the Black dance community, her name needs no qualifiers like “former star of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.” A dance giant fell, and yet, if one paid close attention to news outlets […]

For the first time in 84 years, this summer, “America’s longest-running outdoor symphonic drama” has stopped using redface. The Lost Colony has also promised to cast Native American roles exclusively with Indigenous people and use authentic Native American dance and music. Since last year’s Black Lives Matter protests, dance and theater organizations worldwide have pledged […]

The word “prosthesis” refers to an artificial, supplemental device that attempts to return a disabled body to a state of “normalcy.” A prosthetic hand resembles and functions as a “normal” hand; a prosthetic foot resembles and functions as a “normal” foot. Such technologies are laden with political expectations, namely, the insistence that there is such […]

At the start of the pandemic, many artists felt as though a rug—one that was awfully thin to begin with—was pulled from underneath them. Performances were rescheduled, and then, in many cases, canceled altogether. Freelancers and independent artists, who often invest significant personal funds in their own work, were hit particularly hard. Several artists went […]

Colonialism and slavery violently disrupted the histories of Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC). White folks appointed themselves tellers of all stories, and their viewpoints have rewritten, erased or entirely excluded other narratives. BIPOC dance artists have, for long, felt this exclusion while being exploited. This exclusion is still the source of trauma for […]

For the last five years the dance world, and specifically the ballet world, has been enrolled in the mission to understand and implement diversity, equity and inclusion into the field at all levels. A great deal of funding has been allocated towards efforts of education and training, consultants have been hired, conferences and seminars attended. […]