REPOST: Movers and Shapers

Who are the dance industry movers and shakers in NYC? Get to know them by reading this New York Times article.


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The energy that characterizes New York City finds artistic release in dance. Other cities around the world have important dance scenes, but for diversity and vitality this one has no match. Here ballet and modern mingle with tap and jazz. Here ethnic and experimental mixed media works find devoted audiences. Here it’s natural to find the formal colliding with the forward-looking. And during the main season, from September to June, it’s not unusual to find a dozen dance productions opening in a week.

In that spirit, we present 10 professionals who, working offstage or on, embody this range — from tap to ballet, flamenco to postmodern. Each, in a different way, makes New York’s dance scene singular.

Sara Mearns, a stage animal of rare vibrancy, is changing our idea of how a ballerina looks and projects. Judy Hussie-Taylor, executive director at the Danspace Project at St. Mark’s, is reshaping the course of modern dance. Alexei Ratmansky, formerly artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, choreographs around the globe, but it’s here that his most adventurous pieces have had their premieres. An important part of New York culture is the way it keeps drawing — and inspiring — dance artists from abroad.

Everyone on this list has become integral to this city’s dance life — and between now and year’s end, the work of each one can be seen in New York. Perhaps only a few, like the Alvin Ailey dancer Matthew Rushing, have reached full maturity. The others — even Ms. Mearns and Mr. Ratmansky — are still evolving. It’s exciting to think that yet finer work lies ahead.

Alexei Ratmansky, 45
Choreographer

Alexei Ratmansky is a classical-ballet man, but seldom in the grandest manner. His dances occur on the cusp between pure dance and characterization; his stage worlds abound in intimate human incidents. Since this Russian moved to the West in 2008, his career has become the most prolific and rapidly globe-trotting in choreography today. Modest in manner, he’s a torrent of creative ideas.

In February, he had world premieres only a week apart — with the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden in London and San Francisco Ballet at its home theater. (The California company dances his “From Foreign Lands” here at the David H. Koch Theater on Oct. 17, 18 and 20.) In May, at the Metropolitan Opera House, he presented the two new parts of his “Shostakovich Trilogy”with American Ballet Theater (where he is artist in residence, and which revives one of these Shostakovich creations, “Piano Concerto No. 1,” at the Koch on Nov. 7 and 9).

Last week, the Australian Ballet presented in Melbourne his new version of Prokofiev’s three-act “Cinderella.” On Oct. 30, Ballet Theater dances his latest work, “The Tempest,” treating Shakespeare’s play in terms of Sibelius’s incidental music.

The prospect of any Ratmansky premiere tantalizes simply because nobody knows even what kind of piece it will be. Most of his creations have weak patches; you wish he’d stay still, just to rework them. Yet his dance sequences often contain the finest poetry in ballet today, while his storytelling can show the form’s finest imagination and most exuberant character acting. ALASTAIR MACAULAY

Sara Mearns, 27
Ballet dancer

In an era when the lurid melodrama of the film “Black Swan” has made “Swan Lake” more popular than ever, it’s heartening to see Sara Mearns give ardent new significance to the drama of its look-alike heroines, Odette and Odile. Born in Columbia, S.C., and a principal of New York City Ballet since 2008, she’s the world’s foremost interpreter of the double role this century. (She starred in “Swan Lake” twice last week at the David H. Koch Theater as part of City Ballet’s current season.) 

Yet that’s not her greatest vehicle. She’s at her finest in the ballets of George Balanchine, to which she brings the most powerfully Romantic classicism since his dancers Suzanne Farrell and Maria Calegari, neither of whom she resembles. (She hasn’t yet conquered all her roles, though. So far, the serene lunar grandeur of the extraordinary adagio second movement of Balanchine’s “Symphony in C” eludes her.)

The choreographers Alexei Ratmansky and Christopher Wheeldon are among those who have created leading roles for her. And this Wednesday and Thursday, in the opening Fall for Dance program at City Center, she performs the world premiere of a new pas de deux by Justin Peck.

A celebrity beyond her home company, she blogs for The Huffington Post; in June she starred with the New York Philharmonic in “A Dancer’s Dream.”

She’s compellingly made up of contradictions: child and woman, vulnerable and audacious, naïve and voluptuous. Her eyes are small, but their focus is rivetingly theatrical. Her shoulders are high, even tense, but her spine — one of the wonders of the dance world — is powerfully supple. Her figure is curvaceous, and there’s a thread of steel running through those legs.

Some ballerinas play with their music, but the expansive Ms. Mearns claims hers as if embodying it: it’s her domain. ALASTAIR MACAULAY

Maile Okamura, 39
Dancer and costume designer

When Mark Morris’s life-enhancing staging of the Handel-Milton oratorio “L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato” returns to the David H. Koch Theater from Nov. 21 to 23, the role of the Penseroso bird, the nightingale that is drawn to the wandering moon, will be danced by the quietly spontaneous Maile Okamura.

Born and raised in California to a Japanese family, she’s performed a number of solo parts for the Morris company; in Mr. Morris’s “Romeo and Juliet,” she was one of two Juliets. She has a second career designing costumes: witness John Heginbotham’s “Dark Theater” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Fishman Space from Oct. 29 to Nov. 2. ALASTAIR MACAULAY

Reggie Wilson, 45
Choreographer

As a contemporary choreographer who formed his Fist & Heel Performance Group in 1989, Reggie Wilson is something of a cultural anthropologist. His dances, which rely heavily on songs and rhythms — you often see Mr. Wilson singing and clapping on the sidelines — sprout from one concept, but by the time he’s finished, they are a garden of references, memories and ideas. When is he ever really finished?

Mr. Wilson, who was born in Milwaukee, is an artist compelled by the idea of looking back to move forward, and as such, his sprawling movement pieces fold history into the present, or show how what seems new never truly is.

This approach to his movement — firmly accented yet unforced — and to his work, which he often describes as “post-African/Neo-HooDoo Modern dances,” is tempered by a deep devotion to structure. It provides a frame for his fiendishly busy mind.

For “Moses(es),” Mr. Wilson’s latest work, performed by nine at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Harvey Theater Dec. 4 to 7, he takes inspiration from Zora Neale Hurston’s “Moses, Man of the Mountain,” as well as trips to Israel, Egypt and Turkey. In the book, Hurston explores the Moses story as an African-American folk tale. Mr. Wilson takes it further: How do ideas and customs migrate? Where do the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Harriet Tubman fit in? And, in keeping with Moses, what makes leaders and why do we follow them?

“Since this Moses thing cracked open for me,” Mr. Wilson said, “there seems to be something infinite but specific going on.”

It’s true that Mr. Wilson always takes a path of most resistance, but his multilayered productions are a pleasure of sensations, creating as much an aural landscape as a visual one in which dancers have the uncanny ability to slip in and out of traditions while maintaining their contemporary rigor. It’s a trip to see the world through Mr. Wilson’s eyes. For a night at least, Moses will be everywhere. GIA KOURLAS

Matthew Rushing, 38
Modern dancer

In 2010 Matthew Rushing, who began performing with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1992, became Ailey’s rehearsal director and considered retiring from the stage. Judith Jamison, then at the end of her long tenure as the company’s artistic director, told him not to. Thank goodness he listened.

Mr. Rushing, who was born in Los Angeles, is still the greatest male dancer in a troupe that suffers no lack of candidates. In strength and stretch, he has shown little diminishment, and the quality that most distinguished him early on has only deepened with age. Critics rightly call it “integrity,” a service to each work. It reads as humility, yet it’s an independent moral force that Ailey-style dances can’t do without.

Since his near retirement, Mr. Rushing has remained irreplaceable, not only in repertory works, where you might expect his experience to give him an edge, but also in new pieces. He was the pillar of Rennie Harris’s 2010 “Home,” a hip-hop sermon on survival, and this year his supple spiritualty set the tone for Ronald K. Brown’s “Four Corners.” During the company’s encampment at City Center this December, Mr. Rushing will be dancing those works and will also have a prominent role in Aszure Barton’s new “Lift.” On Dec. 17, a special performance will celebrate his time with the company, the longest of any current dancer. It’s a bit late for a 20th-anniversary party, but let’s hope that a 25th will be in the cards. BRIAN SEIBERT

Michelle Dorrance, 34
Tap dancer and choreographer

The field of tap dance has seldom wanted for astonishing soloists. It is tap choreographers worthy of the title who have been rare. This is why the recent emergence of Michelle Dorrance as a dancemaker is so important.

She is, to begin with, another astonishing soloist. The daughter of a ballet teacher and a soccer coach in Chapel Hill, N.C., she is ridiculously fleet of foot. From her loose ankles, she can throw down a profusion of taps like bagfuls of marbles, yet she does so with precision, in the service of a compelling musicality.

At the same time, she projects her personality, a direct, uningratiating blend of tomboy and girlish, hip and dorky. Her body, a gangling collection of limbs, is a site of potential awkwardness that she isn’t afraid to exploit in knock-kneed comedy or to convert into emotional openness.

Though justly celebrated as a happy dance, tap has always encompassed darker emotions. What Ms. Dorrance is discovering are ways to make those emotions visible to people who can’t necessarily hear them in rhythm and tone, expanding tap without distorting its essence. Like many beginning choreographers, she is still working out how to use bodies other than her own. Yet the debut of “SOUNDspace,” her first evening-length work, at Danspace Project in January, revealed a promising grasp of large-scale composition. An excerpt from that piece at Fall for Dance at City Center on Oct. 2 and 3 should help introduce her to the larger audience she deserves. BRIAN SEIBERT

Judy Hussie-Taylor, 50
Arts administrator

As a producer of dance, Judy Hussie-Taylor has a mantra in her dealings with artists: “I always say the answer is yes until it has to be no.”

It must be what she tells herself. As the Danspace Project’s executive director, she has turned a dance site with limited flexibility — St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery, which affords artists few options to manipulate the space — into a setting where the imagination can soar. In 2010, two years after taking over Danspace Project, Ms. Hussie-Taylor introducedPlatforms, in which performances and related events based on a single theme were organized into a series of programs, usually masterminded by a single choreographer. So far, there have been seven; the next, scheduled for May, will focus on the work of the choreographer DD Dorvillier.

This fall, Ms. Hussie-Taylor is intrigued by collisions of dance forms by artists like Katy Pyle (Oct. 24 through 26) and Cori Olinghouse (Dec. 12 through 14), who go deeply into a history and then disrupt it. But above all, Ms. Hussie-Taylor, who was born in Philadelphia and lives in Brooklyn, likes friction: as she put it in an interview, “I always like stepping into territory where I don’t belong.”

Under her calm watch, tension is not cause for alarm, but something that opens up the possibility for new ideas. She stands aside to let an artist breathe and then asks the big question: what makes an idea relevant today? It leads to more questions than answers, and in dance that’s just the way it should be. GIA KOURLAS

Soledad Barrio, 48
Flamenco dancer

The inestimable power of Soledad Barrio is rooted in contradictions. Onstage, she’s more animal than woman, but even so, her force-of-nature explosiveness neither unfurls in flashy bursts nor operates on the surface. In those moments when she twists her sinewy back and raises her arms high above her head to frame a face with veiled eyes — just before her heels pound the floor, seemingly in an effort to rip through to the earth below — Ms. Barrio lands in a place every dancer dreams of inhabiting. She lives in the moment.

Born in Madrid, where she started her dance training at the late age of 18, Ms. Barrio is a founding member of the troupe Noche Flamenca, which is directed by her husband, Martín Santangelo. (They have two daughters, Gabriela and Stella.) From Dec. 3 through 15, Ms. Barrio showcases her extraordinary abilities at the Joyce Theater in a program that merges music, song and dance. For it, she’ll dance a new alegríasduet, choreographed by Mr. Santangelo, opposite Juan Ogalla; her solo will be a siguiriya, one of flamenco’s oldest forms — a slow, desolate dance in which Ms. Barrio, enveloped by the music, becomes majestically ravaged. It’s like watching the ocean as one wave crashes into the next.

Yet alongside her profound athleticism, Ms. Barrio has an allure that is based in something eerily intangible. The word “soledad” translates to “loneliness,” and that heartache permeates all of her performances: what she seems to be saying, with both her feet and her eyes, is that you can’t escape your destiny. GIA KOURLAS

James Whiteside, 29
Ballet dancer

What newcomer to New York has ever invaded a repertory more surely than James Whiteside? Lean, energetic, tall and confident, he joined American Ballet Theater as a soloist in autumn 2012. A year later, at the Oct. 30 gala that opens the company’s two-week fall season at the David H. Koch Theater, he performs the male lead of George Balanchine’s “Theme and Variations,” one of the most taxing bravura roles in all of ballet. Mr. Whiteside, who was born and began his training in Fairfield, Conn., danced the role splendidly in 2010 with the Boston Ballet, where he was a principal.

It’s hard to imagine that he won’t be promoted to a principal here soon. In Ballet Theater’s 2013 season at the Metropolitan Opera House, he danced the heroes of four of its seven full-length ballets: Basilio in “Don Quixote,” Romeo in “Romeo and Juliet,” Prince Siegfried in “Swan Lake” and Prince Désiré in “The Sleeping Beauty.” Not only that, but as the troubled artist-hero of Alexei Ratmansky’s new “Chamber Symphony,” he was cast second to the celebrated David Hallberg but gave the more imposing performance.

While he’s been paired successfully with a number of Ballet Theater’s principal women, he’s forged a particularly impressive partnership with the redoubtable redhead Gillian Murphy. It looks like a meeting of minds, and it’s part of this ballerina’s awakening. They performed “Swan Lake” and “The Sleeping Beauty” together this spring; they’ll dance “Theme and Variations” together at the October gala. ALASTAIR MACAULAY

Reid Bartelme, 32
Costume designer

When fashion designers create costumes for dance, the results often aren’t pretty — haute couture tends to get in a body’s way. But while the Manhattan-born Reid Bartelmeholds a degree in design from the Fashion Institute of Technology, he was a dancer first. The stylistic range he covered during his initial career — from BalletMet Columbus to Shen Wei, Lar Lubovitch and performance art — is only expanding in his second.

Since 2009, his smart yet unobtrusive costume designs have popped up everywhere from downtown spaces to New York City Ballet. At Fall for Dance at City Center on Wednesday and Thursday, he and his frequent partner Harriet Jung will unveil their fourth collaboration with the similarly rocketing choreographer Justin Peck, a minimalist outfit for the maximalist ballerina Sara Mearns. BRIAN SEIBERT

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Lou S. Habash teaches kids and kids-at-heart on how to appreciate the art of dancing. More about her can be read in this blog site.

REPOST: Jazz 101

This About.com article shares the basic things that you need to know in jazz dance.

Image Source: dance.about.com

Jazz has become one of the most popular dance styles in recent years, mainly due to its popularity on television shows, movies, music videos and commercials. People enjoy watching jazz dancers, as the dancing is fun and energetic.

Jazz dancing is a form of dance that showcases a dancer's individual style and originality. Every jazz dancer interprets and executes moves and steps in their own way. This type of dancing is energetic and fun, consisting of unique moves, fancy footwork, big leaps and quick turns. To excel in jazz, dancers need a strong background in ballet, as it encourages grace and balance.

Jazz Clothes:

When dressing for a jazz dance class, think about wearing clothing that allows you to move. Jazz classes are casual and relaxed, so feel free to select your own clothing. A dancer's body lines need to be visible, however, so baggy clothes are generally discouraged. Tights and leotards are fine, but most jazz dancers prefer to wear jazz or dance pants. Jazz pants are usually boot-cut or flared styles, as tight bottoms would restrict ankle movement. Tops usually worn for jazz include form-fitting tank tops, t-shirts or leotards. Check with your teacher before buying jazz shoes, as many classes have

Jazz Class Structure:

If you are attending your first jazz dance class, get ready to really move. A good jazz class explodes with energy. With music styles ranging from hip-hop to show tunes, the beat alone will get you moving. Most jazz teachers begin with a thorough warm-up, then lead the class in a series of stretching exercises and isolation movements. Isolations involve moving one part of the body while the rest of the body remains still. Jazz dancers also practice the art of suspension. Suspension involves moving through positions instead of stopping and balancing in them. Most jazz teachers will end the class with a short cool down to help prevent muscle soreness.

Jazz Steps:

You will be taught a variety of jazz steps by your teacher. However, you will want to try to make each step your own. In a jazz class, dancers are encouraged to add their own personality to make each step unique and fun. Jazz steps include basic turns including chaines, piques, pirouettes, jazz turns, and some ballet turns, to name a few. Leaps include grande jetes, turning jumps, and tour jetes. Signature to jazz dancing is the "jazz walk." Jazz walks can be performed in many different styles. Another popular jazz move is the "contraction." A contraction is accomplished by contracting the torso, with the back curved outward and the pelvis pulled forward. Learning jazz dance technique takes a lot of practice.

Jazz Dancers:

Many famous dancers have helped shape what we know as jazz dance today. Considered the father of jazz dance technique, Jack Cole developed techniques that are used today in musicals, films, television commercials and videos. His style emphasized isolations, rapid directional changes, angled placement and long knee slides. Winning eight Tony awards, Bob Fosse was a musical theater choreographer and director, and a film director. Characteristic of his dance style are inward knees, rounded shoulders and full-body isolations. Considered a founder of jazz dance, Gus Giordano was a master teacher and gifted choreographer. His dance style has influenced modern jazz dancing. Many jazz teachers employ his methods in their own classes.

Follow this Lou S. Habash Twitter page to get the latest trends in jazz dancing.

REPOST: New Stanford Live season to feature jazz, world music, dance

This article says that the 2013-2014 Stanford Live season will feature dance, jazz, and much more.


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After a season focusing on classical music, Stanford Live is planning a lineup with a broader range of dance, jazz, world-music and theater performances.

French choreographer Jerome Bel is planning a trio of pieces; musicians will bring the sounds of Portugal, Africa, Japan and Pakistan to campus; and musical-theater luminaries Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin will make an appearance.

Last season was dedicated to welcoming the new Bing Concert Hall as a fresh hub for classical music. Now, 2013-14 will continue to offer plenty of it. Strings start the season on Sept. 22, with violin great Itzhak Perlman hosting and conducting a concert of up-and-coming young string players from his Perlman Music Program.

Other classical musicians scheduled to perform this season include: the Estonian National Symphony on Nov. 2, the Takacs Quartet on Jan. 25 and 26, violinist Joshua Bell on Feb. 8, the Haifa Symphony Orchestra of Israel on March 16, and soprano Deborah Voigt on April 11. As in seasons past, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the choral group Chanticleer will give multiple concerts.

Opera will make an appearance as well. A free live simulcast of San Francisco Opera's production of "Falstaff" will be shown outdoors at the university's Frost Amphitheater on Oct. 11.

Nearly all the Stanford Live events, classical and otherwise, will be held at Bing, where the vineyard seating and theater-in-the-round feel provide an unusual venue for dance. Choreographer Bel will have three evenings to display his work there. On Nov. 13, in "The Show Must Go On," which the New York Times has called a "conversation with the issues of antivirtuosic movement and artifice," untrained dancers and Bay Area professionals alike will take the stage. Pop music and a D.J. will figure prominently.

Nov. 18 brings "Cedric Andrieux," a solo autobiographical piece with Bel himself; and on Dec. 2 Bel is paired onscreen in the "filmed dance dialogue" known as "Pichet Klunchun" with the classical Thai dancer of the same name. Bel will be present to answer questions after the film screening.
More dance comes on Jan. 31 with the Brazilian ballet troupe Grupo Corpo. The troupe will also perform a shortened family matinee on Feb. 1.

Several jazz musicians will also take the yellow-cedar stage at Bing. Early in the season, on Sept. 29, players will conjure up the spirit of New Orleans with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, singer Ivan Neville, guitarist Leo Nocentelli and drummer Stanton Moore. More New Orleans-style jazz will follow on Oct. 27 with pianist Jonathan Batiste and his band Stay Human.

In world music, the Portuguese-African singer Mariza will perform an evening of Lisbon-style fado music on Nov. 1. Japanese sho player Ko Ishikawa joins cellist Maya Beiser and others in the world premiere of "Linked Verse," a Stanford commission from university composer Jaroslaw Kapuscinski, on Dec. 7. Asif Ali Khan takes the audience to Pakistan on April 1 with a night of Sufi soul.

World music is an annual affair at the "Harmony for Humanity" concert, which pays tribute to the late journalist and Stanford graduate Daniel Pearl. The free event is Oct. 9.

And no season would be complete without the ukulele. Jake Shimabukuro, whose ukulele playing went viral online a few years back, brings his strings to Bing on April 24.

On a different note, vaudevillian Tomas Kubinek will aim for laughs at the hall with two performances on May 4. The shows come on the heels of LuPone and Patinkin, longtime friends and Sondheim supporters, who will bring their Broadway chops to Bing on April 26. The LuPone-Patinkin pairing is a special event intended mainly for Bing members and sponsors, but Stanford Live promises that a few public tickets will also be available.

Overall, the season runs Sept. 22 through May 16. Subscriptions go on sale June 3, with single tickets on sale starting Sept. 7. For a complete schedule and ticketing information, go to live.stanford.edu or call 650-725-2787.

More pertinent updates about the jazz scene can be accessed through this Twitter page for Lou S Habash.

REPOST: Winner of 'Dancing With the Stars' is ...

I have an eye for talent, just like Kellie Pickler.  Once an 'American Idol' contestant, Kellie is now the winner of the 16th season of ‘Dancing with the Stars’.  This Today article provides details:  

It's over! Kellie Pickler is the winner of the 16th season of "Dancing With the Stars." The confetti rained down on the "American Idol" alum and country-music star as she was awarded the coveted (though some might call it a little tacky) mirror-ball trophy on Tuesday night. It's an honor she shares with her pro partner, Derek Hough, who now has the distinction of being the first ever four-time champ on the show.

"Oh my God!" a clearly surprised Kellie exclaimed when her big win was announced. "This is amazing." 

Video source: Youtube.com/TheVocalVault

It was an "amazing" win that came without the aid of the usual online voting via the official "Dancing" website, thanks to a technical glitch that affected East Coast voters. (According to host Tom Bergeron, in the spirit of fairness, none of the later votes cast on the site were counted either.

While Disney star Zendaya (who came in second place for the season) was ahead of Kellie by one point going into the finale, Kellie's victory didn't exactly come as a shock. After all, viewers voted Kellie's emotion-packed contemporary freestyle -- the clear showstopper performance from Monday night -- the dance they most wanted to see again at the top of the show. Traditionally, the celebrity with the winning freestyle takes the trophy too, a trend that proved true once again on Tuesday night.

The results came after Kellie and her fellow finalists, Zendaya and Ravens wide receiver Jacoby Jones each performed one last dance, the dreaded "instant dance," wherein each of them learned the music they'd move to shortly before hitting the floor. (Olympic gymnast and final four competitor Aly Raisman didn't participate. She was cut just prior to the instant routines.)

Those last efforts earned rave reviews from the panel and perfect scores for all, but in fairness to Zendaya, her jive was a bit more "perfect" than Kellie's jive and much more so than Jacoby's salsa.

It was Kellie who earned the highest praise from the judges, though.

"I have to be honest with you," Bruno Tonioli told her after the dance, "you remind me of Julianne Hough."

Getting compared to the one of the best dancers ever on the show (and the sister of her own pro partner)? That almost counts as another win.

But those instant efforts weren't the only performances during the two-hour season ender. As is custom on finale night, many of the familiar faces who got the ballroom boot earlier in the competition returned to show off their fancy footwork (such as it is) too.

Reality TV star Lisa Vanderpump impressed with the crowd as she took a spin, both with her former partner Gleb Savchenko and with head judge Len Goodman. And actor-comedian Andy Dick? He reminded fans how he went from underdog to beloved ballroom beginner by delivering one last reason to cheer him on -- not so much for the second take at his Mad Hatter jazz routine (although it was just as entertaining as an encore), but for his willingness to poke fun at his own weepy ways with a mountain of tissue.

There was another returning hoofer hopeful to hit the floor too -- one who wasn't ousted from the game at all, but rather voluntarily bowed out of the ballroom bash. Former Olympic figure skater (and permanent America's sweetheart) Dorothy Hamill, who's past injuries hindered her earlier efforts, joined returning "Dancing" winner Kristi Yamaguchi in a beautiful synchronized routine. During her brief ballroom stint, Dorothy credited Kristi as her inspiration to join the show.

In an unfortunate bit of irony, Dorothy's original partner, Tristan MacManus couldn't join her due to his own injuries.

And that, plus a hefty dose of traditional finale filler, was all there was from the last Tuesday night results show of season -- and possibly ever. "Dancing With the Stars" will return in the fall, but the Tuesday episodes won't.

Hi. I’m Lou S. Habash, a dance teacher, and I love everything jazzy. Know more about dancing from my Facebook page.

Learning how musicians make money: The Artist Revenue Streams Project

With their expensive instruments, classy but tasteful fashion, and impeccable taste for expensive parties, it’s a wonder how musicians really make money. The Artist Revenue Streams Project is a multistage research project that was conducted specifically to find out how musicians and composers earn their keep.

Image Source: hypebot.com

Why I think the project is a great idea

During the last decade, there have been drastic changes in the way music is created and distributed to the fans. Instead of vinyl records, cassette tapes, CDs, and minidiscs, digital is now the preferred form of distribution. Even radios and televisions are now becoming obsolete. I think that knowing how the shift to digital has affected musicians and composers revenue streams is important, as shifting to digital means reduced cost barriers to creation, distribution, and sale of music because of new technologies like music creation software, streaming services, and digital music stores.

Image Source: blog.wfmu.org

How was the research conducted?

There are three parts to the research. In the first part, the researchers conducted interviews of a diverse set of musicians (around 80) to find out information about their revenue streams. The second part involved reviewing a set of two-year financial records (from 2010 to 2012) of some musicians who were interviewed during the first part of the research. Creating an online survey that asked relevant questions about artists’ revenue streams was the third part; more than 5,000 artists participated in the online survey.

Image Source: money.futureofmusic.org

Many people may have thought that the shift to digital has been beneficial to musicians and composers; however, with the data acquired from this research, I think, this time, a more accurate picture can now be seen.

I’m Lou S. Habash, and I run a little dance studio called The Giddy Room in Berkshire, Massachusetts. Visit my Twitter page for a slice of my mind now and then.

REPOST: Matt Mattox, jazz dance pioneer, dies at 91

Legendary freestyle jazz dancer Matt Mattox dies at 91. This NewYork Times article provides details about his contributions to contemporary jazz dance.

Image Source: nytimes.com

Matt Mattox, a dancer, choreographer and teacher who helped shape contemporary jazz dance in the United States and Europe, died in France on Feb. 18. He was 91.

His death was confirmed by Bob Boross, a former student.

Mr. Mattox, who had made his home in France for many years, had a prominent career dancing in films and on Broadway in the 1940s and afterward. Though he was not as well known as some of the celebrated Hollywood dancers of his era, he was by all accounts every bit their peer.

“He was one of the greatest male dancers that ever was on a performing stage,” Jacques d’Amboise, the distinguished dancer and choreographer, said in a telephone interview. “He’s equal to Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly.”

As a dancer, Mr. Mattox was celebrated for his “ballpoint ease, pinpoint precision, and catlike agility,” as Dance magazine wrote in 2007. He was perhaps best known to moviegoers as the young, bearded Caleb Pontipee, one of the marriageable frontiersmen at the heart of the 1954 film“Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” directed by Stanley Donen and choreographed by Michael Kidd.

In the movie, whose featured dancers also included Russ Tamblyn, Tommy Rall and Mr. d’Amboise, Mr. Mattox performs a dazzling series of leaps and splits above a sawhorse.

On Broadway, Mr. Mattox danced in “Once Upon a Mattress” (1959), in which he created the role of the Jester; and in the 1957 revival of “Brigadoon,” in which he played Harry Beaton.

Jazz dance entails far more than simply dancing to jazz: the genre has its own aesthetic traditions and its own kinetic vocabulary. Building on the work of his mentor, the prominent choreographer and teacher Jack Cole, Mr. Mattox is widely acknowledged as having been a primary shaper of those traditions in the mid-20th century and afterward.

Before that time, what passed for jazz dance was generally indistinguishable from garden-variety, high-energy Broadway hoofing. Mr. Mattox helped conceive a genre that was subtler, more rhythmically complex and far more eclectic, as well-suited for the concert hall as the theatrical stage.

Combining his own extensive training in ballet with tap dance, modern dance and folkloric dance traditions from around the world, he created a new, fluidly integrated art form he liked to call “freestyle dance.”

“That elegance of ballet was there, but still, the energy and the shape of the inner body was from jazz,” said Mr. Boross, an assistant professor of dance at Radford University in Virginia.

From the mid-1950s on, Mr. Mattox taught this personal brand of dance to generations of pupils, first in New York and later in Europe.

In both places, students from around the world flocked to study with him; over the years, they included the noted choreographer and theater director Graciela Daniele, and a young woman — about to sing an audition for her first Broadway show and anxious to learn a dance to go with it — named Barbra Streisand. (The show was “I Can Get It for You Wholesale,” and Ms. Streisand got the part.)

Harold Mattox, known as Matt, was born in 1921 in Tulsa, Okla., and moved with his family to Los Angeles when he was about 11. There, he began instruction in ballet, tap and ballroom dance, working with Mr. Cole and others. As a young man, he interrupted his studies for service as a fighter pilot with the Army Air Forces in World War II.

One of Mr. Mattox’s dance teachers, Nico Charisse, had a wife, Cyd, who was a pretty fair dancer herself, and through her connections Mr. Mattox got his start in movies, appearing in films including “Yolanda and the Thief” (1945), “Till the Clouds Roll By” (1946), “Guys and Dolls” (1955) and “Song of Norway” (1970).

On television, Mr. Mattox danced and choreographed for “The Bell Telephone Hour,” broadcast on NBC starting in 1959. He also choreographed the Broadway musical “Jennie,” starring Mary Martin, which opened in 1963; and a Metropolitan Opera “Aida” in 1959.

In the early 1970s, Mr. Mattox moved to London, where he started his own dance company, JazzArt, taking it with him when he moved to Paris in the mid-’70s. Since the early 1980s, he had lived in Perpignan, in the South of France.

Mr. Mattox was married several times. His survivors include his wife, Martine Limeul Mattox; three sons, Matthew, Christopher and Timothy; and grandchildren. Information on other survivors could not be confirmed.

In an interview with Dance magazine in 2003, Mr. Mattox explained the genesis, at midcentury, of his singular style:

“I went home, I sat down, and I drew one line on a blank piece of paper,” he said. “The body is a straight line and you can do everything with it. Then, there was a Life magazine photographer who was experimenting in the early 1950s by shooting a man holding two lamps, which he moved against a black background. When the photo was developed, all you saw were these curving lines of light. And I thought, ‘That’s the way the body should move.’ ”


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