Issues and Ideas

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Roudolf Kharatian on Ballet

Roudolf Kharatian discusses the source and core of Ballet as an art form, including how the physical and the spiritual combine in training and performance. Reprinted from Bourgeon Vol. 1 #1, July 2005.

The DC Improvisation Festival Present, and Past by Maida Withers

Maida Withers, founder of the DC Improvisation Festival writes about the festival's past, and present, and shares a video with excerpts from the recent performances.

Michael Bjerknes

"Michael Bjerknes, a former Washington Ballet dancer and ballet master and co-founder of the American Dance Institute in Rockville, died April 14 of colon cancer at the Washington Home and Community Hospice. He was 51. After Mr. Bjerknes stopped dancing, he became a teacher and ballet master at the Washington Ballet and the Universal Ballet in Seoul. He was an influential creative force in the Washington area for the past two decades.

Why are there no Black Ballerinas?

A quote from an article in The Guardian (UK) about the absence of Black Women in the ballet world

Video: Local Dance History Interviews II

Local dance history interviews with Sue Green, Alvin Mayes, Barbara Drazin, and Michelle Ava

Rima Faber on Pola Nirenska

Rima Faber writes about Pola Nirenska, one of the founders of the dance community in Washington, D.C.

Jonathan Morris on The Low End

My music frequently functions like chamber music. But my music is often amplified, so while it is ‘classical’, it is also electronic.

Video: Local Dance History Interviews

Video interviews of local dance history: recollections from Judith Judson and Marcia Freeman

A College Degree: What is it Good For? by Gesel Mason

Choreographer, Dancer, and Teacher Gesel Mason considers the purpose of a college dance degree for aspiring dancers - learning to master Fear.

Jazz Dance by Doug Yeuell

In many ways, we truly don't want to define Jazz dance; we want to live it, to feel it, to move with it.

Must-read

Six Poems by Craig Edward Flaherty

Big Sky Big sky, how you fillwith hope mid-oceanmid-prairie, mid-uplands.Mountain tops recallferocious winds worthyof note.They sing the one notein the roof rack, the onewhistled tree...

Two Poems by Jim Smith

A Heart-Shaped Amulet Gazing upon the houses and fields of my kingdomI can see my grandmother outside a cottage –around her neck a heart-shaped amulet.Behind...

Three Poems by Richard Peabody

How Soon Is Now? Christmassomewhere in Dixie a young mothernurses her baby listening to anythingbut The Smiths while geekstry to figure out her nameher location Students shotthe footage yet thered hat that...