Month: January 2022
Mental health: When to persevere and when to step back
“The show must go on” — it’s perhaps the most quintessential performing arts adage. Yet, human beings aren’t machines. Yes, we as dance artists commit and have people depending on us, and some level of discomfort is par for the course (arguably, it’s a key part of growth), but are there times when for us,…
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Shifting From a Creature of Habit to an Ever-Evolving Artist Revitalized My Career
Many years ago, I had an experience at the Museum of Modern Art that rocked me hard. At a Willem de Kooning retrospective, there was a timeline of his career that detailed his stylistic shifts. Among other things, he worked as a house painter, a muralist, an abstract expressionist, a sculptor, then in figurative landscapes…
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25 Prompts to Liberate Your Choreographic Practice
I’m a white choreographer based on the ancestral lands of the Ramaytush Ohlone people, otherwise known as San Francisco. My recent book, Shifting Cultural Power: Questions and Case Studies in Performance, imagines equity-based models in dance that decenter whiteness. Writing about anti-racism work is a fraught endeavor because, as a white person, I’ll always have…
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Austin Goodwin Uses Humor to Tell It Like It Is
You caught us. We’re undeniably hooked on Austin Goodwin’s flair for hilarious honesty about the dance industry. In one of his wittiest Instagram videos, he asks his landlord if he can pay rent with “exposure,” since that’s the form of payment he often accepts from freelance jobs. “How many times have we heard ‘Look, there’s…
Read MoreFind Your New Year’s Dance Resolution!
The new year is here, and that means it’s time for New Year’s resolutions, promises, and challenges to sweep across the world, and then be promptly forgotten by next month. At Fred Astaire Dance Studios, we believe in setting realistic, achievable goals that help you better yourself. To this end, we’ve compiled a short list…
Read MoreBegin Again: The Real Deal With Creating a Dance Reel
If you ask experts in the performance industry, they’ll tell you that one of the best ways to book work in 2022 is to post content online for casting directors and agencies to see. Even better? A dance reel that demonstrates your skill in a variety of genres. Unfortunately for me, the last legit video…
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