Articles from May 2023

As I’ve been rediscovering as I return to dance, auditioning is an inherently vulnerable act. Even the most accomplished performers will tell you they hear “no” more often than they hear “yes.” When we get a callback or book a job, we are on top of the world. When we get cut, we are forced to pick up the pieces of one lost dream so that we can be ready to chase another tomorrow.

It’s a lot for anyone to cope with, but especially those newer to the industry. What can you expect at auditions—and how can you cope with their unique pressures? I asked two experts to share their advice.

How to Audition Well

If you want proof that Shannon Lewis knows how to audition, just look at her resumé. She performed in 10 Broadway musicals, was a Radio City Rockette, and has danced on “The Today Show” and at the Tony Awards. Now, she’s on the other side of the table as a choreographer, director, and educator. Through her experience in the industry, she has discovered various tools for auditioning well.

First, recognize that the people at the front of the room want you to succeed. “I want everyone to come in and blow me away,” Lewis says. “I am actively wanting you to be the best you can possibly be and to have the best day ever.” Rather than looking at casting directors and choreographers as scary judges, see them as cheerleaders, and your energy will become more inviting and magnetic.

Second, the best way to enter auditions feeling confident and prepared is by honing your skills in class, fine-tuning technique and learning to pick up choreography.  “That’s where dancers build their toolbox throughout their entire careers,” she says. “So when you’re in the room and the choreographer wants a triple that stops on five, you can do that, because you have been working on it yourself.”

Third, build relationships through networking. “Someone will be more likely to take a chance on you if they know your work already,” she says. If you’re new to the professional dance world, a good place to start that process is the classroom. “If you really connect with a teacher, it’s great to be in that class as much as possible, because it will give you the chance to build a relationship,” Lewis says. “Loyalty and consistency are really important words in our world.”

Even if you go into auditions well-prepared, you’ll still likely face a lot of rejection. But remember that every experience is setting the groundwork for future opportunities. “Even if I’m auditioning someone for something they are completely not right for, if they come in the room and do an incredible job, I will absolutely remember them for the next thing I’m doing,” Lewis says.

How to Cope With the Emotional Strain of Auditioning

Terry Hyde, a UK-based psychotherapist and the founder of Counselling for Dancers, is also well-versed in the challenges of auditioning. Like Lewis, he started out as a performer, dancing with The Royal Ballet and London’s Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet), and performing in musicals in London’s West End.

I’ve worked with Hyde briefly myself as I’ve grappled with the myriad emotional challenges that come with returning to dance after 10 years of illness. Here are his tips for coping with the specific stresses of auditioning.

First, Hyde recommends taking 15 minutes to practice meditation as part of your daily routine. “This will prepare you to have a clear mindset on the day of your audition,” he says.

Next, he recommends finding a private space at the audition—a dressing room or bathroom—to do breathing exercises. Sit for five minutes and breathe slowly: inhale on the “and,” exhale on the “one,” inhale on the “and,” exhale on the “two,” until reaching the count of four; then reverse the count. “If any thoughts come into your mind as you do this, just tell them, ‘Hang on a minute, I want a quiet moment,’ ” Hyde says.

Hyde also wants you to reframe words like “nerves” and “rejection.” “You have probably been told that butterflies and tension before a performance are nerves, but the physical feelings of anxiety are identical to the physical feelings of excitement,” Hyde says. Rather than saying “I’m so nervous,” before an audition, say “I’m so excited.” “Our minds are so powerful that they create the reality in which we live,” Hyde says.

If a dancer doesn’t book the job they are auditioning for, Hyde wants them to know that it’s not a true rejection of their talent or who they are. “Auditions aren’t rejections. They are very subjective,” he says. “You might not be what they are looking for, but that doesn’t mean you haven’t got talent.”

For more audition tools and advice from Lewis and Hyde, watch their full interviews in the latest “Begin Again” vlog over on Dance Magazine’s YouTube channel.

The post Begin Again: Auditioning With Confidence appeared first on Dance Magazine.

How do we respond to recurring accounts of an acclaimed choreographer’s damaging relationships with dancers, especially women? Recent podcasts (Erika Lantz’s The Turning: Room of Mirrors) and books (Alice Robb’s Don’t Think, Dear) have contributed to a narrative that’s been emerging for decades: Throughout his career, George Balanchine employed power dynamics that controlled and hindered some dancers’ choices and opportunities.

On April 5, 2023, The New York Times published a response, “Finding Freedom and Feminism in Ballet. (It’s Possible.),” by dance critic Gia Kourlas. In promoting Balanchine’s choreography as a practice of “freedom,” Kourlas fails to address multiple experiences detailed within these two works and beyond of people who witnessed in- and out-of-studio practices that harmed women.

In noting what she calls a “myth” of ballet as “suffering, pain and blind subservience to patriarchal leaders,” Kourlas supports a system that has historically ignored the first step to ending abuse: Believe the survivors’ stories. Far too often, women in ballet have been disbelieved, gaslighted, judged, or blamed for the harms inflicted on them by their abusers. Kourlas continues this trend, but attaches these behaviors to words like “feminism” and “freedom” in a way that diminishes them.

Other authors have approached the same subject with more nuance. Throughout her book, Robb acknowledges the ways that women, historically and currently, have sought Balanchine’s and other men’s approval. Although Balanchine died in 1983, his leadership style has survived through actions and attitudes adopted by some of his protégés and other directors. Such leaders handwave alleged abuses in the name of tradition, excellence, or, as Kourlas phrases it, “freedom,” while continuing to validate the patriarchy and misogyny still rampant in some ballet settings.

The power dynamics at play in ballet are not specific to artistic institutions. It’s dangerous to dancers, as well as to women, female-identifying and gender-nonconforming people, when gendered abuses of power are confused with acceptable working conditions. The Duluth power wheel (used in cases of domestic violence) outlines approaches similar to those that have been used by some ballet directors to isolate and control women.

Perhaps the uncomfortable question is: Can we continue to appreciate artistic works with an awareness of the harm done by their creator? Can we even rely on a single person to hold the answer to this question? Kourlas suggests that we situate histories of abuse in relation to liberatory moments onstage—that we look to the brief moment of freedom a dancer has when performing. But is it really “freedom” if that fleeting success relies on discounting or dismissing the suffering of other women?

Many writers and teachers are wrestling with how to bring attention to ballet’s intersecting racist and patriarchal foundations. For example, Episode 8 of Season 2 of The Turning, on “American Ballet,” examines Balanchine’s statement that a ballerina should be “the color of a peeled apple,” and cites scholarship by Brenda Dixon-Gottschild to analyze Balanchine’s appropriation of other artists’ (Katherine Dunham) and communities’ (jazz and tap dancers) steps and styles.

There’s a wealth of women in leadership roles as choreographers and directors who are advocating for women’s rights and questioning/dismantling institutional norms, even within New York City Ballet. In an April 18 New York Times article, Virginia Johnson, outgoing director of Dance Theatre of Harlem, says ballet “is a living art form that needs to be true to the time that it lives in.” If the reduction of women, dancers of color, and especially women of color to lesser-than status was acceptable in ballet in the 20th century, these gendered and racialized biases must shift in the 21st.

As a critic for the New York Times, Kourlas holds the power to shape these histories and narratives. Our past continues to inform the present, and we should invest in respectful treatment for all dancers to pursue collective freedoms within and beyond ballet.

Rebecca Chaleff is an assistant professor at SUNY–University at Buffalo; Michelle LaVigne is a senior lecturer at Cornell University; Kate Mattingly is an assistant professor at Old Dominion University.

The post Op Ed: What’s Possible in Writing About Ballet? appeared first on Dance Magazine.