Getty Images
Despite worldwide theater closures, the Universal Ballet Competition is keeping The Nutcracker tradition alive in 2020 with an online international competition. The event culminates in a streamed, full-length video of The Virtual Nutcracker consisting of winning entries on December 19. The competition is calling on studios, as well as dancers of all ages and levels, to submit videos by November 29 to be considered.
"Nutcracker is a tradition that is ingrained in our hearts," says UBC co-founder Lissette Salgado-Lucas, a former dancer with Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Joffrey Ballet. "We danced it for so long as professionals, we can't wait to pass it along to dancers through this competition."
How It Works
<p>UBC has divided various scenes and divertissements that make up <em>The Nutcracker</em> into categories. (Think Party Scene, Battle Scene, Snow Pas de Deux, etc.) Studios and conservatories, along with individual dancers, are asked to submit footage of these scenes from previous performances or in-studio recordings (though costuming and makeup is encouraged) to UBC through the company's<a href="http://universalballetcompetition.com" target="_blank"> website</a>. The entry fee for each submission is $45, with multiple-entry pricing available.</p><p>The competition will be <a href="https://www.universalballetcompetition.com/virtual-competition-schedule/" target="_blank">livestreamed</a> on December 12, featuring all submissions that make up Act I, and on December 13, featuring all submissions that make up Act II. "We thought it would be cool for parents and directors to see, say, 20 different versions of Mother Ginger for future inspiration," says UBC co-founder David Lucas. "It's a fun way to promote the different studios who are all facing challenges, embrace the season, and learn from one another."</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU2ODk4OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNDMyNTM2Mn0.svuEGNVqisVMYpKWf_cS-uzxskqEOaRTRJPfLhz7F_Q/img.jpg?width=980" id="a22e7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="496d09a5fd9610786f98b53cfed4dd5c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Blurred ballerinas in long white tutus dance on a wooden floor and are viewed from backstage." />
Getty Images
<p>The jurors for the competition include: Pennsylvania Ballet assistant artistic director Samantha Dunster, Kansas City Ballet School director Grace Maduell Holmes, Royal Winnipeg Ballet associate director Tara Birtwhistle, Orlando Ballet School principal teacher Charmaine Hunter and international master teacher Duncan Cooper.</p><p>An online awards ceremony announcing each scene's top three submissions (and their subsequent cast members) will be held on December 14. The first-place clips will then be strung together to create a final cohesive recording of <em>The Virtual Nutcracker</em>, which audiences can stream for free on UBC's website on December 19.</p><p>"At this time, the arts have to show we are stronger than COVID-19," Lucas says. "United as a community, we still go on. Dancers, studios and companies cannot survive without performances—let's continue the <em>Nutcracker</em> tradition in a safe environment."</p>
<div class="htl-ad"
data-unit="dance_teacher/dt_desktop_medrec"
data-sizes="0x0:|1024x0:300x250"
data-prebid="0x0:|1024x0:dt_desktop_medrec"
data-refresh="viewable"
data-refresh-secs="45"
></div>
Keep reading...
Show less
Oct. 23, 2020 08:48AM EST
Robbie Sweeny, courtesy Funsch
Christy Funsch's teaching career has taken her from New York City to the Bay Area to Portugal, with a stint in a punk band in between. But this fall—fresh off a Fulbright in Portugal at the Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, School of Dance (ESD), teaching and researching empathetic embodiment through somatic dance training—Funsch's teaching has taken her to an entirely new location: Zoom. A visiting professor at Slippery Rock University for the 2020–21 academic year, Funsch is adapting her eclectic, boundary-pushing approach to her virtual classes.
Originally from central New York State, Funsch spent 20 years performing in the Bay Area, where she also started her own company, Funsch Dance Experience. "My choreographic work from that time is in the dance-theater experiential, fantasy realm of performance," she says. "I also started blending genres and a lot of urban styles found their way into my choreography."
<p>During that time, Funsch took short-term adjunct teaching assignments at various universities. In the classroom, Funsch describes herself as cautious with the power she holds. "I advocate for an inquisitive approach to the physical body," she says. "I promote students' inner teachers. I don't have all of the answers and I don't pretend to."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU1MjYwNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMjA1MzYwM30.nU52uZMqvOmF7RpDQrRM1Si9NhmHmY2I8cdluXQ8q4s/img.jpg?width=980" id="f6b6a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="02c626154df2eb0fa4a0eed36d1fb0aa" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Funsch performs in a silky red dress, laying on her back and lifting her feet, head and arms off the ground" />
Robbie Sweeny, courtesy Funsch
<p>This spring, after returning from her Fulbright in Portugal, she was already in the interview process for the position at Slippery Rock when the pandemic arrived. "The campus visit had to happen through Zoom in my sublet in Astoria," she says. "As part of the interview, they asked me to demonstrate some movement exercises in my living room in lieu of teaching a class. It was a really funny experience showing them a traveling phrase in such a small space." (And good preparation for both the fall and spring semesters at Slippery Rock, which are online.)</p><p><em>Dance Teacher</em> talked to Funsch about how she's teaching virtually, the dance content she's devouring right now and the teaching tools she can't live without.</p>
<div class="htl-ad"
data-unit="dance_teacher/dt_desktop_medrec"
data-sizes="0x0:|1024x0:300x250"
data-prebid="0x0:|1024x0:dt_desktop_medrec"
data-refresh="viewable"
data-refresh-secs="45"
></div>
Her favorite warm-up:
<p>Funsch likes to start class by having her students bow (in non-COVID times, she had them bow in a circle.) "We see each other and touch the earth in some way to honor the space and our dance ancestors who have moved there before us," she says. "We honor the ancestry of the people who have been in this land before us, and add our own personal intentions for our own families and ancestors. Then, we do a five-minute improv to burn through the residue of what has happened prior to being in class."</p><p>For her own teaching warm-up, Funsch likes to "noodle around with my version of Bartenieff Fundamentals to recruit full-body connectivity and to scan my inner state for potentially relevant talking points."</p>Must-have teaching attire:
<p>"Joe Boxer sweatpants from the kids' section—they are inexpensive and durable!"</p>Go-to teaching tool:
<p>"Paper and pen for free-writing and processing of the moved experience." Funsch finishes her classes with stretch and recovery, during which she asks dancers to write and reflect on class.</p><div class="htl-ad"
data-unit="dance_teacher/dt_desktop_medrec"
data-sizes="0x0:|1024x0:300x250"
data-prebid="0x0:|1024x0:dt_desktop_medrec"
data-refresh="viewable"
data-refresh-secs="45"
></div>
How she typically structures class:
<p>Funsch has what she calls a "somatic idea" for each class. For example, "How the rotary function in the scapula can support access to a fuller kinesphere." She introduces this concept for the class to explore as a part of their improvisation practice. "Then we come into some movement forms, like folding at major joints, back articulations and foot articulations," she says. "From there, we do some center-floor work—folding, falling, and finding an interface between the back and the floor." Then, Funsch introduces some repertoire and pairs her dancers up so they can observe and coach one another. "Toward the end of class we do a version of the material where the vocab is stripped away and it becomes more about improvising the ideas of the vocabulary," she says.</p>Recommended content:
<p>"Recent books by Barbara Dilley and anything by Deborah Hay; John Cage's <em>Silence; </em>interviews with Tere O'Connor; antiracism<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1BRlF2_zhNe86SGgHa6-VlBO-QgirITwCTugSfKie5Fs/mobilebasic?fbclid=IwAR0F63yjifEU8AJHYmULZuj8E-aVzQZWobZW9ACT8zcWZllqlbzG5c7OnIY" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> </a><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1BRlF2_zhNe86SGgHa6-VlBO-QgirITwCTugSfKie5Fs/mobilebasic?fbclid=IwAR0F63yjifEU8AJHYmULZuj8E-aVzQZWobZW9ACT8zcWZllqlbzG5c7OnIY" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">resources</a>; Susan Sontag; Jill Randall's <em>Life as a Modern Dancer</em> blog; the Center for Performance Research <u>reading groups</u>; Melanie George's interviews and jazz scholarship."</p>Her approach to virtual class:
<p>"I've redesigned vocabularies to devour kinesphere space more than general space," she says. She's embraced voice-led improvisation that's conducive to Zoom, and incorporates filmed material of her moving in nature into class.</p><div class="htl-ad"
data-unit="dance_teacher/dt_desktop_medrec"
data-sizes="0x0:|1024x0:300x250"
data-prebid="0x0:|1024x0:dt_desktop_medrec"
data-refresh="viewable"
data-refresh-secs="45"
></div>
Guilty pleasure:
<p>"Film noir—except I'm not guilty about it!" Funsch especially likes <em>Le Doulos</em>, <em>Elevator to the Gallows</em> and <em>Laura</em>.</p>What she never leaves home without:
<p> "A love letter from long ago"</p>
Keep reading...
Show less
Courtesy Meg Brooker
As the presidential election approaches, it's a particularly meaningful time to remember that we are celebrating the centennial of the 19th Amendment, when women earned the right to vote after a decades-long battle.
Movement was more than a metaphor for the fight for women's suffrage—dancers played a real role, most notably Florence Fleming Noyes, who performed her riveting solo Dance of Freedom in 1914 to embody the struggle for women's rights.
This fall, Middle Tennessee State University director of dance Meg Brooker is reconstructing Dance of Freedom on 11 of her students. A Noyes Rhythm teacher and an Isadora Duncan scholar, Brooker is passionate about bringing historic dance practices into a contemporary context.
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU1MTkyNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NDYyNTM1Mn0.-Fgvo-mO5NAxsuWd6bXWuO0YDs_NGVF0ceOGct4UHR0/img.jpg?width=980" id="6dd89" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6a1a72c8dd96af9ace6177675328c93d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Noyes, in a white tunic, reaching her arms upwards" />
A still from the archival video of Noyes's "Dance of Freedom." Photo courtesy Dawson City Museum and Historical Society Collection, Library and Archives Canada
<p>Noyes (1871–1928) may be the most famous dance innovator that you've never heard of, and is often confused with the Duncan imitators of the day (both women had roots in American Delsartism, based on the work of François Delsarte).</p>
<p>Noyes founded the Noyes School of Rhythm in 1912 at Carnegie Hall, with branches in major cities throughout the U.S. In 1919, she established the permanent home for her summer program at Shepherd's Nine in Portland, Connecticut, which is still going today, run by descendants of the original practitioners of Noyes' technique.</p><p>Noyes' work is divided into two parts: the technique class, where students study sequential movement patterns, core-distal initiation, oppositions and twists, developmental patterns and basic movement mechanics, and the recreational class, where movement is guided by the teacher's narration of phenomena in the natural world. Brooker describes it as a poetic type of instruction that involves play, improvisation and deep rest.</p>
<div class="htl-ad"
data-unit="dance_teacher/dt_desktop_medrec"
data-sizes="0x0:|1024x0:300x250"
data-prebid="0x0:|1024x0:dt_desktop_medrec"
data-refresh="viewable"
data-refresh-secs="45"
></div>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU1MjAwOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMjAzMDc3OX0.eXqzkOAPErEsQeV7RzoiXAMTG-LiW7ldf0KhkTj1YYs/img.jpg?width=980" id="62350" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="736e22b933483b97a45c0d6ee6d8b636" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Four masked dancers reach to the side, as a video of Noyes plays behind them" />
Brooker's students dance with a video of Noyes. Photo courtesy Brooker
<p>In addition to reconstructing Noyes' <em>Dance of Freedom</em>, Brooker's students will also be making their own phrases to teach one another based on the theme of being bound and struggling to break free. The final product will be a film of her students' collaboration, juxtaposed with the Noyes historical piece, presented as part of the Middle Tennessee's virtual fall dance concert on November 21.</p><p>Brooker will also be doing a workshop on the reconstruction and recontextualization process at the National Dance Education Organization virtual conference on October 25. "I'm framing the <em>Dance of Freedom</em> reconstruction as a way for educators to engage students in the history of the suffrage movement through dance, and also as a way to examine the racism in the history of the women's suffrage movement," says Brooker.</p><p>Noyes appeared in suffrage demonstrations in Washington, DC, New York City and Boston, as well as a demonstration held the day before the 1913 inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. "Half of the people did not have a voice in choosing the president," Brooker says. "It was a very intentional choice to have this public demonstration a day before."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU1MjAxNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2Mzc4NjU1OX0.xUWcewnpZ4gNHFljn8xaS58xKA4gGvTJ5tO04KR9G78/img.jpg?width=980" id="c034c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f3a7966d0461d10379c26a3afae1b630" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Noyes, in a dark tunic reaching upward with one hand, is surrounded by a group of women and girls in white tunics" />
Noyes in Washington, DC in March 1913. Photo courtesy Library of Congress
<div class="htl-ad"
data-unit="dance_teacher/dt_desktop_medrec"
data-sizes="0x0:|1024x0:300x250"
data-prebid="0x0:|1024x0:dt_desktop_medrec"
data-refresh="viewable"
data-refresh-secs="45"
></div>
<p>Brooker started her project by contextualizing the dance with this information, exploring with her students the complexities of race and gender that plagued the women's movement then and still today.</p><p>"We talked about how the white suffragists did not stand up for Black women, and how the white suffrage leaders made a choice to segregate the historic 1913 march in Washington," she says. Brooker reminded her students that the 19th Amendment states "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex," which left women of color vulnerable to voter suppression based on their race.</p><p>Brooker feels that <em>Dance of Freedom</em> might allude to the fact that there was still much work to be done. "Noyes was highly trained in Delsarte, and she understood the metaphorical relationship between gesture and expression," Booker says. "She starts wrapped in 10 yards of chiffon, struggling to free herself. There is a moment when she frees her upper body, but her lower body is still bound." A newspaper article from 1914 describing the dance used the phrase "freedom is only half won."</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU1MjA1OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0ODg1MTI0MH0.JtEb28dqqCn1TA8Ttmb-qrMo9wL_Px5E36WgFIepEZg/img.jpg?width=980" id="7a72b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c75ceb8d05f34ec042e40350411d370d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="Five masked students sit on the ground, reaching upwards. A video of Noyes plays behind them" />
Courtesy Brooker
<p>"We are using this moment in the dance to interrogate what happened historically with regard to racism and women's suffrage, creating a space to ask how far we have really come in the last 100 years," Brooker says.</p><p>She had originally planned to do the reconstruction based on an unidentified newspaper clipping found in the Noyes archives. The clipping contained an astonishingly high level of detail, enough for her to piece together the work and fill in the blanks with her fluency of Noyes technique.</p><p>Then, something extraordinary happened. She was contacted through her website about a short clip of Noyes dancing in <em>Dawson City: Frozen in Time</em>, a documentary about rare newsreels unearthed during a construction project. Before long, she had acquired the entire newsreel from the Dawson City Museum and Historical Society Collection, Library and Archives Canada, which contained a title slide that read "Woman's emancipation from her bonds-- a suffragist pantomime-- is symbolized by Florence Fleming Noyes," along with her performing <em>Dance of Freedom</em> in its entirety.</p>
<div class="htl-ad"
data-unit="dance_teacher/dt_desktop_medrec"
data-sizes="0x0:|1024x0:300x250"
data-prebid="0x0:|1024x0:dt_desktop_medrec"
data-refresh="viewable"
data-refresh-secs="45"
></div>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDU1MjA2OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MTI4NjExOH0.vIHjohfaX17IVWPb3r6EhsgzRRCX8t2RBRq6kOdyVII/img.jpg?width=980" id="68d20" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9be31354f3ab7cbc5af763337dfa09cf" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="A grainy black and white images of Noyes, in a white tunic draped over her head, leaning to the side." />
Courtesy Dawson City Museum and Historical Society Collection, Library and Archives Canada
<p>"I had chills," recalls Brooker. "It's the only footage we have of Noyes dancing. It's amazing to me to see the clarity of her gestures, which is that Delsarte influence."</p><p>Now, she is able to use the actual footage of Noyes for both the reconstruction and in the final film, which will include dancers moving in front of the projection of Noyes to amplify the tension between the past and the present.</p><p>It would be six more years after Noyes was filmed performing <em>Dance of Freedom</em> until the 19th Amendment was passed, and 51 years until the Voting Rights Act. Brooker and her students realize there's much more work to be done, even today.</p><p>"We are kinesthetically examining the relationship between individual agency and collective social responsibility," Brooker says. "We want to keep the complexity of that question visible in what we create. We are not planning to offer easy answers."</p>
Keep reading...
Show less
