Category: dance

There Is Room For Equality In Ballet

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If you’ve been following the news lately, you may have noticed that the ballet world has been getting a rather large amount of negative press.  And for good reason.  Ballet and dance writ large are built on a foundation of toxic masculinity and that has, both historically and presently, manifested in an incredibly violent rape culture.  Of course, rape culture exists outside of ballet.  But ballet is a female-dominated industry that is run almost entirely by men, which has allowed toxic masculinity and a culture of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse to fester.  The professional world has received a lot of press: for example, Peter Martins of NYCB and Marcelo Gomes of ABT.  However, this neither begins nor ends in the professional world.  Big name ballet companies get a lot of press, but this doesn’t come out of nowhere.  From the time kids enter the ballet world, they are aggressively interpolated into the gender binary with antiquated gender roles enforced both by practices in ballet class and by roles they play in performed ballets. Continue reading “There Is Room For Equality In Ballet” →

Why Does Your Computer Need A Gaydar?

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Fun fact: I don’t care how accurate your algorithm is if its only clear purpose is oppression.  I don’t care how “compelling” your data is if all it serves to do is perpetuate a damaging norm.  Data is built around norms, folks.  This isn’t news.  I don’t care what “science” you think you’re contributing to or how valuable you think your inquiry is for the scientific community if the only foreseeable use for your results is endangering a group of people. Continue reading “Why Does Your Computer Need A Gaydar?” →

My Dorky Dance Love Part 2: AKA Life Lessons I’ve Learned in Improv

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Hello world, and happy National Dance Day! Today I attempt to tackle the topic of some life lessons I’ve learned from having an active improvisatory practice and how this has shaped my interactions both in and out of the dance studio. In a previous post, I talked about the positive and singular environment that improv creates. Today, I’m going to talk about how this environment has taught me a bunch of life lessons that have been useful both in a dance classroom setting and in my “real world” interactions. So often we, as dancers, abstract our “dance world” experiences from our “real world” experiences. I put these both in quotes because why can’t the dance world be a part of the real world? Certainly, the dance world can feel like its own microcosm with a unique set of guidelines for interactions, but I’d argue that these are all influenced by, and also continue to influence, our real world interactions. So, some life lessons I’ve learned from improv: Continue reading “My Dorky Dance Love Part 2: AKA Life Lessons I’ve Learned in Improv” →

My Dorky Dance Love: AKA How Improv Helped Me Find My Niche 

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I’ve written a few times about contact improv, my contact improv class, and my general dorky love for improv.  My semester recently ended, so as a sort of culminating reflection, I’m going to discuss my dorky love for improv and where that comes from.  I really only started having an active improv practice this year, and it’s done me a lot of good as a human, a dancer, and a choreographer.  I started using improv as a method of devising choreography for a piece I was working on for a student choreographed concert at my school, and realized how valuable this practice is to my growth as a dancer and understanding of myself as a human.  And just how much I love to move. Continue reading “My Dorky Dance Love: AKA How Improv Helped Me Find My Niche “ →

Not Your Muse, Not Your Pawn, Not Your Babe

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(Note: This post often addresses gender as a male-female binary, which is a wholly limited and incorrect scope of gender and I fully acknowledge that there are more than two genders; the gender binary is referenced here to address the ways in which much of the mainstream dance world addresses gender.)

Here’s what I’m tired of: gender roles in general but specifically at this moment, the male-centered narrative that allows men to wear women as their accessories, to see them as vessels to the man’s desired end.  You see this in movies, in how roles in a household are constructed, in the workplace, and, to my eternal disappointment, very blatantly in the dance world.  Many factions of the dance world, and particularly the mainstream dance world, love to care a whole lot about centering men.  And not just centering them, but idolizing them.  They are the creators, the curators, the writers of bodies.  And women are often, at best, resigned to being their muses. Continue reading “Not Your Muse, Not Your Pawn, Not Your Babe” →

Hiding In the Light

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I’m taking contact improv this semester, which is honestly one of my favorite things ever, BUT recently my professor had us do a series of exercises that involved A LOT of singing in A LOT of different capacities, notably including singing while dancing and staring at another person in the eyes with no affect in your face and singing directly at them.  I knew the minute he said we’d be doing anything with singing that I wouldn’t enjoy it at all (I hate singing) and I was right about that – I didn’t enjoy it.  But it certainly made me think. Continue reading “Hiding In the Light” →

Movement as Healing: Why I Love Improv

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I’m currently grieving the loss of a person and an animal that were both very important to me, so my life’s been in a bit of emotional turmoil in the past week.  As corny as it may sound, the best way for me to process that is with dance.  There is some science that talks about the benefits of dance on the brain in various ways, but I don’t want to talk about that here.  What I do want to talk about is the less science-y bit where I just really like dance and it’s had a really positive impact on my life. Continue reading “Movement as Healing: Why I Love Improv” →

Welcome to my Ramblings

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Hello world!  Welcome to my blog.  If you know me at all, you know that I have a proclivity for entering into long-form feminist rants and tangents about the things I love, most likely dance and sometimes science (and maybe coffee…I really love coffee).  So, I’ve created this as a place to store all the ramblings/rants since they’re not well-contained in the 140 character limit of Twitter. Continue reading “Welcome to my Ramblings” →