News

"The Devil Ties My Tongue" SKETCH Series 2013 | photo: David DeSilva

Vox: Women are burned out at work and at home

/0 Comments/in /by

18 May 2020

By Emily Stewart

Sheryl Sandberg on the “double-double shift” women are working during the coronavirus.

Amid the coronavirus crisis, millions of Americans are working from home and trying to balance their home lives. And women, specifically, are bearing the brunt of the labor.

New research from Lean In, the women’s organization founded by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, examines how women working from home are faring during the Covid-19 pandemic compared with men. Their findings, at least to many women in that situation, are likely unsurprising: Women with full-time jobs, a partner, and children report spending a combined 71 hours a week on child care, elder care, and household chores — compared with 51 hours for men.

A quarter of women are experiencing physical symptoms of severe anxiety, compared with just 11 percent of men. Women of color are facing an especially tough situation: 75 percent of black and Latina women spend a combined 21-plus hours per week on housework, compared with just over half of white women; they also spend more time on child care and elder care than their white counterparts.

“We know that when things get hard, women get hit the hardest,” says Sandberg. “The double whammy of what happens in the workforce and then what happens to demands on home help has never been higher.”

Read the full article here. 

New York Times: Tobi Tobias, Longtime Dance Critic, Dies at 81

/0 Comments/in /by

By Neil Genzlinger

21 February 2020

Tobi Tobias, whose dance criticism for New York magazine and other outlets made her an influential voice in the genre for decades, died on Feb. 13 at her home in Manhattan. She was 81.

Her husband, Irwin Tobias, confirmed the death. He said she had been in declining health for some time.

Ms. Tobias, who was also the author of a number of children’s books, began writing about dance in the early 1970s, starting with an article about Twyla Tharp for the alumni magazine of Barnard College, both women’s alma mater. Armed with that and another article about Ms. Tharp for a different publication — the sum total of her dance writing at that point — she offered her services to Dance Magazine.

To her surprise, William Como, the editor in chief, called her in for an interview. Although they differed about a lot of things — “Just for instance, he was a Béjart guy; I was a Balanchine gal,” she wrote on her blog some 40 years later — he enlisted her as a writer and, later in the decade, as an editor of other critics.

She became the dance critic at New York magazine in 1980 and held that post for 22 years. She also wrote for The New York Times, The Village Voice, Bloomberg News and the website Arts Journal, among other outlets.

Her articles for Arts Journal made her a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in criticism. The Pulitzer judges singled her out for “work that reveals passion as well as deep historical knowledge of dance, her well-expressed arguments coming from the heart as well as the head.”

Read the full obituary here.

“IT’S A NEW ERA FOR WOMEN IN BALLET” – DDP GENDER EQUITY RESEARCH CENTRAL TO NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO “HERE & NOW” STORY

/0 Comments/in , , /by

December 23, 2019 Northfield, Illinois Dance Data Project® (DDP) research was discussed in a Here & Now piece on National Public Radio (NPR) on Friday, December 20. Following reporter Sharon Basco’s initial investigation of the lack of women choreographers in ballet, published in WBUR’s The ARTery and covered in a Here & Now story in 2015, the program discussed the shifting “no girls allowed” atmosphere in the artform.

The 2012-2013 ballet season research by Amy Seiwert and Joseph Copley – in which of 290 ballets programmed by a sample of companies that season, just 25 were choreographed by women – set the stage for the story. “Major companies went year after year without staging a single ballet by a woman,” narrated Basco, “People began to take notice.” Former chief dance critic of the New York Times, Alastair Macaulay, was one of those people, Basco shared, “[Macaulay] points to an awakening in the past few years – and changes are underway, starting with several companies hiring female artistic directors.”

The notion that having more women running ballet companies may serve as a catalyst in the growing equity in ballet, has often been discussed, and has been reflected in the seasons of companies like the English National Ballet, Cincinnati Ballet, and more. Basco interviewed the artistic director of the former, Tamara Rojo, who agreed, stating, “Today it will be very, very strange for any company to announce a season where there is no female representation.”

Basco noted, however, that female representation in programming is just the tip of the iceberg. Citing DDP’s July 2019 report, she said, “This season, fewer than 20% of ballets are by female choreographers.” Furthermore, she noted, “The women commissioned for major work do so mainly as freelancers, not resident choreographers.” As the DDP team conducted research this month on global resident choreographers, indeed, not one of the “Top 10” U.S. ballet companies (ranked by budget) had a female resident choreographer in 2019. Women are rarely afforded the “luxury of an institutional home,” and, beyond this, they are often paid only a fraction of the compensation offered to male choreographers. Twenty-seven-year-old choreographer (and principal dancer at New York City Ballet) Lauren Lovette weighed in, saying, “That is the next step. It’s like, okay, thank you for giving an opportunity, now will you pay me the same?”

One of the rare “exceptions” to the glass ceiling is veteran choreographer Helen Pickett, who concluded the piece on an optimistic note, saying, “This is the ground we walk on now – that WE walk on now – and let’s keep on going forward with that.”   

DDP will release more findings in January following an investigation of the role of equity in major U.S. dance venue leadership and programming, as well as the first global study of resident choreographers.

Listen to the story on WBUR’s website or below:

DDP FINDINGS CENTRAL TO NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO ‘HERE & NOW’ REPORT: VETERAN JOURNALIST SHARON BASCO EXPANDS HER 2015 COVERAGE OF GENDER INEQUITY IN BALLET

/0 Comments/in , , /by

December 20, 2019 Northfield, Illinois Dance Data Project ® (DDP) today features in a Here & Now piece on National Public Radio (NPR). Following reporter Sharon Basco’s initial investigation of the lack of women choreographers in ballet, published on WBUR’s The ARTery and subject of a Here & Now story in 2015, the program examines multiple factors in the art form which contribute to inequity.

Basco cited Amy Seiwert and Joseph Copley’s 2012 research, which addressed the issue for the Cincinnati Enquirer, in addition to DDP’s 2019-2020 season findings in her article, “In ‘BB@home: ChoreograpHER,’ The Women of The Boston Ballet Show Ingenuity And Talent.”

Of the lack of women choreographers, Basco wrote:

When you look at ballet you enjoy the movement, the shape of the dance, the performers, and, if there is any, the music and the story. You may marvel at the dancers’ skill, strength, artistry and charisma. Chances are, you don’t immediately focus on the person who created the work. But now, for very good reasons, the ballet world is thinking about who makes its dances.

DDP is delighted to share news of NPR’s national coverage of the lack of opportunities for female leadership in classical dance. We anticipate this platform will inspire others in all aspects of ballet to take concrete steps to include more women choreographers in programming. “Systematic exclusion of women choreographers is just the tip of a culture-wide problem in the global industry of ballet. While, by most estimates, women make 80% of what is made by their male counterparts, in 2017, female artistic directors earned just 68% of the amount earned by male artistic directors. In 2016 that figure was only 62%,” said DDP Founder and President Liza Yntema. DDP will release more findings in January following an investigation of the role of equity in major U.S. dance venue leadership and programming.

Read Basco’s review of Boston Ballet’s BB@home: ChoreograpHER and discussion of women in ballet for WBUR’s The ARTery here.

Interested parties can listen to Here & Now live on the radio (find a station near you that broadcasts the program here) and online (Monday-Friday 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. EST) here. The story in question airs at 1:20 p.m. EST. Individual stories can be found following the air time at either 2:30 p.m. EST or 3:30 p.m. EST online at WBUR. Links will also be available at www.dancedataproject.com/category/press/. DDP encourages listeners to join this important conversation by leaving a comment at the end of the story.

For more information and ways to listen, visit https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/ways-to-listen.

Please contact Isabelle Vail, ivail@dancedataproject.com, with any questions.

Edit: The story’s recording is now available here.

Datebook: Smuin Ballet finally has a home after 25 years adrift

/0 Comments/in /by

By Sam Whiting

30 October 2019

Smuin Contemporary Ballet dancers don’t normally use white respirator masks, but they have been vagabonds for 25 years and they weren’t going to wait another day. They were willing to breathe in paint fumes and dust to finally rehearse in their long-awaited and still-unfinished $10 million studio at the base of Potrero Hill.

The San Francisco company founded by the late choreographer Michael Smuin in 1994 had never managed to secure a studio lease, but now it owns a space in the city. So this first day of rehearsal for its annual “The Christmas Ballet” was historic because it marked the first day the 16-dancer troupe could rehearse at the official Smuin Center for Dance.

Gone is the hassle and the wear and tear of subletting space, which meant dancers were kicked out for children’s classes. Gone are the days they’d have to pack up their gear, traipse across town and find parking at some other borrowed space, with a different sprung floor to adapt to. Shin splints and knee troubles are an occupational hazard in constantly changing surfaces. So is transportation. Most dancers supplement their income by teaching. Without a studio they are like adjunct professors, known as “freeway fliers,” shuttling between dance schools.

Read the full article on Datebook.

DDP in The Seattle Times’ Feature of Pacific Northwest Ballet

/0 Comments/in , , /by

The Seattle Times: At Pacific Northwest Ballet and elsewhere, female choreographers are a rarity — but that’s changing

By Moira Macdonald

31 October 2019

On an autumn afternoon in a cavernous Pacific Northwest Ballet studio, something brand-new was slowly beginning to take shape. Choreographer Eva Stone, whose ballet, “F O I L,” will make its world premiere as part of the “Locally Sourced” program in November, watched intently as a group of PNB’s female dancers settled into her work, memorizing it in their bodies.

“It’s almost like your hearts are beating in unison,” she said of the delicate movements of a trio. Urging the dancers to immerse themselves in each moment, Stone reminded them that the steps were actually uncomplicated. “The magnificence,” she said, “is in you.”

Just the quiet, everyday miracle of art and bodies, but there was something unusual going on that day.

Though we often think of ballet in terms of women — pointe shoes, tutus, swan queens — female choreographers are relatively rare in the ballet world, and local female choreographers at PNB are even rarer. Stone, a Seattle-based dance-maker and producer (she curates the annual dance festival, “CHOP SHOP: Bodies of Work,” and is artistic director of the Stone Dance Collective), is making her PNB debut as a choreographer. She’s one of only five women whose choreography has been seen on PNB’s mainstage in the last five seasons, along with Twyla Tharp, Crystal Pite, Jessica Lang and Robyn Mineko Williams. In that same time frame, 27 men have presented their work.

…

While ballet company rosters tend to be slightly majority-female (PNB currently has 47 dancers on its roster, 27 of whom are women), the statistics for those who create the dances tell another story. The Dance Data Project, which examined the top 50 American ballet companies, found that for the 2018-19 season, 81 percent of the works performed by those companies was choreographed by men; for 2019-20, that figure was 79 percent. PNB’s average is in the same neighborhood — over the past five seasons, 83 percent of the works on its stage have been choreographed by men.

Read the full article in The Seattle Times.

“Locally Sourced,” a Pacific Northwest Ballet program featuring three world-premiere ballets from local choreographers: “F O I L” by Eva Stone, “Love and Loss” by Donald Byrd,” and “Wash of Grey” by Miles Pertl. Nov. 8-17, McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St., Seattle; $37-$190; 206-441-2424, pnb.org

DDP Cited by WBUR Artery

/0 Comments/in , , /by

In ‘BB@home: ChoreograpHER,’ The Women Of The Boston Ballet Show Ingenuity And Talent

By Sharon Basco

25 October 2019

When you look at ballet you enjoy the movement, the shape of the dance, the performers, and, if there is any, the music and the story. You may marvel at the dancers’ skill, strength, artistry and charisma. Chances are, you don’t immediately focus on the person who created the work.

But now, for very good reasons, the ballet world is thinking about who makes its dances.

Historically, it’s overwhelmingly a male domain, with most ballet companies going year after year without a single piece made by a woman. In the 2012-2013 season, U.S. ballet troupes with budgets exceeding $5 million staged some 290 ballets. Just 25 of those were choreographed by women, according to research compiled by the Cincinnati Enquirer. According to a new research organization called the Dance Data Project, men will choreograph some 79 percent of works this season.

The Boston Ballet is trying to strike a more even balance. They’ve given female dancers the time and opportunity to create short ballets. This effort, called “ChoreograpHER,” presents its second season this week (it’s sold out) featuring six pieces by female company members. The venue is the small but well-appointed theater in the company’s South End headquarters.

Read the full article in The Artery.

From DDP’s Instagram – Founder Liza Yntema Attends BB@home: ChoreograpHER

/0 Comments/in , /by

It was a delight and privilege for DDP founder & president Liza Yntema to attend a preview of Boston Ballet’s BB@home: Choreographer showing on Wednesday.

The performance on Thursday is sold out, and will present new works by Principal Dancer Lia Cirio, Soloist Chyrstyn Fentroy, Second Soloist Lauren Herfindahl, and Artists Sage Humphries, Abigail Merlis, and Joy Womack.

Following the preview showing, Liza was able to meet the artists and take a quick picture before her travels south to Washington, D.C. for The Washington Ballet’s NEXTsteps performance on Thursday.

From L to R, Chyrstyn Fentroy, Liza Yntema, Helen Pickett, Lauren Herfindahl, Lia Cirio, Sage Nicole Humphries, and Abigain Merlis.

DDP Takes Part in Consulting Projects Course of Berkeley Haas’ Center for Equity, Gender, and Leadership

/0 Comments/in , /by

Each semester, the Center for Equity, Gender, and Leadership (EGAL), at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, offers a Consulting Projects Course. This fall, DDP is one of the select organizations participating in this course in which students are presented with a company’s unique issue, problem, or decision that is critical to advancing that organization’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. 

As DDP grows, we need help meeting demands for more data and insight into the roles gender equity plays in the dance community. Furthermore, our team is committed to benefiting from academic insight and learning the latest methods in data analysis and academic research.

We are pleased to announce that second-year MBA student Patrick Crocker will be working on our project in the EGAL course. Patrick’s expertise comes from 10 years on active duty in the U.S. Army as a Judge Advocate and heavy exposure to dance from growing up backstage at his aunt’s dance studio performances, to working as an accompanist for dance classes at Texas Christian University, and to collaborating with the University of Richmond dance department during law school. Patrick will consider two topics of interest, examining either major ballet venues or company-affiliated ballet schools in the United States, defining the scope of their market and revealing the gender distribution in leadership and programming. This project is tailored to develop a usable product of interest to both the dance world and leaders in gender equity, as well as to the general public.

The DDP team would like to thank Larissa Roesch, who introduced our founder, Liza, to this project and Jennifer Wells, Program Director of EGAL for making the collaboration possible. We look forward to sharing the results of this collaboration with our community in the coming months!

About Patrick

Patrick is currently a full-time MBA student at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley (class of 2020). Prior to Berkeley, Patrick spent a decade in the U.S. Army as a Judge Advocate, mostly practicing in the criminal, operational, and intelligence law fields. He is originally from Texas and has been involved with dance off and on throughout his life, including working as an accompanist for the dace department at Texas Christian University during undergrad and writing/performing music for the dance department at the University of Richmond during law school. He is thrilled to be able to contribute to the amazing work DDP is doing to support equity initiatives in classical ballet.

Learn more about Berkeley Haas’ Center for Equity, Gender, and Leadership here.

DDP Gets a Feature on Forbes.com – The Gender Pay Gap Exists in Ballet, Too

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

A Gender Gap In Ballet, Seriously?

By Kim Elsesser

12 September 2019

If there is one occupation in which it seems women should have an equal shot of making it to leadership roles, it is ballet. From a young age, far more girls than boys are interested in ballet, so much so that girls are estimated to outnumber boys 20-to-1 in ballet classes. Yet when it comes to leadership, there’s a shocking gender gap in favor of men. 

The Data Dance Project (DDP), an organization dedicated to promoting equity in classical ballet, examined leadership and salary data for artistic directors at the top 50 ballet companies in the United States—and their findings are pretty shocking. Artistic directors are often former dancers, and they have the final say on artistic decisions like how a step may be performed or how a show will transition from one piece to the next. According to DDP, a whopping 72% of ballet companies have a male artistic director. Those women who do get the title of artistic director earn only 68 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts.  Sadly, only one woman made it onto DDP’s top ten list of the highest paid artistic directors. 

The gender bias in choreography is even worse. DDP found that in the 2018-19 ballet season, men choreographed 81% of all works performed by the top 50 ballet companies. Of the 467 works announced for the 2019-20 season, 79% will be choreographed by men.

Read the full feature on Forbes.com.