Tap dancer Tommy Wasiuta grew up with a drum set in his basement, playing around with it anytime he got the chance. When he discovered solo drum albums in college, he fell in love with the idea of listening to just one drummer on one drum set. And it sparked an idea: “I was like, ‘I want to do the same thing with tap shoes and see how musical I can get them,’ ” he says.  With this in mind, he started experiencing tap through a new lens, hearing grooves he made with his feet rather than thinking about how the […]

Sometimes, when I look at where I’m currently at in my work in dance education, I’m reminded of poet Rupi Kaur’s quote, “I stand on the sacrifices of a million women before me, thinking: What can I do to make this mountain taller so the women after me can see farther?” While it would be dismissive of my own hard work to not recognize the great effort I put into my learning and earning of opportunities, it is important to acknowledge where I’ve come from and how I’ve arrived where I happen to be.  Lineage in dance allows us to […]

On a Friday afternoon on the last day of May, Donna Faye Burchfield was sitting on her deck in Philadelphia when a newspaper notification popped up on her friend’s phone: University of the Arts, where Burchfield had been dean of the School of Dance since 2010, was closing its doors in a week—for good. Were Burchfield and her colleagues given any warning? “Of course not,” she says with a laugh, still incredulous months after the fact. “And we had 31 students scheduled to leave for France in less than two weeks for the low-residency MFA program.” Burchfield spent the rest […]

When the casting sheet goes up, there’s one role that few students are excited to see their name next to: understudy. Some of us know what that feels like (at least I do), but as educators, it is our job to help our students navigate this responsibility and encourage them to put in just as much effort as if they were first cast. Luckily, we’ll have tried-and-tested strategies from experienced educators on DT+ this month. We’ll also be offering tips on structuring a dance class for K–12 general-education students that strikes a balance between creative exploration, choreography, and technique; discussing […]

From director shifts to faculty appointments and beyond, here are the major dance educator moves you should know about from fall 2024. Kelli David-Low has been appointed dance education director at Deeply Rooted Dance Theater. Amy Marshall has been named associate director of education at the Paul Taylor Dance Foundation. April Ball, Phillip Broomhead, and Emily Nicolaou have joined the full-time faculty of University of North Carolina School of the Arts’ School of Dance. Hansuke Yamamoto has joined the faculty of San Francisco Ballet School. Eric Tamm has joined the faculty of the American Ballet Theatre William J. Gillespie School […]

When Sharon Dante founded The Nutmeg Ballet Conservatory in a small, one-room studio in Torrington, Connecticut, in 1969, she was determined to create a space for serious ballet education for the local New England community. “Since then,” says current executive director Victoria Mazzarelli, “we have enjoyed decades of growth, flourishing into an internationally renowned training program.” Nutmeg has truly become that, offering professional-level training, academics and performance opportunities to young artists. The majority of its faculty are also alumni (“Once a Nutmegger, always a Nutmegger,” says Mazzarelli), which fosters a sense of continuity and personal investment much like a professional company. The […]

Just a few years after his graduation from the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance at the University of Southern California, Jakevis Thomason booked the dream gig for many a commercial dancemaker: choreographing for Beyoncé. After making a viral dance video to Queen Bey’s “Black Parade,” Thomason was approached by the artist’s team to set the song’s choreography on her dancers for last year’s Renaissance tour. His work is deeply musical, simultaneously filled with sumptuous details and full-bodied movements—allowing it to translate perfectly from film to arena. Thomason has also choreographed for Brandy and has performed with a slew of big names, like […]