Mesmerized, Baffled, and Smitten by the Magic of Dance

A Veteran L.A. Dance Critic Reflects on Her Passion for the Art Form

My career as a dance critic really began when I was six years old, though I didn’t know it. My mom signed me up to take a creative movement class at a local West Los Angeles park. The specific details of this long-ago outing are too deeply buried in my memory to dig up. I do know it was centered not on learning a dance technique, but on imaginative play and natural movement—running, crawling, and whirling about. My sharpest recollection is of a recital performance in a recreation room and …

Was Wounded Knee a Battle for Religious Freedom?

By Clamping Down on the Indian Ghost Dance, the U.S. Government Sparked a Tragedy

The Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 appears in many history textbooks as the “end of the Indian Wars” and a signal moment in the closing of the Western frontier. …

Dancing in New Orleans to Overcome Division

A Crescent City Transplant Creates a Diverse Non-Profit, and Finds a New Home

Five years ago, I moved from New York to New Orleans. The reasons included a need to escape from the New York grind, a lover’s terminal brain cancer, and a …

On Ice

This girl can make a tile floor an ice skating rink, and I see a
rock and say, Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock. One of us has magic
and the …

When Choreography and Secrets Collide

A Collaborative Art Project Seeks to Turn Community Memories Into Dance

Does a work of art have to be created by one person with a singular vision? Our experience says “no.”

Art-making also works when a group of specialized artists—or even …

Burlesque Is a Power Trip

Sparkly Underwear and Ostrich Feathers Give Me More Creative Freedom Than I’ve Ever Had Before

The song is a hokey karaoke version of Frank Sinatra’s “Witchcraft.” It’s the week of Halloween, 2012, and I’m in a theater on New York’s Upper West Side. I’m wearing …