by Alexandra Marie Daniels Arts and Culture Editor “What’s your dream?” she asks. I look at my friend Marjon across the table at the little café on Second Avenue, where we regularly go for an affordable bowl of pasta and…
Blog Archives
India’s Women Find Empowerment in Exotic Dance
by Mandy Van Deven – India – Anyone who has ever sat through the frequent and painstakingly choreographed musical numbers in a Bollywood film can tell you that dance is an integral part of Indian culture. From Bhangra in the…
Tagged with: Arts & Culture, Asia, Bollywood, Dance, India, Sexuality, women's empowerment
Posted in FEATURE ARTICLES
Posted in FEATURE ARTICLES
Stripping Burlesque of Whiteness: Brown Girls Burlesque Take Center Stage
by Mandy Van Deven – India – Known for its bawdy sexual humor, over-the-top characters, and underlying social criticism, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales set the stage for the satirical theatrics which came to be known as burlesque. During its…
Tagged with: Arts & Culture, Dance, diversity, New York, race, United States, women's empowerment
Posted in FEATURE ARTICLES
Posted in FEATURE ARTICLES
Art for a Time of Crisis
by Nancy Van Ness – USA – In a heap on the studio floor as though they had collapsed under some disaster, fallen birds present a scene of despair. I am drawn toward them. They are a very powerful artistic…
Tagged with: activism, Arts & Culture, Dance, handicrafts, Politics, United States
Posted in FEATURE ARTICLES, Politics
Posted in FEATURE ARTICLES, Politics
Artists Make Art Because They Must
by Nancy Van Ness – USA – Forty Years Ago – I was flying. The other dancers and I, in lines, executed jumps across the studio, immediately turning and coming back – jumping over and over again – propelled by…
The Life or Slow Death of American Artists
by Nancy Van Ness – USA – As director of a performing ensemble, one of the joys of my life is to support other artists and witness their work. There is nothing more satisfying than watching my young colleague Lena…
Tagged with: Arts & Culture, Dance, Education, United States, woman artists, youth
Posted in Education, FEATURE ARTICLES
Posted in Education, FEATURE ARTICLES
Unreal Beauty Is Dangerous to the Soul
by Nancy Van Ness – USA – I know what I look like, more than most people. I study photographs and film footage of myself dancing in a unitard assiduously, in order to hone my work. Not many people scrutinize…
Tagged with: Art, Arts & Culture, beauty, Dance, film, self image, The Beauty Myth, United States
Posted in FEATURE ARTICLES
Posted in FEATURE ARTICLES
If You Move Like an Ocean
by D-L Nelson – France – Sujatha Venkatesh sips Indian spiced tea in her Geneva, Switzerland countryside home as she talks about her real and creative journey from Bangalore, India, to becoming the maven of Indian classic and folk dance…
Burlesque is Back
by Laramie Glen – USA – Miss Delirium Tremens traipses on-stage. Her skin is white, her hair black, her lips red. Covered only by two scarlet feather fans, she begins a coy dance to music that is dedicated to the…
Tagged with: Arts & Culture, Burlesque, Dance, New York City, United States
Posted in FEATURE ARTICLES
Posted in FEATURE ARTICLES
