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October 10th: National Theater Project Creation & Touring Grant, October 10th: Dora Maar Residency, October 11th: Obremski/Works 2025 VISION Fellowship, October 13th: National Leaders of Color Fellowship Program, October 15th: Keshet Makers Space Experience, October 16th: Bethany Arts Community Residency, October 16th: The Shubert Foundation Grant, October 21st: Collective Imagination for Spatial Justice, October 28th: GRACE 2025 (Individual Artist Grants), November 15th: Dresher Ensemble Artist Residency, November 19th: Carmel Dance Festival Dance Fellowship, November 21st: Cultural Sustainability, December 2nd: Public Art for Spatial Justice, February 28th: National Dance Project Travel Fund, April 30th: South Arts Individual Artist Career Opportunity Grant, April 30th: South Arts: Professional Development & Artistic Planning Grants, April 30th: South Arts: Express Grants, September 16th: The Awesome Foundation Micro Grants, September 16th: New England States Touring (NEST 1 and 2), September 30th: New England Presenter Travel Fund, September 30th: Amplifi Napa Valley - Emerging Artists Grant
This is Dance Data Project®’s first report examining the endowments and building book values of dance companies in the U.S. This report fills a crucial gap in available research on endowments within the dance community, providing valuable insights into the financial foundations of ballet companies.
The Largest Ballet & Classically Based Companies Leadership Report 202...
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Toyah Willcox and Neil Jones have left the Strictly Come Dancing competition following a dance off against Paul Merson and Karen Hauer during the second Results Show of the series.
Both couples performed their routines again; Toyah and Neil performed their Samba to Poor Unfortunate Souls from Little Mermaid. Then, Paul and his dance partner Karen performed their Cha Cha to The Magnificent Seven from The Magnificent Seven.
After both couples had danced a second time, the judges delivered their verdicts:
With three votes in favour of Paul and Karen, they won the majority vote meaning that Toyah and Neil would be leaving the competition. Head Judge Shirley Ballas also agreed and said she would have decided to save Paul and Karen.
When asked by Tess about their time on the show, Toyah said: “It’s been the best two months of my life, it has been fantastic. I have enjoyed every second. And you (Neil) have been phenomenal, thank you so much.”
Neil said: “She has made me laugh so much, I have never seen someone work so hard – I’m the one asking for breaks every now and then! She just kept going, she wanted to learn so much. If you saw her in the hallway she’s been practicing. Everyone’s been telling me have you seen Toyah practicing, she’s brilliant and she’s what Strictly is all about, and I’ve loved every moment”
When asked by Tess about her partner Neil, Toyah said: “It was immediate, it had to be Neil. I felt so comfortable and safe. You’re a great teacher, you’re a great friend as well. You’ve just given me a new zest for life, that’s the most valuable thing I’ve come away with.”
Sunday’s Results Show also featured a rom-com inspired routine from our fabulous professional dancers, choreographed by Mandy Moore and starring Neil Jones as the leading man. Plus a show stopping musical performance of The Heart Asks Pleasure First from Alexis Ffrench.
The remaining 13 couples will take to the dancefloor next week when Strictly Come Dancing returns on Saturday 12th October at 1820 with the results show on Sunday 13th October at 1920 on BBC One. Both of this weekend’s episodes are available to watch now via BBC iPlayer.
For all of the Strictly Come Dancing news, click on the image below
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“Keeping the National Ballet dancing, whether at home or abroad, is a matter of existential importance for Ukraine, Sukhorukov and his colleagues say. ‘Ballet in our culture — this is the face of the country.’” – Washington Post (MSN)
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As Movie Week approaches on Strictly Come Dancing 2024, here’s what the contestants and their professional dance partners think about the movies.
Which movie icon will you be channelling on Saturday night?
Chris: Mike Myers, Wayne’s World. We are hoping to incorporate a lot of the feel and comedy of the film into our dance. We’re hoping to get away with a few easter eggs for people of a certain age to recognise in our dance.
Who would play you in a movie of your life?
Dianne: Margot Robbie.
Chris: I’ll be played by Denzel Washington. He’s amazing. I want to be more like Denzel Washington. He can play anything so could probably do a decent blind white guy as well.
If your Strictly experience so far was to be turned into a blockbuster movie, who would play you and your pro partner, and what would it be called?
Chris: Dianne says I moan a lot about just how much effort and energy this is taking, so from her perspective I think it would be called “A Thousand Days of Moaning” – because that’s how it must feel.
How will you level up your acting skills during your routine? Is that something that comes naturally to you or is more of a struggle?
Chris: Stand-up is a combination of acting and being yourself, so I think a lot of those skills are transferable.
What would be the tagline for the movie of your life?
Chris: “He’s a man who needs a lie down.”
Which movie is your guilty pleasure?
Chris: While You Were Sleeping.
How do you feel about romantic movies?
Chris: I find them all a bit underwhelming, apart from While You Were Sleeping.
Do you like scary movies, if yes why/if no why not?
Chris: Yes. Feeling scared is good and I think if you never like feeling scared you never really put yourself out of your comfort zone. Start with a good horror movie and then do something scary in your life.
Describe your perfect movie night/day?
Chris: I very rarely watch a movie all the way through these days unless it’s 90 minutes long. But probably a new movie with my daughter and some popcorn and sweets.
If you could re-create any iconic movie dance scene on the Strictly dance floor, which one would it be and why?
Chris: I can only think of the one from Pulp Fiction so I’d have to say that I suppose.
Which movie villain do you think would make a surprisingly good Strictly dancer, and what dance style would they nail?
Chris: Freddy Krueger would probably do a decent cha-cha-cha and would strike a good pose. I think Craig would probably be too scared to call it rubbish as well.
Which movie icon will you be channelling on Saturday night?
Jamie: I’ll be channelling my inner Brad Pitt. They’ve gotta be sexy like me!
How will you level up your acting skills during your routine? Is that something that comes naturally to you or is more of a struggle?
Jamie: Well, actually, to perform on Strictly is different from performing on EastEnders. Because everything on EastEnders is, like, down and in, whereas on Strictly, it’s up and out. And I’m not used to that, so I do find that a bit of a challenge, actually.
If your Strictly experience so far were turned into a blockbuster movie, who would play you and your pro partner, and what would it be called?
Jamie: Leonardo DiCaprio would play me. Kate Winslet would play Michelle. And it would be called Titanic 2.
Who would play you in a movie of your life?
Jamie: Yeah, I think I’d play myself. No one can play me better than me. I know the story, I know how to channel Jamie.
Michelle: I’d probably play me too. I just need to learn how to act first.
Jamie: I’ll try and teach her. Got my work cut out, but I’ll try.
What would be the tagline for the movie of your life?
Against All Odds.
Which movie is your guilty pleasure?
Jamie: Mean Girls
Michelle: White Chicks
How do you feel about romantic movies?
Jamie + Michelle: Love them.
Do you like scary movies, if yes why/if no why not?
Jamie: Hate them
Michelle: Love them
Describe your perfect movie night/day?
Jamie: It’s cold and raining outside. Lamp on, so we’ve got the mood lighting. Tucked up on the sofa, like a bed. Blankets out, crisps, popcorn, a bit of chocolate. Drinks on the side, remote in the middle. But when the film starts, the remote goes away. Curtains closed, doors closed.
Michelle: Nice comfy pillows, blankets, candles are important. Get the diffuser going with lavender, some snacks, and maybe a glass of wine.
If you could re-create any iconic movie dance scene on the Strictly dance floor, which one would it be and why?
Jamie: American Pie: The Wedding, Stifler.
Which movie villain do you think would make a surprisingly good Strictly dancer, and what dance style would they nail?
Jamie: The Riddler from Batman
Which movie icon are you going to embody for Movie Week?
JB: If I could channel my inner anybody, it would be my inner Denzel Washington. He’s played some iconic roles like Man on Fire and Training Day. I think I’d definitely be Oscar-worthy.
How will you level up your acting skills during your routine?
JB: When I’m dancing it’s kind of acting like I’m in a music video, which is cool. This week we’re doing the American Smooth to Wonka, which will be highly stylised. I’m familiar with the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory story, so I feel like I’ve got a head start.
If your Strictly experience were turned into a blockbuster movie, who would play you and Amy, and what would it be called?
JB: Cuba Gooding Jr. would play me. Amy could be played by Angelina Jolie or Scarlett Johansson. The movie could be called Dance Again.
Who would play you in the movie of your life?
JB: I have no idea to be honest with you but I’ll go with who I would be inspired by which is Denzel Washington.
Amy: Kylie Minogue.
What would be the tagline for the movie of your life?
Amy: Don’t get bitter, get better.
JB: Love that, that’s a good one.
Which movie is your guilty pleasure?
JB: Love Actually. It’s a great guilty pleasure every year.
Amy: Parent Trap, because I’m a twin.
Are you a fan of rom-coms?
JB: I’ll be honest with you, I’m not the first to put on a rom-com but my wife is a huge fan and gets upset when I watch movies without her so when she puts them on I get fully invested. The other day she put one on then fell asleep! I ended up watching the whole thing and thought it was really good.
Describe your perfect movie night.
Amy: I like it when it’s raining, winter vibes, fire going, cup of tea with a fleecy blanket.
JB: I’d have homemade popcorn!
Amy: Not for me… I’d have Christmas tins of chocolates.
If you could recreate any iconic movie dance scene on the Strictly dance floor, what would it be and why?
Amy: The dance scene from Billy Elliot where the character says, “Billy, tell me, why do you love to dance?” followed by I Love to Boogie is brilliant.
JB: Annie is another one that stands out for me. It’s one of the musicals I watched recently with my kids, and they absolutely loved it. Jamie Foxx and Rose Byrne were fantastic in their roles.
Which movie villain would make a surprisingly good Strictly dancer?
JB: Tom Hardy as Venom. He would nail the rumba.
Amy: Luke Evans as Gaston in Beauty and the Beast. He’d be fantastic.
Which movie icon are you going to embody for Movie Week?
Montell: I’ll be one of the Dreamgirls, their fourth sister. I’m going to channel my inner leading lady. Try and bring her to the forefront.
How will you level up your acting skills during your routine? Is that something that comes naturally to you or is more of a struggle?
Montell: The storytelling part doesn’t come naturally, but I lean into it because it’s the only way I can bring myself to the dance and let the story come alive through not just movement but expression and emotion.
What would be the tagline for the movie of your life?
Montell and Johannes: Feel the fear and do it anyway.
Which movie is your guilty pleasure?
Johannes: Dreamgirls
Montell: Sister Act 2
How do you feel about romantic movies?
Johannes: A good rom-com is nice. I like old-school ones.
Montell: I like them, Adam Sandler meets Jennifer Aniston vibes.
Do you like scary movies, if yes why/if no why not?
Montell: I’m a massive fan of scary movies, especially horror. It’s my favourite genre.
Describe your perfect movie night/day?
Montell: Sweet popcorn for sure. And I love an actual movie theatre. Reclined seats, surround sound, humungous screen.
Johannes: Set the blanket up on the bed, microwave popcorn.
If you could re-create any iconic movie dance scene on the Strictly dance floor, which one would it be and why?
Montell: Joyful Joyful from Sister Act 2
Johannes: Anything from Dreamgirls
Which movie villain do you think would make a surprisingly good Strictly dancer, and what dance style would they nail?
Johannes: Jinkx Monsoon.
Montell: The Grinch. That’s it, hands down.
If you were to channel the energy of any famous actor for Movies Week, who would you channel?
Nick: Javier Bardem, yeah. He’s always a really strange, complex character in everything he does. I think it’s more fun playing a villain than a goodie, definitely. He’s always somebody strange in every movie he plays, and he’s an interesting character.
And how do you level up your acting skills during your routine? Is it something that comes naturally, or is it more of a challenge?
Nick: Acting comes more naturally than dancing, but Luba is coaching me in both.
If your Strictly experience so far were turned into a blockbuster movie, who would play you and Luba, and what would the movie be called?
Nick: Die Hard. And who would play Luba?
Luba: I’d say Jodie Comer would play me. Especially with her Villanelle accent – she’d be perfect.
Nick: I’m dancing with Killing Eve!
Luba: Would you still be Javier Bardem?
Nick: Actually, I think I’ll switch now to Bruce Willis.
Which movie is your guilty pleasure?
Nick: Kung Fu Panda.
Luba: Gone With the Wind.
And how do you feel about romantic movies or rom-coms?
Nick: I like rom-coms. I’m a massive fan of The Princess Bride – there’s so much in there for adults, even though it’s almost a children’s movie. I love it.
Luba: I love them. I cry, eat chocolate, and watch these beautiful love stories. Sweet November is one of my favourites.
What about scary movies?
Nick: Not for me.
Luba: Barbie was a scary movie for me – dystopian in a way.
If you could recreate any iconic movie dance scene on the Strictly dance floor, which one would it be and why?
Nick: Consider Yourself from Oliver! – the big marketplace scene where everyone joins in.
Luba: The tango scene from Shall We Dance? – It’s gorgeous.
Which movie villain do you think would make a surprisingly good Strictly dancer, and which dance style would they nail?
Nick: Voldemort doing the Viennese Waltz.
Luba: Maleficent doing the Tango. Definitely.
What’s your perfect movie night?
Nick: Snuggled on the sofa with my fiancée, in autumn or winter with dried fruit and a big bag of Revels, watching a rom-com.
Luba: Frozen blueberries, by myself, watching a series someone recommended.
For Movies Week, if you were channelling the energy of any actor, who would that be?
Paul: Jack Nicholson, oh, absolutely classic.
How will you level up your acting skills during your routine? Is it something that comes naturally to you, or more of a struggle?
Paul: I struggle to be showbizzy!
Karen: It’s definitely a challenge, but we work on it together.
If your Strictly experience so far was to be turned into a blockbuster movie, who would play you and Karen, and what would it be called?
Paul: Oh, get me out of here! I’ll go with Jack Nicholson for me from One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, and Halle Berry for Karen. I was going to say Jennifer Lopez.
Who would play you in the movie of your life?
Paul: Oh, I’ll go with young Jamie Borthwick.
Karen: Jenna Ortega for sure.
What would be the tagline for the movie of your life?
Paul: What I live my life by, One Day at a Time. I think everyone should live by that.
Which movie is your guilty pleasure? What could you watch again and again?
Paul: Grown Ups. Anything that makes me laugh.
Karen: Rocky IV, hands down. The training montage is everything. It just gets me every time.
How do you feel about romantic movies? Are you like, nah, give me action, or do you enjoy them?
Paul: If I’m watching with Kate, I don’t mind a good rom-com.
Karen: The Notebook is heartbreaking, though I’m not a fan of cheese.
Scary movies – yes or no?
Paul: No way, not even a little bit. I’ll replay it in my head at home and freak myself out.
Karen: Nope, hard pass. Scary movies are not for me.
Describe your perfect movie night or day.
Paul: Cold, rainy, and dark outside. I’m on the sofa watching a funny film, something light that I can just get into.
Karen: I’m thinking 3pm, sunny but too hot outside, so I’m indoors with a nice glass of wine, the dogs, and a good documentary. For snacks, definitely something sweet.
If you could recreate any iconic movie dance scene on the Strictly dance floor, which one would it be, and why?
Karen: If I could say one for Paul, it would be John Travolta walking through the streets of New York in his white suit, then dancing in the club – iconic! It’s got swag, energy, everything.
Paul: My era, yeah I like that.
Which movie villain do you think would make a surprisingly good dancer on Strictly, and which dance would they nail?
Karen: Jafar from Aladdin
Paul: Gru from Despicable Me could do the Monster Mash.
Pete, which actor are you going to channel for your Movies Week routine?
Pete: Joaquin Phoenix.
How will you level up your acting skills during the routine? Is that something that comes naturally to you or is it more of a struggle?
Pete: Much like dancing, I’ve never acted before. So it’s not a case of levelling up, it’s learning. It’s hard to be anyone other than myself, but I think it’s time I started being someone else. Being me hasn’t worked too well so far!
Jowita: I think you’ll surprise yourself! It’s all about embracing the character.
If your Strictly experience so far was to be turned into a blockbuster movie, who would play you and who would play Jowita, and what would it be called?
Pete: “Death on the Dance Floor,” starring Fred Astaire as me and Ginger Rogers as Jowita.
Jowita: Wow, I love that! Classic Hollywood.
Who would play you in the movie of your life, and Jowita in hers?
Pete: Mickey Rourke. He was in The Wrestler.
Jowita: Hmm, I’d have to say Jenna Ortega. I like her vibe!
Do you have a tagline for the movie of your life?
Pete: “It is what it is.”
Jowita: Live every day like it’s your first and last.
Which movie is your guilty pleasure, one you could watch over and over again?
Pete: The original The Lion King.
How do you feel about romantic movies?
Jowita: Yes, I had a huge crush on Hugh Grant when I was a child. The Notebook is one of my favourites.
What about scary movies? Are you a fan?
Jowita: I enjoy scaring people more than being scared! Silence of the Lambs is a favourite.
Pete: They’re alright. I love nutty films but I don’t really find them scary, I find them a bit funny. I’ll go Silence of the Lambs as well.
Describe your perfect movie night or day. What’s the weather like outside, and what snacks do you have?
Pete: Raining, log cabin in the middle of the woods, fire going, cold night. Couple of bottles of Malbec and cheese board.
Jowita: Snowy night, log cabin! A big bowl of salted popcorn.
If you could recreate any iconic movie dance scene on the Strictly dance floor, which one would it be, and why?
Pete: The Joker dancing down the stairs. It’s the only one I know, but it’s iconic.
Jowita: For me, it would be the Tango scene from Scent of a Woman. It’s just beautiful.
Which movie villain do you think would make a surprisingly good Strictly dancer, and which dance would they nail?
Pete: Scar from The Lion King would do a great Paso Doble. I’ve been compared to him before.
Jowita: The Joker for sure.
Which movie icon are you going to embody for Movie Week?
Punam: I will be channelling my inner Kareena Kapoor – mega Bollywood icon
How will you level up your acting skills during your routine? Is that something that comes naturally to you or is more of a struggle?
Punam: Having grown up with Bollywood influences, I understand how important the accents of the music are and the lyrics so I’m hoping it’ll work out in my favour.
If your Strictly experience so far were turned into a blockbuster movie, who would play you and your pro partner, and what would it be called?
Punam: It would be a cheesy romcom
Which movie is your guilty pleasure?
Punam: Love Actually
How do you feel about romantic movies?
Punam: Love them! My favourite kind of movies – I live for the cheese!
Do you like scary movies, if yes why/if no why not?
Punam: Not my cup of tea – too stressful and can’t sleep after them.
Describe your perfect movie night/day?
Punam: Nachos, gin and tonic, blanket!
If you could re-create any iconic movie dance scene on the Strictly dance floor, which one would it be and why?
Punam: I’m about to do it on Saturday !
Are you going to channel your inner Marilyn Monroe on Movies Week?
Sam: I’m more of a Miss Congeniality girl.
Nikita: I think you’ll be channelling more your inner Lara Croft.
How will you level up your acting skills during your routine?
Sam: I just have to feel the character. Be the character.
Nikita: Your character in week one was so good. In the training room you were holding back but because you trust what I’m saying you do put yourself out there completely. Therefore you have this beautiful character and you’ll be great.
If your Strictly experience so far were turned into a blockbuster movie, who would play you and your pro partner, and what would it be called?
Sam: Nikita would be Leonardo DiCaprio in the Titanic era because he has similar hair, fashion and confidence. I would want Sandra Bullock because I love her. She’s one of my favourite actors, she’s a legend. It would be called something like Transformation.
Nikita: it would be called The Glitterbullet.
Which movie is your guilty pleasure?
Sam: so many. Two Weeks Notice is a classic. I used to have it on VCR. I’ve got an obsession with Sandra Bullock!
Nikita: Harry Potter – all of them.
How do you feel about romantic movies?
Nikita: I love romantic movies. I love to cry. I was the only boy in the cinema when I went to see It Ends With Us and I was weeping at the end. It’s a good ending to a difficult story.
Sam: I love a good rom com.
Do you like scary movies, if yes why/if no why not?
Nikita: No. I have nightmares.
Sam: I think they’re actually quite funny. A group of us GB girls went to watch Paranormal Activity at the cinema when it first came out and it was so scary but it was quite funny because you’re terrified. Everyone in the cinema was terrified.
Nikita: I’m afraid of the dark so it’s a no from me.
Describe your perfect movie night?
Sam: the kids are in bed and they’ve gone straight to bed with no messing around. It’s just me and Tom, the heating’s on so it’s the perfect temperature and we’d get a takeaway with good condiments.
Nikita: white wine. A nice rom com.
Sam: PS I Love You or How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days
Nikita: I love candles. I have a huge table size candle with seven wicks, I’d light that.
If you could re-create any iconic movie dance scene on the Strictly dance floor, which one would it be and why?
Sam: I really want to do Beauty and The Beast with the big yellow dress. Candles in the background, floor lit up, a chandelier.
Nikita: La La Land.
Which movie villain do you think would make a surprisingly good Strictly dancer, and what dance style would they nail?
Sam: The Joker would be a good one. Tom Hiddleston is a great dancer so Loki would be great.
Nikita: Thanos from The Avengers.
How will you level up your acting skills during your routine? Is that something that comes naturally to you or is more of a struggle?
Sarah: The acting bit is the part I look forward to the absolute most because that’s obviously my job and it’s the bit I’m most confident doing. I really look forward to it. That was the thing that made me want to be a performer, I love performing. That’s kind of my comfort zone. The thing I find hard is being vampy or in any way sexy. I haven’t had to do it yet.
If your Strictly experience so far were turned into a blockbuster movie, who would play you and your pro partner, and what would it be called?
Sarah: Bella Ramsey. I think they are amazing. Could the older me be Su Pollard? Who could play Vito? I’d probably say I want the gorgeous man married to Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem. Oh actually, could Penelope Cruz play me? I’ve changed the casting! Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem please.
Who would play you in a movie of your life?
Sarah: the film title would be ‘What Happened?’
Which movie is your guilty pleasure?
Sarah: I love films that make you cry. You know when you feel like you need a good weep. I want to be weeping or laughing. Preferably both.
Describe your perfect movie night/day?
Sarah: Family on the sofa with a duvet. Percy the cat on there somewhere, whoever’s lap he’s chosen to sit on. Popcorn. I would melt cooking chocolate in the microwave and stir freshly made popcorn into it. Yes, I will be having my own cooking show.
If you could re-create any iconic movie dance scene on the Strictly dance floor, which one would it be and why?
Sarah: Always Pulp Fiction. Jay and Aliona’s doing the Pulp Fiction dance. I absolutely love that. It was for me the ultimate performance. I screamed when I watched it. I must have watched it 100 times. It’s so cool and effortless and perfectly done.
Which movie villain do you think would make a surprisingly good Strictly dancer, and what dance style would they nail?
Sarah: Having been in a Bond film, technically I’m a Bond girl. I was a receptionist in Quantum of Solace, so any of the Bond villains. I’d love to see all of the villains doing a group dance together. I think it would be really good for them and their personal skillset
to learn how to work together.
Will you have to level up your acting skills for your routine?
Shayne: I definitely will be leaning on my acting skills but I’m very excited to see what Nancy has for me. Nancy is full of ideas and it’s exciting.
If your Strictly experience so far was turned into a blockbuster movie, who would play you and Nancy, and what would it be called?
Nancy: I want to play me. I think the most famous and successful actors always play similar characters to themselves. If you ask someone to step in to play our characters, I think, apart from ourselves, no one could.
Shayne: We’re also very young which helps. Normally you might go to the Tom Cruises of the world but let’s play ourselves. Great answer.
What would it be called? And what would the tagline be?
Makes Sense.
Which movie is your guilty pleasure?
Nancy: Cartoons, normally Tom and Jerry. I love it. That’s my guilty pleasure because you know what’s coming. Actually, Detective Conan from Case Closed. He’s a very famous Japanese cartoon.
Shayne: I wouldn’t say it’s a guilty pleasure but I love anything with Vikings in like The Last Kingdom.
How do you feel about romantic movies? How did you love the from us.
Shayne: Love them.
Nancy: Romantic movies are the ones I always want to put myself in. Even as a choreographer, I love to create something dramatic that hits people straight away and I love it. I love romantic movies.
Shayne: There’s too many to choose, so I’ll just choose three. PS. I Love You. It’s sad, but heartbreaking, but also beautiful. I would then choose The Holiday with Kate Winslet and as a kid, I used to love Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, with Kevin Costner.
And do you like scary movies?
Shayne: Yes, that’s my favourite. I love certain scary movies because I love Halloween. I love the Halloween theme more because you get to dress up and put up decorations then take the kids trick or treating. When I was younger, I was very much into the paranormal too.
Nancy: No. Everyone knows.
Describe your perfect movie night or day.
Shayne: I’d like to create a room that’s full of cushions and a big screen. Then my kids would be in their pyjamas and they’d have some treats and a drink, I’d have chocolate, anything sweet actually like chocolate cakes or cookies. We’d get a takeaway and Sophie will have some wine, then we’ll watch a movie. Probably Minions.
If you could recreate any iconic movie dance scene on the Strictly dance floor which one would it be and why?
Shayne: It’s too obvious to go for Dirty Dancing because it’s been done or maybe something like Footloose. Oh actually, La La Land.
Which movie icon are you going to embody for Movie Week?
Tasha: I’m going to channel my inner Marilyn Monroe she’s such a strong character, and as a woman, she’s someone we look up to. I want to bring that independence and boss woman energy to the routine. I think it’s going to be amazing.
How will you level up your acting skills during the routine? Is that something that comes naturally to you, or is it more of a challenge?
Tasha: It’s something I definitely need to work on in rehearsals. By the end of the week, it really comes to life. The song for movies week is also one I relate to emotionally, so I think I’ll be able to connect with it and bring the character to life naturally. The character will be the bonus layer, making it extra special.
If your Strictly experience so far were turned into a blockbuster movie, who would play you and your pro partner, and what would it be called?
Tasha: Margot Robbie would play me, and Patrick Swayze would play Aljaž. The film would be called Misty Blue (our song from last week!)
Who would play you in the movie of your life?
Tasha: Cameron Diaz! The main girl from The Holiday. She embodies characters so well, and I think she’s awesome.
Aljaž: For me, it’d be Edward Norton. I love his work, and I don’t think he’s ever made a bad film.
What would be the tagline for the movie of your life?
Tasha: “Nobody is you, and that’s your biggest superpower.” I believe in that so much.
Aljaž: One word… “Juggling.” It describes life perfectly.
Which movie is your guilty pleasure?
Tasha: The Blind Side. I love the meaning behind it, and I think it’s so beautiful. I could watch it over and over.
Aljaž: True Lies, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. I’ve probably seen it the most.
How do you feel about rom-coms and romantic movies?
Tasha: Big fan! I love them all. Andrew hates it, though. Endless Love is my favourite, but The Notebook is up there too.
Aljaž: I’m with Andrew on this one. Maybe Andrew and I can watch True Lies together while Tasha and Janette watch rom-coms. My favourite romantic film? Probably Titanic, although there’s not much comedy in that one.
How do you feel about scary movies and horror films?
Tasha: It depends. Some of them are funny, but the ones with serial killers scare me. I’ll go to sleep thinking someone’s upstairs!
Aljaž: I don’t mind gory films, like Saw. I can handle that because I know it’s all fake. But I don’t understand why people choose to be scared when they could watch something with a great story instead.
Describe your perfect movie night or day.
Tasha: I’d be in the living room with snacks, melted chocolate, and strawberries. Maybe a romcom marathon or even an action film. I just love sitting in and watching movies.
Aljaž: During COVID, we watched all the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings movies back-to-back. I also love The Godfather – it’s so well-acted and brilliantly filmed. And I’m a big fan of Quentin Tarantino movies too.
If you could recreate any iconic movie dance scene on the Strictly dance floor, what would it be and why?
Aljaž: Scent of a Woman. There’s a beautiful tango scene with Al Pacino, and I’ve done it in my own shows, but never on Strictly. The music is just unbelievable.
Tasha: For me, it would be The Greatest Showman. I love the modern, fresh energy of the music and the incredible dance scenes.
Which movie villain would make a surprisingly good dancer on Strictly, and what dance style would they nail?
Tasha: Ursula from The Little Mermaid. She’d definitely nail the Paso Doble in a long octopus costume. It would be sick!
Are you going to be channelling your inner Marilyn Monroe for movies week?
Toyah: I will not be channelling my inner Marilyn Monroe for movies week because I’m going to be an octopus. I’m going to be purple and I really don’t know how I feel about it. Neil’s going to be dancing with my tentacles, which is one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever heard in my life.
Will you be levelling up your acting skills for movies week?
Toyah: I tell you what I really love about Neil because he’s an absolute polymer. He can do everything and he’s a fantastic actor which means it gives me the confidence and the ability to act as well. So, I’m going to be as evil and mean and bossy as I possibly can be.
If your Strictly experience so far was turning to a blockbuster movie, who would play you and Neil?
Toyah: I would play me and Neil would play him. We would have a fantastic time making the movie.
Who would play you in a movie of your life?
Toyah: I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Maybe Leslie Manville who is a wonderful actress who was nominated for an Oscar in Phantom Thread and she was in Harlots. I think Brad Pitt should play Neil.
Neil: Brad Pitt? I was going to say Rupert Grint!
What would be the tagline for the movie of your life?
Toyah: Survivor. That’s my tagline, Survivor.
Neil: Stay in the shade.
Which movie is your guilty pleasure?
Toyah: Alien or Dune with Timothee Chalamet.
Neil: City Lights, Charlie Chaplin.
How do you feel about romantic movies?
Toyah: I never watch them.
Neil: I don’t watch them either. I’m leading one of the group numbers, which is a rom com. And I said, you know, I don’t watch rom coms!
Toyah: I love Call Me By Your Name actually. I just love the acting, the directing, the script. Timothée Chalamet is breathtaking in it.
Do you like scary movies?
Neil: I don’t feel they’re scary enough.
Toyah: I love them. I find them so stimulating. I like being frightened. It excites me in a very strange way.
Neil: I love a good scary movie that at the end there’s no conclusion and you know that you can’t stop that evil. That gets me thinking.
Describe your perfect movie nights.
Toyah: I had the perfect movie night on Boxing Day last year watching Saltburn. We didn’t expect it to be so good so we watched it immediately again. It’s one of those films that changes you, it’s so clever.
Neil: I love going to the cinema. I really love it. I need popcorn if I go to the cinema. I’ve actually driven to the cinema from home to buy the popcorn because I like it so much and I don’t want to do the whole microwave thing.
What dance scene from a movie would you like to recreate?
Toyah: I wish I’d told everyone I was doing Saltburn for movies week!
Toyah: The scene at the end where he dances naked around the house at the end. He’s dancing to Sophie Ellis-Bextor Murder On The Dancefloor. It’s beautiful. That or The Graduate or Sunset Boulevard.
Which movie villain do you think would make a surprisingly good, Strictly dancer, and what dance style would they nail?
Toyah: Well Barry Keoghan’s character in Saltburn or maybe Peaky Blinders. Cillian Murphy’s character would be great.
Neil: He’s not really a villain, though. Is he a villain?
Toyah: Aren’t they all in Peaky Blinders? You could create the whole of that kind of Birmingham street culture.
Neil: Hannibal Lecter doing the Samba could be good.
Are you going to channel your inner Tom Hanks / George Clooney on Movies Week?
Wynne: I’m definitely not going to be channelling my inner Marilyn Monroe, I’m going to be channelling Rebel Wilson.
How will you level up your acting skills during your routine? Is that something that comes naturally to you or is more of a struggle?
Wynne: It’s new boundaries, shall we say. It’s totally new for me, although I did once sing in an opera – Venetian opera, actually. Years ago, they used to put men into women’s roles, so I’ve done that once before in an opera. But we’re talking 30 years ago. It’s been a long time. A long time since I had heels on. Let’s put it like that.
If your Strictly experience so far were turned into a blockbuster movie, who would play you and your pro partner, and what would it be called?
Wynne: Twins, with Danny DeVito (Wynne) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (Katya). The ratios not quite right but the vibes are.
Who would play you in a movie of your life?
Wynne – Clooney, obviously. He’s the only one with the looks. But probably Anthony Hopkins.
Katya – Anne Hathaway.
What would be the tagline for the movie of your life?
Wynne and Katya: It’s not real!
Which movie is your guilty pleasure?
Katya – Amélie
Wynne – I can give you my top three. Pretty Woman, Top Gun, The Bodyguard
How do you feel about romantic movies?
Wynne and Katya: Love them!
Do you like scary movies, if yes why/if no why not?
Katya: Hate them. Can’t stand sci-fi either.
Which movie villain do you think would make a surprisingly good Strictly dancer, and what dance style would they nail?
Wynne: I think Richard E. Grant would be great. He’d look fantastic in the ballroom. Oh, I know who’d also be brilliant! Bill Nighy. He’s not exactly a villain, but he played that eccentric character in Love Actually.
Katya: Heath Ledger would be great.
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This is Dance Data Project’s® sixth annual study of the Largest U.S. Ballet and Classically Based Companies. Following the precedent of previous reports, this report examines the financial scope of the Largest 150 U.S. ballet and classically based professional companies. These companies are divided into three categories: the Largest 50 (#1-50), the Next 50 (#51-100), and the Additional 50 (#101-150) companies for further analysis. This report is based on companies’ total expenditures from 990 filings from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for the fiscal year ending 2022, includes preliminary data from FY 2023, and provides information on aggregate expenditures, each category’s contribution to the ballet economy, as well as changes from the previous years.
In Fiscal Year 2022, the Largest 150 ballet and classically inspired companies operated with a total aggregate expenditure of $719,228,871, a significant 62.76% increase from the $441,886,534 total for FY 2021. The Largest 50 companies operated with a total of $640,960,698, accounting for 89.12% of the total expenditures in FY 2022. The Largest 10 (#1-10) accounted for 59.30% of expenditures within the Largest 50 with $380,115,421 in FY 2022.
The Largest 50 companies remain relatively stable in their ranks compared to the Next 50 and Additional 50, when comparing the rank changes from FY21 – FY23. There are only three companies that have moved into the Largest 50 since FY21 (Cleveland Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, and Los Angeles Ballet), and all companies within this grouping have only shifted by a few positions.
“The lack of movement within the Largest 50 shows that these companies consistently produce budgets that remain relatively similar to each other, even when the ballet sector as a whole is in financial decline (as showcased in FY21 aggregate expenditures),” said DDP Senior Research Consultant Junyla Silmon. “This finding also demonstrates that ‘it’s good to be big,’ as the Largest 50 continue to garner an overwhelming percentage of available funding and resources. This has immense implications for the national arts & culture scene in the United States and should be one of the most urgent topics of discussion at arts convenings.”
For the first time ever, this year’s Report expands DDP’s investigation to include rankings based on revenue, fiscal year surplus/deficits, and company size based on the number of dancers.
Among the Largest 50 companies, each company’s revenue in FY 2022 exceeded revenue in FY 2021, with total revenue for the Largest 50 rising from $626,504,139 in FY 2021 to $738,667,545 in FY 2022. Similar to expenditures, company revenues in FY 2022 have risen to levels comparable to or slightly exceeding those of pre-pandemic, FY 2019.
For FY 2023, among the 145 companies with available FY 2023 returns, 69 (47.6%) finished with a surplus, whereas 76 (52.4%) finished in a deficit. For FY22, among the 150 companies examined, 122 (81.3%) finished with a surplus, whereas 29 (18.7%) finished in a deficit.
“Examining both revenue and expenditures, as well as the difference between the two, offers a more comprehensive view of a company’s financial status and the overall scope of the ballet industry’s economic landscape” said DDP Chief External Affairs Officer Isabelle Ramey. “Company size defined by the number of dancers further informs the scale at which different companies operate, providing deeper insights into their financials, and how companies with similar financial resources support varying staffing levels of dancers.”
Within the Largest 50, the number of dancers within these companies ranges from 9 to 104, with the median number of dancers at 40.5. Within the Largest 10, the number of dancers within these companies ranges from 55 to 104, with the median number of dancers at 61.
In another step of notable expansion for this Report, DDP captured yearly budgets for companies that fall outside of the Largest 150 companies, giving a more in-depth picture of this sector of the U.S. dance economy and highlighting organizations doing good work on limited resources. This deepening in analysis was carried out with multiple data verification protocols. Over the past three months, the DDP team has initiated rounds of data verification and outreach with the national ballet community.
“In a monumental step forward, the DDP team has personally contacted 205 companies nationwide to gather the most current information possible, cutting through IRS lag times and engaging in important conversations with staff regarding their company structure, filing extensions, and salary benchmarking,” said DDP Founder & President Elizabeth Yntema. “The feedback received underscores the importance of this information, highlighting its critical role in shaping industry standards. It is imperative that dance companies understand the necessity of providing this data to ensure continued progress and transparency in the field, as discussed in my recent op-ed with Dance Magazine: Why Transparency is Vital for the Dance Field’s Health.”
“This Report will serve as the foundation for subsequent comparative analyses throughout the year. With these companies’ participation, we are encouraged to see how many organizations rely on DDP reporting to inform their decision-making,” said DDP Research Lead Jenna Magrath. “Dancers, journalists, grant writers, artistic and executive staff, and audience members alike can stand to benefit from having this information at their fingertips, without a paywall.”
DDP utilized proprietary software to source information directly from publicly available Form 990s on the IRS website for the purposes of this Report. This innovative tool was supplemented by direct verification from companies to account for organizational accounting discrepancies or amended tax returns that were not publicly available at the time of data collection.
To inquire about sources, operational definitions, or further classifications for the Largest 150, or to learn more about DDP’s research in general, please contact Research Lead Jenna Magrath at jmagrath@dancedataproject.com.
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TORONTO, ON, September 26, 2024 – Hope Muir, Joan and Jerry Lozinski Artistic Director of The National Ballet of Canada, shared today that the company will return to Europe this October for the first time since the pandemic. Previously announced with the 2024/25 season, the back-to-back tours will bring the company to the revered Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London and the legendary Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Muir has curated an all-Canadian programme featuring works by acclaimed choreographers Crystal Pite, James Kudelka, Emma Portner and William Yong.
“I am thrilled that the National Ballet will return to London and Paris this October with this compelling programme, which not only highlights the breadth of choreographic talent in Canada but also serves as the perfect vehicle to showcase the versatility of our artists,” said Muir.
London Tour, Sadler’s Wells
October 2 – 6
In the National Ballet’s first appearance in London at Sadler’s Wells since 2013, the company will perform Pite’s sublime work Angels’ Atlas, hailed as “mind-blowing” (CP24) with its mesmerizing light design and evocation of the human condition, alongside Kudelka’s exquisite Passion and Portner’s duet islands.
Paris Tour, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées
October 12 – 15
In addition to Angels’ Atlas and Passion, the National Ballet will bring William Yong’s UtopiVerse to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. The futuristic ballet made its world premiere in Toronto in June. This will mark the company’s first appearance in Paris since 2017.
Crystal Pite created Angels’ Atlas for the National Ballet in 2020 to rapturous reviews. Audiences and critics were blown away by the moving and visually stunning work. Unfolding against a morphing wall of light, the Globe and Mail called Angels’ Atlas “a glimpse into the infinite” and the Toronto Star added “human yearning is evoked powerfully onstage”. Set to original music by Owen Belton and choral pieces by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Morten Lauridsen, Angels’ Atlas is a profound work from one of the world’s leading contemporary choreographers.
Celebrated Canadian choreographer James Kudelka explores relationships of love in Passion. Two couples, each stylistically unique – one classical, the other contemporary – weave within the Corps de Ballet, evoking complex relationships of passion. A love story whose meticulous structure mirrors the music, Passion is set to the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Concerto for Piano in D, Op. 61a.
A sculptural duet for two women, Emma Porter’s islands was hailed a triumph both at its world premiere by Norwegian National Ballet in 2020 and its North American premiere at the National Ballet in 2023. An acclaimed work from a genre-breaking choreographer, islands is set to an eclectic compilation of music by contemporary artists as well as original music by Forest Swords, bringing together hip hop, dub, guitar loops and electronic sampling for a rhythmic, avant-garde sound.
Toronto-based choreographer William Yong’s first commission for The National Ballet of Canada, UtopiVerse, showcases the versatility of the National Ballet artists, integrating Yong’s multi-disciplinary experience in this futuristic ballet. UtopiVerse received its world premiere in March 2024 and was hailed “a fascinating fusion of movement and visual spectacle” (Critics at Large).
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Emma Portner wishes I didn’t need to ask her about being hired to choreograph a West End musical aged 20, or going on tour with Justin Bieber, or being married to a film star. “I think I’m one of the only choreographers that has to deal with, in almost every review, going through that list of things first, and then it’ll talk about the work. It’s almost humiliating, and I wish that we could just look at the work sometimes.”
OK, so let’s talk about the work. The reason we’re chatting (over video call, she’s in Oslo) is because a duet Portner made called Islands is being performed in London for the first time, by the National Ballet of Canada. It was Portner’s first ballet. She was only 25 when it premiered in 2020 (danced by Norwegian National Ballet) but at that point already had a thriving career in commercial dance, music videos and film.
When the call originally came through to her agent, she turned it down. (She had pulled out of making a piece for New York City Ballet not long before.) But once persuaded, Portner brought her own singular sensibility to the piece, away from classical conventions, not least because it’s a duet for two women – something surprisingly rare in ballet. She didn’t set out to make a feminist work, she insists, and her interest in choreography isn’t political. “It’s much more about the actual inventiveness of the physical form itself.”
Portner’s Islands is not necessarily a romantic coupling, although it could be. “It’s an inherently queer duet because I’m queer and it’s two women,” says Portner, “But at the same time I liked the idea of leaving it open. You could find a mother-daughter relationship in it, or a sibling relationship in it, or is it the same person, dancing with the self?”
Disliking the distance that traditional tutus put between dancers, Portner went to the other extreme and starts out with both dancers sharing the same pair of trousers. “It sounds goofy when you say it,” she laughs. “Maybe it is goofy,” she muses. “I’d say it’s a pretty serious duet. Or is it so serious that it’s comical? I enjoy that tension.” From the snatch I’ve seen, it’s a very contemporary piece (no pointe shoes) that has some of the jagged attack of commercial dance and the yearning grace of ballet. The detailed tangling of bodies conjures illusions. “It looks like three heads at one point, or five legs,” says Portner.
Whatever it is, it worked, and after Islands, things snowballed. In four years Portner has made four more ballets. There was another in Norway, called Some Girls Don’t Turn; Bathtub Ballet for Royal Swedish Ballet, with 25 bathtubs on stage; Forever, Maybe for Sweden’s GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, and she recently made (and performed in) her fifth ballet, for Kammerballetten in Copenhagen. All before she turns 30 in November.
Portner grew up in Ottawa, a “quote-unquote boring” place, making her hockey-playing brothers perform dances she made up. A “horribly shy” kid, she struggled making friends at school, “but dance was a constant friend”. Portner insists she wasn’t very good at ballet (“awkward, lanky, inflexible”) but she was good enough to take part in the summer programme at the National Ballet of Canada – she tells a story about being so anxious there she threw up in her bunk bed – and to be offered a full-time place at the school, which her mum didn’t let her take up.
She went to a competition dance studio (think Maddie Ziegler and Dance Moms) but at 14 or 15 was given a key to the studio and would go in the evening to improvise, watching videos of contemporary greats such as Jiři Kylián and Crystal Pite (Pite is also on the bill at the London show and Portner is starstruck). At 17, she joined the prestigious Ailey School in New York, but left after seven months when she got a professional contract with choreographers Emily Shock and Matt Luck in LA. It was a video she made with Luck in 2012 that changed everything. A duet to a cover of Dancing in the Dark, the pair moving in a way that’s sharply staccato but somehow tender, too. “Matt and I made this film and we posted it on Facebook and basically overnight it changed my entire career trajectory, or gave me a career actually,” says Portner.
It’s still the reason people hire her, she says, finding the permanence of that three-and-a-half minute dance startling. “The whole reason I got into performing is because it is this fleeting thing that disappears. You get to experience this intense, intensely beautiful moment with people, in real life, and then it goes away.” She feels mortified at having her youthful creative efforts permanently online, “because I’m so rapidly changing”.
One of the unlikely things that came her way after Dancing in the Dark was the offer to choreograph the West End musical Bat Out of Hell. “It’s so random. Why me?” Portner says even now. She needed a job, she took it, and suddenly she was on the “god mic”, leading a whole cast. “It taught me so quickly just what it is to be a woman in the industry,” she says. “It was like a smack in the face of lesson after lesson of how hard it is.” But without that, she wouldn’t have had the courage to do a lot of the things she’s done since.
Ricocheting across the commercial dance world, Portner choreographed part of Justin Bieber’s tour in 2016, although she got more publicity for a strongly worded Instagram post she wrote about poor pay and working conditions, its final line: “The way you degrade women is an abomination.” It’s something she’s had time to consider since. “I feel so much remorse for calling him out publicly,” she says. “Because when I think back on it, he is from the same place that I’m from, the same age, and we were both just trying to survive some of the same industry forces that we had no control over.”
“I think at that time too, maybe I felt like I was on the brink of losing everything,” she adds. “My marriage [to Elliot Page], my identity as a dancer, and I was reckoning with things that happened in my childhood. So I wasn’t in a good place. I don’t have many regrets, but that’s one of them and I really do wish him well.”
The reckoning was with being abused by a teacher. “I used to not know how to talk about it, or if I even wanted to talk about it,” she says. “But I think it informs so much of the choices I made so young, and the sensitivity and fragility that I have as an artist as well, or just as a person moving through the world.”
Going back into ballet was a complex decision, for that reason. In fact, starting any new dance job “is like getting back in the bath of drama”. The experience of becoming tabloid fodder with Page has been bruising. And Portner suffers from a chronic illness, trigeminal neuralgia, affecting a nerve on one side of her face, which causes pain like “a combination of an electric shock and the feeling of knives stabbing”, which can be stress-related.
On the verge of 30, Portner is learning to take care of herself. She bought a cabin in the Canadian woods where she plans to spend half the year. She’ll read, meditate and “look at trees”. Now it’s time to breathe, and think about what she wants to do. “I think I have a few more ballets in me,” she says, but that might be all. There are other kinds of dance work, on stage and film, and she’s interested in design. She also has a band called Bunk Buddy and appeared in the films Ghostbusters: Afterlife and I Saw the TV Glow.
You can tell that Portner doesn’t believe she fully deserves the success she’s had (she talks about having a panic attack the first time she shared a bill with big-name choreographers). It’s not self-confidence driving her, but single-mindedness. “I’ve always had this extreme ambition and discipline,” she says. “But beyond that it’s also just dance itself. It’s something that I really have to do, daily.” What are the lessons she’s learned from this crazy decade? “It’s still just kindness at the end of the day,” she says. “You have to be kind to people. Your words really matter. The way that we speak about dance matters, and the way we make people feel matters.” She hopes the chaos of her 20s and its attendant gossip can be put to bed. “That’s my hope for the next 10 years, that we move on to the next area and I can just be who I am.”
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[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-eG45MB6Iw[/embed]
Tom and Nadiya have left Strictly Come Dancing, following a dance off against Toyah and Neil during the first Results Show of the series.
Both couples performed their routines again; Tom and Nadiya performed their Cha Cha to Boogie Wonderland by Earth, Wind & Fire then Toyah and Neil performed their Jive to Nutbush City Limits by Ike & Tina Turner.
After both couples danced a second time, the judges delivered their verdicts:
With two votes for Toyah and Neil, and one vote for Tom and Nadiya, Head Judge Shirley Ballas had the deciding vote and chose to save Toyah and Neil.
When asked by Tess about his time on the show, Tom said: “I’ve had the best time the last few weeks and getting to work with Nadiya has been incredible. I wish I could have gone further and done more dances.”
“I’ve had the most fun and I wish we could keep going longer and longer. We’ll still go out for loads of brunches I’m sure.”
Tom’s professional dance partner Nadiya added: “To get to know him, he’s not just a three-time Olympic champion he’s a true gentleman and he taught me how to work really hard and how to put everything in. And you know what? On this programme, sometimes to win, you don’t need to win, and that’s how I feel this year.”
Sunday’s Results Show also featured a routine from the judges and professional dancers to When Doves Cry by Prince. Plus, there was a show stopping musical performance of God Gave Me Feet for Dancing from Ezra Collective featuring Yazmin Lacey.
The remaining 14 couples will take to the dancefloor next week in a spectacular Movie Week Special when Strictly Come Dancing returns on Saturday 5 October at 1825 with the results show on Sunday 6 October at 1915 on BBC One. Both of this weekend’s episodes are available to watch now via BBC iPlayer.
Tom and Nadiya will be joining Fleur East and Janette Manrara for their first exclusive televised interview live on Strictly: It Takes Two on Monday 30 September at 1830 on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer.
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Emma Portner wishes I didn’t need to ask her about being hired to choreograph a West End musical aged 20, or going on tour with Justin Bieber, or being married to a film star. “I think I’m one of the only choreographers that has to deal with, in almost every review, going through that list of things first, and then it’ll talk about the work. It’s almost humiliating, and I wish that we could just look at the work sometimes.”
OK, so let’s talk about the work. The reason we’re chatting (over video call, she’s in Oslo) is because a duet Portner made called Islands is being performed in London for the first time, by the National Ballet of Canada. It was Portner’s first ballet. She was only 25 when it premiered in 2020 (danced by Norwegian National Ballet) but at that point already had a thriving career in commercial dance, music videos and film.
When the call originally came through to her agent, she turned it down. (She had pulled out of making a piece for New York City Ballet not long before.) But once persuaded, Portner brought her own singular sensibility to the piece, away from classical conventions, not least because it’s a duet for two women – something surprisingly rare in ballet. She didn’t set out to make a feminist work, she insists, and her interest in choreography isn’t political. “It’s much more about the actual inventiveness of the physical form itself.”
Portner’s Islands is not necessarily a romantic coupling, although it could be. “It’s an inherently queer duet because I’m queer and it’s two women,” says Portner, “But at the same time I liked the idea of leaving it open. You could find a mother-daughter relationship in it, or a sibling relationship in it, or is it the same person, dancing with the self?”
Disliking the distance that traditional tutus put between dancers, Portner went to the other extreme and starts out with both dancers sharing the same pair of trousers. “It sounds goofy when you say it,” she laughs. “Maybe it is goofy,” she muses. “I’d say it’s a pretty serious duet. Or is it so serious that it’s comical? I enjoy that tension.” From the snatch I’ve seen, it’s a very contemporary piece (no pointe shoes) that has some of the jagged attack of commercial dance and the yearning grace of ballet. The detailed tangling of bodies conjures illusions. “It looks like three heads at one point, or five legs,” says Portner.
Whatever it is, it worked, and after Islands, things snowballed. In four years Portner has made four more ballets. There was another in Norway, called Some Girls Don’t Turn; Bathtub Ballet for Royal Swedish Ballet, with 25 bathtubs on stage; Forever, Maybe for Sweden’s GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, and she recently made (and performed in) her fifth ballet, for Kammerballetten in Copenhagen. All before she turns 30 in November.
Portner grew up in Ottawa, a “quote-unquote boring” place, making her hockey-playing brothers perform dances she made up. A “horribly shy” kid, she struggled making friends at school, “but dance was a constant friend”. Portner insists she wasn’t very good at ballet (“awkward, lanky, inflexible”) but she was good enough to take part in the summer programme at the National Ballet of Canada – she tells a story about being so anxious there she threw up in her bunk bed – and to be offered a full-time place at the school, which her mum didn’t let her take up.
She went to a competition dance studio (think Maddie Ziegler and Dance Moms) but at 14 or 15 was given a key to the studio and would go in the evening to improvise, watching videos of contemporary greats such as Jiři Kylián and Crystal Pite (Pite is also on the bill at the London show and Portner is starstruck). At 17, she joined the prestigious Ailey School in New York, but left after seven months when she got a professional contract with choreographers Emily Shock and Matt Luck in LA. It was a video she made with Luck in 2012 that changed everything. A duet to a cover of Dancing in the Dark, the pair moving in a way that’s sharply staccato but somehow tender, too. “Matt and I made this film and we posted it on Facebook and basically overnight it changed my entire career trajectory, or gave me a career actually,” says Portner.
It’s still the reason people hire her, she says, finding the permanence of that three-and-a-half minute dance startling. “The whole reason I got into performing is because it is this fleeting thing that disappears. You get to experience this intense, intensely beautiful moment with people, in real life, and then it goes away.” She feels mortified at having her youthful creative efforts permanently online, “because I’m so rapidly changing”.
One of the unlikely things that came her way after Dancing in the Dark was the offer to choreograph the West End musical Bat Out of Hell. “It’s so random. Why me?” Portner says even now. She needed a job, she took it, and suddenly she was on the “god mic”, leading a whole cast. “It taught me so quickly just what it is to be a woman in the industry,” she says. “It was like a smack in the face of lesson after lesson of how hard it is.” But without that, she wouldn’t have had the courage to do a lot of the things she’s done since.
Ricocheting across the commercial dance world, Portner choreographed part of Justin Bieber’s tour in 2016, although she got more publicity for a strongly worded Instagram post she wrote about poor pay and working conditions, its final line: “The way you degrade women is an abomination.” It’s something she’s had time to consider since. “I feel so much remorse for calling him out publicly,” she says. “Because when I think back on it, he is from the same place that I’m from, the same age, and we were both just trying to survive some of the same industry forces that we had no control over.”
“I think at that time too, maybe I felt like I was on the brink of losing everything,” she adds. “My marriage [to Elliot Page], my identity as a dancer, and I was reckoning with things that happened in my childhood. So I wasn’t in a good place. I don’t have many regrets, but that’s one of them and I really do wish him well.”
The reckoning was with being abused by a teacher. “I used to not know how to talk about it, or if I even wanted to talk about it,” she says. “But I think it informs so much of the choices I made so young, and the sensitivity and fragility that I have as an artist as well, or just as a person moving through the world.”
Going back into ballet was a complex decision, for that reason. In fact, starting any new dance job “is like getting back in the bath of drama”. The experience of becoming tabloid fodder with Page has been bruising. And Portner suffers from a chronic illness, trigeminal neuralgia, affecting a nerve on one side of her face, which causes pain like “a combination of an electric shock and the feeling of knives stabbing”, which can be stress-related.
On the verge of 30, Portner is learning to take care of herself. She bought a cabin in the Canadian woods where she plans to spend half the year. She’ll read, meditate and “look at trees”. Now it’s time to breathe, and think about what she wants to do. “I think I have a few more ballets in me,” she says, but that might be all. There are other kinds of dance work, on stage and film, and she’s interested in design. She also has a band called Bunk Buddy and appeared in the films Ghostbusters: Afterlife and I Saw the TV Glow.
You can tell that Portner doesn’t believe she fully deserves the success she’s had (she talks about having a panic attack the first time she shared a bill with big-name choreographers). It’s not self-confidence driving her, but single-mindedness. “I’ve always had this extreme ambition and discipline,” she says. “But beyond that it’s also just dance itself. It’s something that I really have to do, daily.” What are the lessons she’s learned from this crazy decade? “It’s still just kindness at the end of the day,” she says. “You have to be kind to people. Your words really matter. The way that we speak about dance matters, and the way we make people feel matters.” She hopes the chaos of her 20s and its attendant gossip can be put to bed. “That’s my hope for the next 10 years, that we move on to the next area and I can just be who I am.”
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This is the second live Strictly Come Dancing show of 2024, and the first where one couple will be leaving the dance floor.
✨ Montell & Johannes Samba to Fuego by Eleni Foureira
✨ Punam & Gorka Foxtrot to Man! I Feel Like A Woman! By Shania Twain
✨ Sam & Nikita Charleston to Bob Wilson and his Varsity Rhythm Boys
✨ Sarah & Vito Paso Doble to Freed From Desire by Gala, Molella, Phil Jay
✨ Tasha & Aljaz Viennese Waltz to Misty Blue by Dorothy Moore
✨ Toyah & Neil Jive to Nutbush City Limits by Ike & Tina Turner
✨ Chris & Dianne Foxtrot Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy by The Tams
✨ Jamie & Michell Rumba to Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers (seem familiar ? It is 🙂
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzhTNpu21U0[/embed]
✨ JB & Amy Cha Cha to Closer by Ne-Yo
✨ Nick & Luba American Smooth to Parklife by Blur
✨ Paul & Karen Salsa to Fireball by Pitbull, John Ryan
✨ Pete & Jowita American Smooth to I Had Some Help by Post Malone, Morgan Wallen
✨ Shayne & Nancy Tango to The Door by Teddy Swims
✨ Tom & Nadiya Cha Cha to Boogie Wonderland by Earth, Wind & Fire
✨ Wynne & Katya Viennese Waltz to The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFySJNu4xmI[/embed]
The scores from last week are added to tonight’s, and so we have :
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Photograph by Joesph Guay
The Vertical, final production of Terminus Modern Ballet Theatre’s 2017–18 debut season, represented the steep challenges its five founders faced after they left Atlanta Ballet to form their own company.
Throughout the previous year, the high-profile dancers had raised money, built out a studio in West Midtown and rehearsed several world premieres. Now they were in the middle of a field at Serenbe, building an outdoor stage amid a subtropical storm.
Dark clouds rolled in, recalls company director John Welker. The artists covered the platform with a tarp, took shelter from the torrential rains and watched as frogs jumped and swam in puddles on the stage.
“We thought, this is crazy,” Welker says. But none of the artists considered canceling the show. Too much was at stake.
What later unfolded felt like a miracle—choreographer Tara Lee’s soulful tale of a Southern Appalachian community whose members moved through phases of life that ranged from love and death to responsibility, searching and celebration.
The Vertical showcased its founders’ allure—from Lee’s and Welker’s nuanced dramatic power to Heath Gill’s comedic brilliance to the breathlessly spontaneous partnering of Rachel Van Buskirk and Christian Clark. Even in its first season, Terminus was clearly one of Atlanta’s elite dance companies.
This season, Terminus will look different on stage. Four of its five founders have transitioned into off-stage careers. Gill left last year to become Orlando Ballet’s rehearsal director. Van Buskirk, who recently became a mother, will relocate with her husband to Houston after a farewell performance in the White Box Theatre September 22.
Photograph by Christina J. Massad
New dancers have replaced them, and some wonder how smoothly Terminus will bridge into its next phase. Welker plans to keep the company’s heart beating with the same intensity its founders had in its early days.
“One thing that we hold true and dear in all of this transition is that the dancer is at the center of what we do,” says Welker. “It gives it a certain creative power that is the true engine of this organization.”
Before Welker co-founded Terminus, he was best-known as a leading performer at Atlanta Ballet. He also led behind the scenes. At 18, when he was new to the company, Welker became one of Atlanta Ballet’s union reps. With his wife, Christine Welker, he ran the company’s summer ballet program and later founded Wabi Sabi, Atlanta Ballet’s off-season troupe that performed in outdoor spaces before the company shuttered it in 2017. Welker completed a college degree during that season. His senior thesis, and entrée to earning an MBA, was Terminus’ business plan.
Welker and his colleagues drew inspiration from their mentor John McFall, Atlanta Ballet’s artistic director until forced to depart in 2016. After that break, the five “Terminators” set out to discover their collective artistic voice, and within a culture of shared creativity, to tell stories through dance that had contemporary relevance.
Terminus and its school now occupy a 7,800–square foot headquarters at Buckhead’s TULA Arts Center with ample studio space and the company’s White Box Theatre. The organization that started with $55,000 in seed money now has an annual operating budget of $1 million.
Roles have shifted among the three remaining founders. What started as a “collective leader mindset,” Welker says, has changed.
Welker now helms Terminus and Lee serves as rehearsal director. Clark, as senior dancer, leads a group of 10 dancers that includes company members, protégés and resident guest artists.
Welker says that as the organization evolves, its “collective and creative culture” will remain. Dancers are invited to contribute their ideas and talents to every facet of the organization—from collaborating on creations to production, marketing and teaching. They’re invested in the life of the organization and have a significant stake in its success.
“Part of the journey in becoming an artist is discovering who you are,” says Welker. “And it’s important that an artist has a sense of self-empowerment and feels that they have a voice that is contributing and matters.”
Lee takes a similar approach to guiding younger dancers. “It’s not about coaching them to be who we are,” says Lee. “It’s about seeing what their path is and who they’re supposed to grow and evolve into. It’s going to be different colors, different energy.”
Lee, whose works helped define the company’s brand, has stepped away from choreographing so she can care for her aging parents during off hours. She sees this as an opportunity for mostly younger choreographers on the international scene who share Terminus’ passion for collaborative dance-making.
Photograph by Joesph Guay
Four such artists will present world premieres this fall. September’s Out of the Box program will feature works by Jennifer Archibald and Shane Urton. Archibald, the former resident choreographer at Cincinnati Ballet, has teamed with filmmaker Felipe Barral to delve into the subject of caring for the land we occupy, while considering future generations who’ll use it.
Urton, a member of the Royal Ballet of Flanders, will debut a piece that explores the temporary nature of life and how people shed layers of personae in order to adapt and evolve. This production will open September 14 and will run Saturdays and Sundays in Terminus’ White Box Theatre through September 22.
Gill will return for KRYPTOS, Terminus’ late fall production at the Pavilion at Serenbe. He’s creating a ghost story and re-telling of the 19th–century ballet Giselle. Choreographer Jimmy Orrante will debut a new ballet. The double bill will run for three weekends starting October 18.
New choreographic voices, and an approach that values every individual’s contributions is essential to empower Terminus’ next generation to help define the company’s evolving identity.
Meanwhile, Welker continues to aim high. He’d like to double the budget in three years and expand the company, staff and school. “It’s a big goal,” Welker says, “but that’s the ambition that we were founded on, and we need to keep that drive alive.”
A version of this article appears in our September 2024 issue.
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The arts coverage from the BBC will include :
Arena re-launched last year, working with some of the UK’s leading filmmakers and championing the best of British documentary-making and creativity.
Ahead of the famous strand’s 50th anniversary in 2025, a series of new films have been commissioned exploring a range of subjects, including ballet dancer Steven McRae.
Dance Passion Swansea showcasing a remarkable range of dance, all filmed in and around Swansea and the Gower peninsula and featuring the principal dancer from the Royal Ballet – Swansea-born William Bracewell – in a stunning solo piece on Oxwich Bay.
Further details to follow.
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On a Tuesday in September, Mary Ruble walked up to the barre of the Westside School of Ballet in Santa Monica for a 7:45 a.m. ballet class, joining about 30 women of all different ages. They stretched and chatted until the teacher gave them their first warm-up combination — a series of stretches and pliés — and a live pianist began playing classical music from a corner of the room.
Ruble, in a black velvet and mesh leotard, was laser focused as she reléved onto the balls of her feet before gently rolling back down to first position. All the while, she kept a pen clipped to the front of her leotard and a tiny notepad on which she took notes on her instructor’s occasional corrections tucked into her black tights: activate the upper back muscles, round the elbows, lengthen the sacrum. The teacher reminded her to engage her core and relax her shoulders. Magically her spine elongated and she stood up a bit straighter than before.
It took enormous concentration, especially since Ruble had only ventured into this rigorous style of dance two years ago, at the age 40. But, to her, the challenge was thrilling.
A student laces up her shoes before performing in the Westside School of Ballet adult showcase. Last year the event sold 700 tickets.
(Zoe Cranfill / Los Angeles Times)
“It’s the best gift I’ve ever given myself,” she said.
Ruble’s newfound affinity for ballet is part of a wider trend of adults who, after donning tights and tutus in their youth, are now returning to ballet studios in adulthood. Interest in adult ballet has increased by 75% over the last three to five years, according to Patti Ashby, U.S. National Director of Royal Academy of Dance, the primary ballet organization in the country that trains teachers and tracks national engagement with ballet. And the number of adult ballet summer intensive programs have nearly doubled since the pandemic, according to the weekly online ballet-centric magazine Pointe.
The trend is also alive and well on TikTok, where the popular hashtag “adult ballet” retrieves countless videos of women documenting their progress in the dance form. Professional ballerinas such as Mary Helen Bowers, with half a million followers on Instagram (@balletbeautiful), stream ballet-inspired workouts that focus on feeling beautiful while building strength. Interest in adult ballet has even intersected with the enduring fashion trend known online as #balletcore, which takes inspiration from the bows, tights, flats and chiffon that make up the classic ballet uniform. People are so interested to see these accessories in the wild that members of USC’s Kaufman School of Dance now draw thousands of observers online.
Though Los Angeles has always struggled to create a solid dance culture without a ballet company to call its own, a surge of new companies over the last decade are shifting the scene. The Los Angeles Ballet, helmed by Melissa Barak, as well as Benjamin Millepied’s Los Angeles Dance Project and the contemporary dance company BodyTraffic are infusing the ballet scene with youthful creativity and innovation. Especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, local studios such as the Marat Daukayev School of Ballet in Koreatown, the Align Ballet Method (with locations in West L.A., Silver Lake and Newport Beach), the Ballet Spot in Brentwood, Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Harvard Heights and California Dance Theater in Westlake have received an influx of adult students who are hungry for a form of in-person exercise after the pandemic’s colorless isolation.
Ballerinas perform “On the Moon I Swear,” choreographed by Westside School instructor Sadie Black, at the Westside School of Ballet adult showcase.
(Zoe Cranfill / Los Angeles Times)
“We have fully rebounded from the pandemic’s drop in attendance,” said California Dance Theater office manager Darby Olrich, who estimates the business’ daily classes are attended by 15 to 45 adults.
“The adult classes are a mix of professionals, college students home on break and an 80-year-old woman who just loves to do it,” Olrich said.
Similarly, in-person ballet classes are nearly at capacity at the Ballet Spot, according to its owner and founder, Eliza Tollett.
Adult ballet classes are especially popular at Westside School of Ballet, a business whose 47-year existence has made it one of the most well-known and established ballet studios in the region.
“During COVID, children and adults found themselves in some tough places emotionally and mentally and the studio was a haven for them,” Richard Tahvildaran-Jesswein, the managing director of the studio, said. “Now, in the wake of COVID, we’re experiencing this magic resurgence.”
Many of its teachers — who all offer students something different, from working on alignment to learning how to fail better — are so sought after that students will go so far as to call in to learn who’s teaching which class in advance, according to Tahvildaran-Jesswein. Because so many of the teachers have a cult following, the phone rings off the hook, he added.
Increased interest has pushed Westside ballet, based in Santa Monica, to add 12 more adult dance classes to its schedule.
(Zoe Cranfill / Los Angeles Times)
Increased interest has pushed Westside Ballet to add 12 more adult dance classes to its schedule, including ballet, pointe instruction, jazz, ballroom, floor barre and theater jazz. Every day, the studio offers at least six adult classes, starting as early as 7:45 a.m. and as late as 8 p.m.
“We plan on being the Steps of the West Coast,” Tahvildaran-Jesswein said, referring to Steps on Broadway, the iconic dance studio on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “We want to offer classes from morning to midnight because ballet is for everyone.”
Much like children’s ballet classes, dedicated adult dancers also hold recitals. Last year, the adult ballet showcase, choreographed and produced by many of Westside’s teachers, took place in the Moss Theater at New Roads School in Santa Monica. They sold 700 tickets.
Though many of the women who’ve returned to the ballet studio may have had an awkward or intimidating brush with the dancing style in their youth, their rediscovery of the craft on their own terms has helped them feel elegant, strong and beautiful. All that despite the fact that, thanks to films such as “Black Swan” or “The Red Shoes,” ballet has long lived in the societal imagination as an art form rife with competitiveness and impossible body standards.
Ballerinas perform a piece from “Swan Lake” at the Westside School of Ballet adult showcase.
(Zoe Cranfill / Los Angeles Times)
“In the beginning, I was terrified,” Ruble said. “Once, after arriving five minutes late to class, I stayed in my car in the studio parking lot, too afraid to venture inside.”
But after attending classes, Ruble discovered ballet filled her with joy, freedom and exhilarating delight.
“I was so intimidated by ballet culture, but it’s nothing of the sort! The teachers and other dancers are kind, fun and accepting; the old stereotypes just aren’t there.”
Arabella Sommerville, 40, who attends the same class as Ruble, said that ballet is an entirely different experience for her as an adult. The Marina del Rey-based marketing firm owner recalls being mortified at the age of 8, when her mother sent her to class in baggy leggings and a bathing suit.
“The old narratives about ballet are breaking down.”
— Arabella Sommerville, 40, student at Westside School of Ballet
She said she stuck out next to all her other classmates who “were wearing the same leotard, in the same color, with perfectly pulled back hair, pink tights and so on.”
When she returned to ballet at age 26, she did so with a newfound sense of self.
“What I’ve experienced taking adult ballet is that no one is watching,” said Sommerville, who dressed in a black leotard, black nylon warm-up shorts, white tights and white Birkenstocks the day we spoke. “I used to be so afraid of what people would think, but I realize life is like an adult ballet class. No one cares. No one is watching. Everyone is just thinking about their own stuff, so you might as well go for it. The old narratives about ballet are breaking down.”
Dancers perform “On the Moon I Swear” at the Westside School of Ballet adult showcase. Many women who’ve returned to the ballet studio have had an awkward or intimidating brush with the dancing style in their youth, but are now rediscovering the craft on their own terms.
(Zoe Cranfill / Los Angeles Times)
Along with offering a sense of freedom, adult ballet classes also provide attendees an opportunity to put down their phones, be present and build community.
“Humans need synchronization,” Sommerville said. “It’s healing. Sure, everyone has their own issues, but we come together in this way through dance. There’s a famous AA phrase: ‘There’s no fighting in the lifeboat.’ The same thing goes for ballet class.”
Sommerville experienced the support of her classmates firsthand when, soon after she began taking ballet class at Westside in 2021, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. While she was recovering from treatment, Ruble made her a tutu with miniature get-well notes attached to it.
“[My ballet teachers] make me feel beautiful. And when you’re 70, no one makes you feel beautiful.”
— Connie Bell, 70, student at Westside School of Ballet
“The women wrapped around me like a blanket of positive energy,” she said.
Sommerville adds that she doesn’t only feel a deep connection to her classmates in crisis, but every time she shows up for class.
“The feminine energy of the same women showing up every morning, along with the live classical music, and our synchronized movement lifts my heart,” she said. “It’s like this higher power vibrating in that room, knowing all these women have your back.”
Westside student Connie Bell, 70, who has been studying ballet for over 60 years, said that dancing at the studio allows her to feel seen in a way she rarely does. Her teachers, she says, “make me feel beautiful. And when you’re 70, no one makes you feel beautiful.”
Dancers share a laugh before their performance from “Swan Lake” at the Westside School of Ballet adult showcase.
(Zoe Cranfill / Los Angeles Times)
At Westside Ballet’s adult showcase in August, I witnessed the sense of dignity these adult ballerinas carried with them. Sitting in the packed 350-seat auditorium, 61 women and 2 men performed different dance genres, from ballet to contemporary to jazz, ranging in age from 20 to 75 years old. Finally, as adults, they were getting the chance to wear the beautiful costume, don the pointe shoes and take center stage. They spun and turned, held challenging balances and leapt victoriously through the air. At no time did they act their age.
Ruble perfected her movements in sync with the music and the other dancers, her head tilted at just the right angle, her arabesque hitting the correct line, her discipline and note-taking clearly paying off.
As someone who has practiced ballet into her 40s, I knew just how hard they had to work for that moment, to feel beautiful and strong. There’s a thrill in reaching a certain lightness and transcendence — however fleeting it might be.
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