Conversations on Dance Rebecca King Ferraro & Michael Sean Breeden

Today we are joined by Phil Chan, a co-founder of Final Bow for Yellowface. Phil is a graduate of Carleton College and an alumnus of the Ailey School and is now an arts administrator and educator. Phil was the founding General Manager of the Buck Hill Skytop Music Festival, and was the General Manager for Armitage Gone! Dance and Youth America Grand Prix. He served multiple years on the National Endowment for the Arts dance panel and the Jadin Wong Award panel presented by the Asian American Arts Alliance, and is on the advisory committee for the Parsons Dance Company.







In 2017, he teamed up with NYCB dancer, and friend of the pod, Georgina Pazcoguin, to found “Final Bow for Yellowface.” Phil tells us about how this initiative came about, what work he is currently doing as a part of this organization, and tells us about his new book, “Final Bow for Yellowface: Dancing between Intention and Impact. ” You can access Phil’s e-book online at yellowface.org.







This episode is brought to you by Yumiko.

This week we are continuing our conversation about teaching ballet classes online during the COVID-19 pandemic. We talk with Gavin Larsen, a former principal dancer with Oregon Ballet Theatre, now living in Asheville, NC, where she teaches and writes about dance. After training at the School of American Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet School, she danced with Pacific Northwest Ballet, Alberta Ballet, and the Suzanne Farrell Ballet before joining OBT.







For the first half of this episode, we get to know Gavin by chatting about her extensive career. Starting around 35 minutes in, we dive into how she is adapting to teaching online, how she is articulating corrections, how to combat challenges for specific students, and what positives we can take from this time.







ALSO: along the theme of Zoom classes, we know that ballet students and professionals alike are feeling a huge sense of missing out as we navigate this pandemic. Summer courses are being cancelled across the country, and here on Conversations on Dance, we often discuss how important summer courses are for dancer development. This is why we are exploring offering Conversations on Dance Zoom classes as a way to supplement your current training regimen, in an affordable way. We want to test the waters and see what kind of interest there might be. So, this Thursday, May 21st, 2020 at 4pm EST, we will be offering a FREE Zoom Intermediate/Advanced ballet class for the first 10 people who email us. Sign up now to take class with Rebecca and Michael, by emailing info@conversationsondancepod.com and we will send you the Zoom info! Get in touch now!







This episode is brought to you by Yumiko (yumiko.com).

This week we talk with Nancy Richer, founder of Richer Movement. Nancy Richer was born and raised in New York City and danced with The Royal Danish Ballet, The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, The Los Angeles Ballet, and Twyla Tharp Dance. By founding Richer Movement, she developed her movement method based on the warm ups and cross training she did during her career as a professional ballerina. Nancy was ahead of the curve, teaching ballet and movement classes online before COVID-19 shifted dance training online for the rest of us. We talk with her about tips and tricks to navigating this time as a student and a teacher, online teaching practices, and how to shift your perspective when you aren’t able to be in the studio.







Train with Nancy and get 25% off when you use promocode COD2020 at richermovement.com.







Catch Nancy on Yumiko’s Instagram Live for Wellness Wednesdays. Join in every Wednesday and stay moving at home!







This episode is brought to you by Yumiko (yumiko.com).

This week, we are joined by Mikko Nissinen, Boston Ballet Artistic Director. Born in Helsinki, Mikko began his dance training at age ten with The Finnish National Ballet School, and launched his professional dance career at age 15 with The Finnish National Ballet.  He went on to continue his dance training at The Kirov Ballet School in St. Petersburg, Russia. He danced professionally for 19 years, with Dutch National Ballet, Basel Ballet and as a principal dancer with San Francisco Ballet. In 2001 he was appointed Artistic Director of Boston Ballet.







Now nearly 20 years into his tenure as director, we talk with Mikko about his training and early career, his ambition to always be learning more about ballet, his aspirations to run a large company, and how he landed with his position at Boston Ballet. Mikko also talks with us about leading the organization through numerous crises, including navigating the current COVID-19 pandemic.







This episode is brought to you by Yumiko.

This week on the pod, Rebecca and Michael fill out a Balanchine masterwork tournament bracket to crown the ultimate Balanchine ballet. In March, two students at Indiana University sent us an email: they were missing March Madness and decided to create a bracket for Balanchine Masterworks as a fun activity for the dance department. They were kind enough to share their bracket with us. So today, we each fill out our bracket, share our results, and defend our choices. Our bracket discussion starts at time marker 16:00.







Follow along with us (file below and on conversationsondancepod.com) and be sure to share your winner with us! Share your bracket on social media and tag us: @conversationsondance.







This episode is brought to you by Yumiko. (yumiko.com). Introducing Yumiko at home. Post a picture or video wearing your favorite yumiko  and be entered to win a free piece. Just follow them on Instagram, @Yumiko, tag them in your post, and use #yumikoathome. They are choosing a winner every Friday, so be sure to click over to their Instagram for all the details. Remember you can shop online anytime at yumiko.com. 

This week we are joined by our friend, Tricia Albertson, Principal dancer with Miami City Ballet. Raised in Santa Cruz, CA, she began her ballet training at The Studio School of Classical Ballet. She attended summer programs at San Francisco Ballet School and the School of American Ballet (SAB) before joining SAB for the year-round program in 1995. In 1997 she joined Miami City Ballet as a corps member and was promoted to Principal in 2006. In her 22 years with Miami City Ballet, Tricia has danced most of the corps, soloist and principal roles in the company’s repertoire.







We talk with Tricia about her time at SAB, her early years at Miami City Ballet, how the company has changed in 22 years, and even as she has now been with the company longer than any member in Miami City Ballet history, she is still being pushed and growing as an artist.







This episode is sponsored by Yumiko. (yumiko.com)







A special note: We are working to put together an episode dedicated to the challenges of Zoom ballet/dance classes in our current climate. We want to hear from teachers how they are coping with issues like correcting without a full picture (or correcting in 2D), keeping focus from students (particularly younger ones), trying to instill musicality with timing issues on the app, etc. If you are a student, we want to hear from you some of the challenges you are facing and some of the things you need from your teachers.







If you have any questions you would like to see us answer, or would like to contribute to any of that latter topics, please get in touch with us. You can email us at info@conversationsondancepod.com or send us a DM on Facebook or Instagram, @conversationsondance. Subscribe to this podcast through your favorite app to be automatically notified when this new episode is released.