Tag: feature

The 90th Academy Awards Show Needs Fred Astaire

Yo 2018, I’m really happy for you and Imma let you finish, but the 1970 Oscars had the BEST DANCING OF ALL TIME! Despite our disappointment that there’s no Academy Award for Best Choreography, you’d best believe the entire Dance Spirit team will be watching the 90th annual Oscars ceremony tonight to see just how […]

The Brave Ballerina

Odds are, the first time you saw Alys Shee, she was doing fouettés. There’s a now-famous YouTube clip of her nailing dozens of them, peppering the string with musical triples and doubles. Oh, and that video was taken when Alys was 13. Yup: At an age when most dancers are still adjusting to pointe shoes, […]

Big Fish in a Little Pond

Emily Mistretta in The Nutcracker (Gene Schiavone) If you’re a talented small-town ballet student, you’ve probably wondered: Should I leave my local studio to study at a top-notch school? At the bigger institution, you’d have more intense training, which would help when it came time to audition for companies. But if you left you’d miss […]

Help, I Have to Freestyle!

Author Jen Jones Donatelli at the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders tryouts (courtesy Jen Jones Donatelli) It was the audition of a lifetime. I’d always dreamed of being a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. Though I knew the odds were probably against me—I’m a little older and curvier than the average NFL cheerleader—this year I decided to go for […]

13 Ways to Make 2013 Your Best Year Yet

Amanda Lea LaVergne as Sandy with Derek Keeling as Danny Zuko in the Broadway revival of Grease What’s your dance goal for 2013? Whether it’s finally nailing a quadruple pirouette, making your studio’s senior competition team or booking your dream job, DS is determined to help you get there. So we asked a few of […]

One-Girl Revolution

Photography by Joe Toreno Kathryn McCormick’s dance life seems pretty fairytale-esque: The 22-year-old native of Augusta, GA, was the top girl on “So You Think You Can Dance” Season 6, which earned her a gig on the Academy Awards. She later nabbed a recurring All-Star role on “SYTYCD,” and this past summer she made her […]

The Age Equation

When it comes to dance, the general rule of thumb is that the younger you begin training, the better. Serious ballet dancers, for example, are often expected to be career-ready by 16. But what if you didn’t start dancing at age 2? Is there room in the professional dance world for late starters? The short […]