Pittsburgh Magazine - March 2018 - Pittsburgh, PA: The slipper is on the other foot for seven Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre dancers as they temporarily step away from the footlights into roles as choreographers. When the curtain rises on PBT’s “New Works” showcase at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture, these artists will watch as their creations take center stage.
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I’m very glad that this is happening in Pittsburgh. I think it’s really important for dancers to choreography, actors to do master carpentry, stage managers to sing. Theatre artists should experience what other theatre artists do, even experiencing what other’s do for a week is helpful. I think this helps people really understand others problems, which from my experience is a huge issue in communication in theatre. After Hearing Cochrane talks about her experience of choreographing, this re-confirms my belief that it is important for dancers to choreograph and vice versa. I’m very glad that Terrence Orr, the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s artistic director, says that he doesn’t want this new work performance to be a one-off. This is hopeful to me to see collaboration continues into the professional world. The other benefit to giving dancers the opportunity to choreograph is it exposes dancers to a completely new career path. Dancers usually have a very short-lived career because dancing is so brutal on the body and being exposed to choreography could show them that after they retire as dancers that they can be choreographers (if they had any doubt about it).
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