“This season is personal for us,” Alison Manning, co-executive director of the Harkness Dance Center, tells Observer. “We as an institution are pointing to the fact that we’re in a cultural moment where women’s rights and bodies and voices seem to be under renewed threat. Dance has always been a space for storytelling and truth-telling, and we believe that who tells the story matters. By centering women and female-identifying artists, we’re looking to amplify those voices that have been historically sidelined and create a season that is as much a statement as it is an artistic offering.”
Indeed, women have long been sidelined in the dance field, and while progress has been made in the past few decades, there is still more work to be done. According to the Dance Data Project’s most recent reports (of the 2023-2024 season), gender inequity is alive and well. Of the 2,221 ballet, contemporary, and modern dance works presented at 116 performing arts centers in the U.S., only 31.4 percent were choreographed by women. Women choreographed 30.2 percent of full-length works and 32.3 percent of mixed-bill works. Theaters with the largest seating capacity programmed the smallest number of women-made works (22.2 percent). Of the 217 artistic directors leading classically based dance companies in the U.S. and internationally, only 65 (30.0 percent) are women. And of the 202 choreographers currently holding resident positions in companies, 90 are women (44.6 percent) and 110 are men (54.5 percent). Remember that the dance field is majority female—CareerExplorer data shows that 87 percent of working dancers are female and 13 percent are male.
But enough about numbers. When Manning and her team chose the title “Women Move the World” for this history-making season, the word “move” initially referred to physical movement, but over time, the word started resonating for them in new ways. Movement can also imply progress and momentum. “For centuries, women have been moving this art form forward, but often without equal visibility,” Manning said. “And so move in this context also means, for us, to inspire, to create change, to claim space.”
But enough about words. On to dance! “Women Move the World,” which runs from September through May at 92NY, will feature performances from big-name choreographers and beloved hometown companies, as well as emerging voices and international artists. There will be an immersive opening celebration, six genre-spanning programs and three diverse festivals.
What to expect on opening night
The season will open on September 13 with Swing Out Loud: Women Move the World—part Authentic Jazz/Lindy Hop dance lesson, part swing dance party, part performance—led by Bessie Award winner LaTasha Barnes and accompanied by One BadA** Swing Band.
Even though the season’s mission is serious and carries significant weight, Manning wanted to open it with a party. She said, “I am also trying to drive us—’us’ meaning 92NY and the artists on this program, and also the wider dance community in New York-towards this idea that in the face of all of this, we must have joy. We must have celebration, and we must uplift one another.”
As for who should lead the opening celebration, Manning immediately thought of Barnes, who embodies so many qualities this season strives for—joy, resistance, representation, legacy—and had been part of 92NY’s inaugural Uptown Rhythm Dance Festival last season.
Barnes comes from a long line of “movers and shakers and innovators” and is an internationally recognized tradition-bearer of Black American Social Dance. When asked how she felt about opening the season, she said, “The word that’s coming to mind, honestly, is ‘magnanimous,’ but that may be a little too flowery for what’s actually happening. It’s really quite humbling, and it’s really inspiring for me.”
The night will begin with Barnes’ “very exciting and fun hybrid dance lesson,” starting with Authentic Jazz for those who want to dance alone, followed by Lindy Hop for those who want to be partnered. Then the floor will open for the swing dance party, interspersed with live performances, “offering some perspective into how badass the women in New York swing are and how badass their collective artistry is and can be.” Performers range from young protégés like Reyna Núñez to seasoned veterans “who just swing their faces off like Gaby Cook, and some of our most esteemed elders and ‘keepers of the flame,’ as we call them, but I’m calling them the ‘keepers of the beat.’”
92NY’s social dance nights are often packed and intergenerational, drawing families with young children up to people in their 90s, dancing the night away. “I hope everyone will come out to celebrate,” Barnes said. “It is ‘Women Move the World,’ but we want everyone in the space to be able to dance with us.”
The movers and shakers of the season
92NY’s dance history is rooted in American modern dance. Harkness Dance Center was founded in 1935 by Doris Humphrey and attracted other modern dance pioneers like Martha Graham, Katherine Dunham, Pearl Primus, José Limón, Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham and Alvin Ailey. So it is no surprise that most of the programs in the season feature modern and contemporary dance.
Some choreographers, like Yue Yin (whose company YY Dance Company will present the world premiere of Elsewhere on October 17 and 18), Heidi Latsky (presenting the talk/performance Who Am I Now? on January 10 and 11), and Aszure Barton have longstanding relationships with 92NY. Although Andrea Miller has taught at Harkness Dance Center, her critically acclaimed company GALLIM will perform BLUSH for the first time on their stage on April 30 and May 1. The French-Canadian Hélène Simoneau Danse will perform the world premiere of Late Bloomer on November 14 and 15, and Jodi Melnick and New York City Ballet principal Sara Mearns will broaden the landscape with the crossover ballet-contemporary world premiere of Superbloom (Dancing into Choreographic Forms) on March 27 and 28.
Barton, who will be closing out the season with An Evening with Aszure Barton on May 21, explains that, “92NY has been home to generations of incredible humans breaking new ground, and being part of this ongoing evolution of dance is deeply meaningful.” The one-night-only performance will showcase the breadth of her style while bringing together “some of the most exquisite dancers” she’s had the privilege to work with over the years, from Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Gauthier Dance//Dance Company Theaterhaus Stuttgart, and elsewhere.
Then there are the festivals
The Uptown Rhythm Dance Festival (“Which I am,” Manning says, “no pun intended, super jazzed for!”) returns for the second year on March 2-8. The programs at 92NY are co-curated by Manning and tap sensation Michelle Dorrance and co-presented with Works & Process at the Guggenheim and Dormeshia’s Ladies in the Shoe Tap Conference.
The week-long festival will include performances, discussions and classes “that celebrate the power, artistry and cultural impact of women in rhythmic dance.” This year’s roster of all female and female-identifying artists will perform tap, hip hop, flamenco, Kathak, street dance, Irish step, Appalachian flatfooting and more.
The Future Dance Festival returns for its fifth year on April 17-18 (the Online Dance Film Festival will be streaming on April 16-23), uplifting emerging choreographers and filmmakers as always, but this year the applicants, panelists and curators will all be women and female-identifying.
And, according to Manning, for the first time, the season will include a “wildly exciting and hard to pull off” day-long festival on February 21 dedicated to Indian classical dance and music: What Flows Between Us: A Festival of India’s Classical Arts in Cross-Cultural Dialogue, curated by renowned Kathak artist Rachna Nivas. The daytime program will include performances by musicians and dancers from the North Indian and South Indian lineages, traditional food and “space for gathering across generations.”
Nivas says that while women have had a complicated history with Indian classical dance over its 2000-year existence, they are currently well represented and respected in the field. The imbalance is more obvious in Indian classical music, so she is thrilled to highlight female lead musicians alongside a few male accompanists. “It’s really pretty extraordinary to have a festival like that for us, because we don’t…,” here she pauses and laughs knowingly, “…that’s totally not the case, usually.”
Nivas is grateful to have been surrounded by so many incredible women, her ‘dance sisters,’ who were also training with her guru, Pandit Chitresh Das. “He would constantly tell us, and tell the audience when there was one, that women were more powerful and stronger than men, and that men needed to understand that. Which was really radical.”
The festival will culminate in an evening performance of SPEAK, a collaboration between Nivas, Rukhmani Mehta, Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia, accompanied by an Indian classical and jazz ensemble. This conversation between Kathak and American tap picks up where another one left off. Nivas’ teacher, Das, collaborated with Dorrance’s mentor and friend, Jason Samuels Smith, in an all-male show called India Jazz Suites (2005). Because of that relationship, Nivas and Dorrance have known each other for years. “At some point,” Nivas says, “We thought it was time for us to write a new chapter of this conversation between Kathak and tap, and have the ladies give it a go.” SPEAK premiered in California in 2017 and even toured to India, but this New York premiere is not to be missed.
“I’m so grateful for this bold, courageous thing that Alison and the rest of the team at Harkness Dance Center are making,” Nivas said. “It’s just another testament to when women come together, the sky’s the limit for what can be accomplished.”
All performances for “Women Move the World” will be held in the historic Kaufmann Concert Hall and in Buttenwieser Hall at the Arnhold Center at 92NY. Tickets are available here.