Month: March 2019

Something is happening in Louisville, Kentucky. If you haven’t read, the Louisville Ballet was the target of homophobic hate-mail from a “prominent member of the community” as a result of a postcard for the upcoming season, which featured two men holding hands to advertise Human Abstract, a contemporary ballet featuring a “story of love and loss ” between two men.

The community has rallied around the company in support, and the performance was met with raving reviews. The doctor who wrote the email above lost his job as an editor with the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation Research but retained his job on the faculty of the University of Louisville School of Medicine. You can read a response from the AHA here.

Arts Writing is Dead posted the letter and also a trilogy of response articles from different angles here, here, and here. 

I am astounded that self-proclaimed “supporters of the arts” could spout such vitriol; however, the response of the Louisville community in support of the company and performance warms my heart. Not only did Dr. Bolli’s email “out” him as a bigot, but he unintentionally put the Louisville Ballet and Human Abstract in the news, bringing attention to the resilience and talent of the company members and the instution itself.

A review of the piece here:

https://wfpl.org/review-human-abstract-is-tangible-evidence-of-louisville-ballets-vision/

I stare at my screen. I stare at the studio mirror. I stare at a blank page in my “thesis ideas” notebook. I stare, hoping the words or the movement or the images present themselves to me; unfortunately for me, that’s just not the way it works.

Admittedtly, I’ve spent a lot of my life stuck in the in-between, looking for the answers and waiting for the end result. But it is only when we take action and create with intention that the work gets done. I’m in the process of editing my first podcast episode, an interview with Christopher Roman – dancer, choreographer, former Associate Artistic Director of the Forsythe Company and world-travelled/traveling performer and curator of dance. You know, no big deal. Anyway, he said many important things, but the most important: “Just do the work.”

So, let’s get to it.

This is just the beginning. I’m starting this community as part of a project for my MFA program at Hollins University. My task is to produce and publish a podcast, but it is growing into much more than that. I needed a home for the podcast, Body Politic, but I also wanted a place to share events and news regarding artists, art, performances, and communities that are becoming stronger and fueling the fight for good. We need art. Possibly now more than ever. And we need the artists who aren’t afraid to inject social or political commentary into their work in order to educate audiences and invigorate the rest of us who might feel weary from the fight.

If you have a story, a piece, or an event to share, submit it on the contact page and I will do my best to feature it as soon as possible. Let’s start making the work and see what happens.

-Courtney