The Houston Ballet assembles a program of choreography by women: Lila York, Natalie Weir, and former San Francisco Ballet principal Julia Adam. Molly Glentzer seizes the occasion to talk with Lynn Garafola, whose new book due out in January includes a chapter on, as Glentzer calls it, ?ballet?s glass ceiling?:
?When George Balanchine said so famously, “The ballet is a purely female thing; it is a woman,” he was thinking of dancers, not choreographers. Offstage, women still haven’t come a long way, baby.
But Houston Ballet and its artistic director, Stanton Welch, will celebrate women dancemakers in the season-opening program Women@Art on Thursday. It offers the world premieres of Julia Adam’s The Accidental and Natalie Weir’s The Host, plus the company premiere of Lila York’s popular Celts.
And it’s rare air. Among the five largest U.S. companies, the only other ballet by a woman being staged this season is Susan Stroman’s Double Feature, commissioned last year by the New York City Ballet.?
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