INTERVIEW: Listening to the Dance with Ormsby Wilkins

INTERVIEW: Listening to the Dance with Ormsby Wilkins

Today’s guest is Ormsby Wilkins, the longtime Music Director of American Ballet Theatre, who will conclude his tenure with the company at the end of the 2026 summer season after more than two decades shaping its sound. A native of Sydney, Australia, Wilkins has spent more than forty years in ballet. Before joining ABT in 2005, he served as music director of the National Ballet of Canada for sixteen years and conducted with England’s Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, now the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Over the course of his career, he has led everything from the nineteenth-century classics to newly commissioned works, collaborating with generations of dancers, choreographers, and musicians. As he prepares to conduct his final performances with ABT—including Swan Lake, Onegin, Don Quixote, and Sylvia—we look back on a career spent in the orchestra pit and at the heart of some of ballet’s most enduring productions. In our conversation, Wilkins reflects on the art of conducting for dance, the evolution of ballet music over the past four decades, and what he has learned from a lifetime spent bringing these works to life. Join us on Dance Lens Substack for reviews, interviews and lives: https://thedancelens.substack.com/ [https://thedancelens.substack.com/] Get full access to The Dance Lens with Cynthia Dragoni at thedancelens.substack.com/subscribe [https://thedancelens.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

INTERVIEW: Renaissance x Punk—Sophie Laplane and James Bonas on creating Mary Queen of Scots

Join us for a conversation with choreographer Sophie Laplane and director James Bonas, the collaborators behind Scottish Ballet’s Mary, Queen of Scots [https://www.davidhkochtheater.com/tickets-and-events/mary-queen-of-scots?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23273521665&gbraid=0AAAABBnld0y0ebXHILDcAU5xlDdvyHpIR&gclid=CjwKCAjwidXQBhAZEiwA4egw6D2eYyItAuEITWXwURnsDrK-jRcwpEqTBJTkEWoU8BD9JoxQZsMbHBoCjqMQAvD_BwE] (Lincoln Center Koch Theater June 4-7 2026), which draws on the imagined relationship between Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I. The production blends classical ballet, theater, punk aesthetics, and contemporary visual language. Sophie Laplane is the Resident Choreographer at Scottish Ballet, where she creates works that fuse classical ballet vocabulary with contemporary theatrical sensibility across stage, opera, and award-winning dance films. James Bonas is a theater and opera director known for multidisciplinary collaborations across ballet, opera, animation, and visual performance. We talk about choreography, power, historical memory, and what it means to make ambitious new narrative ballet in 2026. Tickets to Mary Queen of Scots June 4-7 [https://www.davidhkochtheater.com/tickets-and-events/mary-queen-of-scots?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23273521665&gbraid=0AAAABBnld0y0ebXHILDcAU5xlDdvyHpIR&gclid=CjwKCAjwidXQBhAZEiwA4egw6D2eYyItAuEITWXwURnsDrK-jRcwpEqTBJTkEWoU8BD9JoxQZsMbHBoCjqMQAvD_BwE] Join us on the Dance Lens Substack for more deep dives, interviews, reviews and lives! https://thedancelens.substack.com/ [https://thedancelens.substack.com/] Get full access to The Dance Lens with Cynthia Dragoni at thedancelens.substack.com/subscribe [https://thedancelens.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

INTERVIEW: Christine Cox—The BalletX Model

INTERVIEW: Christine Cox, co-founder and Artistic and Executive Director of BalletX, Philadelphia’s premier contemporary ballet company, which she founded alongside choreographer Matthew Neenan in 2005. In two decades of leadership, Cox has built BalletX into one of the most distinctive forces in contemporary ballet, producing over 150 world premiere works by more than 80 choreographers and performing at venues like Jacob’s Pillow, New York City Center and The Joyce Theater. She’s here ahead of the Festival at Highmark Mann in Philadelphia, June 4th and 5th, featuring the world premiere of The Four Seasons Reimagined — an epic love letter to Mother Nature, with composer and electronic music innovator Dan Deacon and four world-renowned choreographers take on each season: Morgann Runacre-Temple Summer, Penny Saunders Fall, Jamar Roberts Winter, and Trey McIntyre Spring. Before founding BalletX, Cox was a member of Pennsylvania Ballet — now Philadelphia Ballet — for over a decade. Today we’re talking about her work at BalletX, what it takes to build a contemporary ballet company from the ground up, and what’s coming next. Want more great dance content? Join us on Dance Lens Substack for reviews, interviews, deep dives and LIVES! https://thedancelens.substack.com/ [https://thedancelens.substack.com/] Get full access to The Dance Lens with Cynthia Dragoni at thedancelens.substack.com/subscribe [https://thedancelens.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

INTERVIEW: What It Really Takes to Become a Dance Maker

INTERVIEW: Jessica Lang on career-making, creativity and the hidden realities of becoming a choreographer. In anticipation of the All Lang program at Pacific Northwest Ballet. [https://www.pnb.org/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=6615379111&gbraid=0AAAAADr9tuucaFiNwOIun76YuE_e-wauZ&gclid=CjwKCAjwn4vQBhBsEiwAq3hhN2q-dBWEGou4vhecDSr_DOXwJODgBlr5H5a4gbyuqjUMmVom0Yc1nhoCRlwQAvD_BwE]May 29-June 7 featuring ‘Her Door to the Sky’, ‘Ghost Variations’, and ‘Zigzag’ Lang discusses the creative life and what it really takes to become a choreographer. Lang is one of the world’s most versatile and prolific choreographers. A graduate of the Juilliard School and former member of Twyla Tharp’s company, she has created over 100 works for some of the world’s most celebrated institutions — among them American Ballet Theatre, the Royal Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and The Joffrey Ballet. Her work moves fluidly between ballet, contemporary dance, and opera, and has taken her from the stages of Lincoln Center to the Guggenheim to San Francisco Opera. She is currently Resident Choreographer at Pacific Northwest Ballet and Artist in Residence at Sarasota Ballet. For more great dance content: interviews, reviews and lives join us on The Dance Lens Substack: https://thedancelens.substack.com/ [https://thedancelens.substack.com/] If you’re in Seattle, Pacific Northwest Ballet presents an all-Lang program [https://www.pnb.org/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=6615379111&gbraid=0AAAAADr9tuucaFiNwOIun76YuE_e-wauZ&gclid=CjwKCAjwn4vQBhBsEiwAq3hhN2q-dBWEGou4vhecDSr_DOXwJODgBlr5H5a4gbyuqjUMmVom0Yc1nhoCRlwQAvD_BwE] from May 29th through June 7th, featuring Her Door to the Sky, Ghost Variations, and Zigzag. Get full access to The Dance Lens with Cynthia Dragoni at thedancelens.substack.com/subscribe [https://thedancelens.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

REVIEW: Firebird at Dance Theatre of Harlem

In this episode, we review the luminous interpretations of The Firebird at Dance Theatre of Harlem and its relationship to New York City Ballet’s. Both works are a deluge of beauty and an ocean of visual richness. Though distinct in style and staging, these productions are deeply connected through history, lineage, and artistic exchange. At the center of that connection is Arthur Mitchell, founding force of Dance Theatre of Harlem and former principal dancer at NYCB under George Balanchine. Mitchell’s career bridges these two worlds in profound ways: shaped by Balanchine’s choreography, including works created on him such as Agon and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and later transformed by his mission to build something entirely new. In 1969, in the wake of the civil rights era and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Mitchell co-founded Dance Theatre of Harlem with Karel Shook—establishing a school and company where Black dancers could train, perform, and thrive in classical ballet. In that context, DTH itself became both artistic achievement and cultural critique, a bold act of resistance and redefinition. Balanchine’s influence carried forward not only through aesthetics but through direct support: he served as one of DTH’s early board members and encouraged Mitchell to create a version of Firebird for the company. When it premiered in 1982, it was met with acclaim, praised for its inventive staging and audience-shifting energy. Where Balanchine and Fokine’s versions of Firebird evoke mythic, wintry Russia, Dance Theatre of Harlem’s interpretation transports us into a Caribbean dreamscape—lush, humid, and alive with color and sound. Giant tropical florals hang over the stage, and Stravinsky’s score anchors the work across all versions, while the Firebird herself arrives in strikingly theatrical ways, including a flash of red light that feels almost playful in its simplicity. The production thrives in its contrasts: methodical character work against playful theatricality, luminous principals against a shifting ensemble, and moments of imperfect stagecraft that remind us of ballet’s evolving relationship with illusion. At its center is the Firebird, whose presence is a metaphor and a force of nature. Though Firebird has not been performed by DTH since 2004, its legacy remains a significant part of the company’s identity, reflecting both its artistic ambition and its historical role in reshaping who gets to inhabit classical ballet’s most iconic roles. If you want more reviews, interviews, deep dives, and LIVES, make sure you join me on Dance Lens Substack—linked HERE: https://thedancelens.substack.com/ [https://thedancelens.substack.com/] Get full access to The Dance Lens with Cynthia Dragoni at thedancelens.substack.com/subscribe [https://thedancelens.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]