By Gabriela Estrada Last June, Héctor Zaraspe missed his 90th birthday celebration due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Earlier, he also missed the presentation of the annual choreography prize named after him by the Juilliard School, where he taught for 35 years. Maestro Zaraspe has also coached some of the greatest ballet and Spanish dancers of
By Michael Crabb Performing artists tend to be optimists. How else to explain their willingness to dedicate themselves to what in the best of circumstances is often a precarious and financially insecure existence? And then came COVID-19. The rapid spread of the novel coronavirus has tested this optimism to the extreme. Just as governments around
By Victor Swoboda In the Lingala language of Congo, where Zab Maboungou passed her formative years, “nyata nyata” means stomp your feet. The phrase became the apt name of the African contemporary dance company that she founded in Montreal in 1987. From the outset and to this day, Maboungou has taught, displayed and honed not