A story I wrote about the Dallas Black Dance Theater’s youth ensemble, Bloom, ran in Tuesday’s Dallas Morning News. I found the story while trying to make contacts with local dance directors. I’ve been writing lots of stories about professional dance/ballet companies lately, but hadn’t yet written about a youth dance group, so this was a treat. You can read the story here:
Alexandria Johnson, 15, has spent nine years studying African dance. She’s read books about it and talked to her dance instructors about what Africa is like. But she never dreamed she’d actually go, let alone perform, there. Today, that will change.
Alexandria, who lives in Dallas and attends Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center high school, and seven other young dancers who are part of the Bloom, Dallas Black Dance Theatre’s performance ensemble, leave today for Kampala, Uganda. They’ve been invited to perform at “Kwatu Fest,” a three-day peace festival that begins Wednesday. It marks the first time the 11-year-old ensemble has been invited to perform internationally.
Here are some other stories I’ve written throughout the past week:
“Texas Ballet Theater Cancels Live Music” — Who knew ballet could generate so many stories?
“Texas Ballet Theater Dancers Organize Fundraising Effort” — Yes, more from the ballet beat.
“Steely Dan in Fine Form During Nokia Show” — Covering the Steely Dan concert was a challenge, seeing that I don’t regularly listen to Steely Dan. I listened to a lot of the group’s songs on YouTube before writing the story, though, and I researched the history of the group. It was difficult to speak with authority on the group and to write the story on a tight deadline, but it was good practice for upcoming concerts I’m going to cover. The article is only a couple hundred words long, mainly because concert reviews that are filed late at night have to be kept pretty short for production-related reasons.
“The Arts Experience: The Moments Before the Art Comes to Life” — A vignette about a photographer’s process for hanging his photos in an exhibit.
Word on the Street 