February: Juwan Alston

February: Who is your dance idol (dead or alive)? and why?

I want to sincerely apologize for not blogging last month. I will share my goal that I have given myself for the year. I want to continue discovering my voice as an artist and continuing defining myself and growing as a person. Ways that you grow, is by challenging yourself. When we came back from Christmas Break, we began working very hard on a new show (that included 2 world premieres), and we had 2 weeks to do so. It was a madhouse, but in the end it was so much fun.

Now onto February. my dance idol changes constantly. I love to find things about many different dancers that I love. My number one female would have to be between Evgenia Obraztsova and Natalia Osipova. They are both absolutely amazing dancers, and anytime they step on stage, they immediately capture your attention. Now when it comes to males, my top 2 are Leonid Sarafanov and Friedemann Vogel. These guys are simply beautiful and passionate artists. Other dancers i admire are Kimin Kim, Semyon Chudin, Artem Ovcharenko, Daniil Simkin, Maria Kochetkova, Gillian Murphy, Sylvie Guillem, Marianela Nunez, Steven McRae, Misty Copeland, Roberto Bolle, Mathieu Ganio, and Aurelie Dupont. And I will stop naming people because I could go on and on. I have never seen 2 dancers that dance the same. Even if the role and choreography are the same, every dancer approaches and executes the movement differently. The individual artistry is what makes dance and dancers so special!