Arts
from48 hills
19 hours agoWith New Works Festival, Lenora Lee Dance opens doors to radical voices - 48 hills
Lenora Lee Dance is launching its first New Works Festival featuring seven diverse artists to explore human rights and cultural themes.
There's something powerful that happens when students step onto a stage and the entire community shows up for them. Events like this bring families, staff, and students together in a way that builds pride, connection, and a real sense of belonging.
"It has been a bucket-list dream of mine to perform on a New York stage, and I couldn't think of a better way to do that than becoming a part of the 11 to Midnight family," Morris said in a statement.
When I came to America I tried a lot of classes and 90% of them, even if a class was for beginner level, were really difficult. I was thinking, if I were a grown woman who just decided to start, I'm going to get trauma, it's so hard, it's so competitive, and I [said], I need to create something dedicated to women, without this pressure, without this judgmental vibe.
As you age, your body gets less efficient at repair and recovery, as your: Immune system gradually loses some of its resilience Digestion slows Chances of chronic conditions like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and osteoporosis increase Retirement can also impact your health in complex ways. While stepping away from work often reduces stress, it may lead to less physical activity and fewer social interactions-both of which can raise your health risks.
It's 3:30 p.m. on a Monday, and a group of 16 senior dancers are grooving on the court at Chase Center. They throw their arms up and down, give a high kick, bend over low, draw a half circle with their hips, pop up and snap their necks back and forth, their grey and white hair glistening under the giant spotlights usually reserved for Steph Curry and Draymond Green.
But instead, they find their way to a small studio, where they join 27 others in strapping on a pair of high heels and throwing themselves into two hours of dance moves. This is the beginners heels class at Vibe Dance Studio, which was started by Izzy Gonzales and her dad Ed four years ago. It's a place where people can show up exhausted, but end up with so much energy they don't want to go home.
President Trump overhauled the Kennedy Center's board last year, got himself elected chairman, and installed ally Ric Grenell as president. Then, in December, his handpicked board renamed the venue "The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts" - slapping his name ahead of JFK's on one of the country's most storied arts institutions.
First performed in 1910 by Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and adapted by George Balachine for New York City Ballet in 1949, Firebird was inspired by a Russian folk tale. The ballet tells the story of Prince Ivan, who captures the firebird, a creature who is part bird, part woman, and then lets her go.
This is an absolute beginners course on the foundations of classical ballet and, a single catastrophic line dance lesson aside, it is also the first dance class I have ever attended. I am in the minority. As we take the barre, it quickly becomes apparent that not being able to tell my left from my right will be a significant deficit over the next 16 weeks. This, however, is a tertiary concern.
Belinda Ricklefs, a ballroom dance and Lindy hop instructor in the Bay Area since 1975, and the founder of Sunday Swing at the Lake Merritt Dance Center and Live Oak Park, passed away on Nov. 7, 2025, at her care home in Pinole. She was 89. Born in Los Angeles in 1936, Belinda lived a long and varied life. She started dancing at age 5, and did her first jitterbugging as a teenager at Friday night socials in a church basement. She graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Asian History (and was a Phi Beta Kappa member) in 1957.
Two people in their 80s went on 'First Dates' to show you're never too old A pensioner whose husband died when she was just 22 has gone on her first ever date since the accident - 66 years later. Georgina Clarke (88), who will appear in a Saint Valentine's Day special of RTÉ's First Dates, said her husband Seamus was just 26 when he was killed in a road accident on the Long Mile Road in Dublin.
It got me thinking. While everyone's obsessing over the latest fitness trends and biohacking protocols, these folks have been consistently moving their bodies for decades. No fancy equipment, no Instagram-worthy routines, just simple habits they picked up long before movement became a multibillion-dollar industry. So I started asking around, digging into research, and talking to people who've stayed active well into their golden years. What I found wasn't revolutionary or complicated. It was refreshingly simple.
I absolutely give you permission to learn what twizzles are, but if you're coming into this as a once-every-four-years viewer, I encourage you to appreciate these performances based on how the skating made you feel. For me, watching it reminds me of the first time I was taken to a classical music performance: "What am I supposed to do with my brain during this?" I thought.
Dominique McDougal and Carro Sharkey's three-part performance, 'Did4luv'-a tragicomic dance solo performed by each of the dancers, alternating every night-debuted this month at the dual 30th anniversary of Sophiensaele's inauguration as a theater and its renowned dance festival, Tanztage. This year's Tanztage invites its audience to consider the (im)material conditions of artistic production: the body and self as sources for capitalist exchange, the extractive nature of our systems of work and its resulting consequences for marginalized bodies.