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After Midnight’s Virgil Gadson Moves On So You Think You Can Dance

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 Virgil “Lil O” Gadson is a Broadway actor and dancer who has appeared in NFL commercials, season eight of So You Think You Can Dance, MTV‘s Americas Best Dance Crew, music videos, and has choreographed musicals. And now he’s back for season twelve of “So You Think You Can Dance”, on the Fox network, and airs Mondays at 8pm/7pm central.

Gadson was nominated for a Fred Astaire Award for After Midnightwhich received seven Tony nominations for principal actor/dancer, and Dulé Hill, Fantasia Barrino, and Desmond Richardson also starred in the musical.  The New York Times describes his joint performance in After Midnight in this way; “two dapper men dance a sinuous, playful duet. As they move — to the driving strains of “Hottentot,” played by the Jazz at Lincoln Center All Stars — laws of physics shatter.  These men force time to slow and speed. Their bodies curve in ways that would stagger Newton.  Virgil Gadson…bounces and bends as though he has replaced every bone with licorice sticks.”

As a teacher, Gadson taught outreach programs in Philadelphia, the University of the Arts in Center City, and in classrooms in Bermuda.  He’s taught a variety of age ranges, from children to adults, and is also very involved in dance communities here and abroad. He has also competed in Paris, Japan, China, and Russia representing the United States for  hip-hop titles in competitions from 2011 to 2013.

He also attended Freedom Theater and University of the Arts, and is a 2008 graduate of their dance program; there he learned other dance forms such as Modern, Jazz, Ballet and Tap.  Hip-Hop is what he focuses on, although he encourages students to learn and experience different types of dance in addition to learning dance history; Gadson believes this will help them grow and meet their potential not only in life but in dance as well.



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A Must See

Alvin Ailey Dancers Perform to Beyonce’s ‘Freedom’

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Harry Belafonte once said, “Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s anchor. We are the compass for humanity’s conscience.”

This past year we’ve seen a multitude of artists from every field, be those gatekeepers of truth. In films like the upcoming, powerful “Birth Of A Nation,” or in music with Beyonce’s  unapologetically black Lemonade album, to game-changing Broadway shows like Hamilton, Shuffle Along and Eclipsed, it’s no secret black artistry went to a whole new level.

So what do we do then when our nation is at its most intense, chaotic state? Like many, art is the first thought. Whether it be poetry, music, dance, spoken work, theater, photography -our art allows us to express ourselves wholeheartedly without restrictions.

At least that’s what Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater company member and choreographer Sean Aaron Carmon and fellow Alvin Ailey dancers did. Last week they took social media by storm, with their powerful one-minute choreographed dance to Beyonce’s “Freedom.”

A dance the NYTimes deems as a protest dance, Carmon and Co. pour their hearts and souls into every synchronized movement they make, even in the improvised solos where dancers were given free reign to express whatever they were feeling.

Carmon told dancers “I don’t have to tell you a single thing about what you should do. We all know what’s going on in our country. We all have our visceral responses to it. I’m going to put the music on. Give me everything you have.”

They gave everything and then some.Check out the video below.

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A Must See

Misty Copeland to Dance in Disney’s The Nuctracker Film

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American Ballet Theatre principle dancer Misty Copeland will join the cast of Disney’s live action film The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. She’ll portray the leading ballerina role in the only dance sequence in the movie.

Lasse Hallström directs the project, based on E.T.A. Hoffman’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, also the basis for the Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ballet we all know and love.


Last summer, Copeland leaped onto the map when ABT promoted her to principle dancer, becoming the first Black woman in the 76-year history to hold the title.

Last Fall she made her Broadway debut in the Tony-nominated revival On the Town for select performances. This week, she prepares to dance Romeo & Juliet at the Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Vienna, Virginia.

It appears Copeland has a lot to look forward to within the next year. She launched her first dancewear line, Égal Dance. New Line has found screenwriter Gregory Howard (“Remember the Titans”) to adapt her memoir, “Life In Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina,” into a film. As reported by Deadline last year, she’s teamed up with writer Tracy Oliver to develop a Fox series set in the world of dance.

A documentary about her life, “A Ballerina’s Tale” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2015.

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