Signature style: Experimental performance installation, with contemporary dance as

a component. My last piece was: A sort of requiem to my last love, called You Sprin-

kled Fairy Dust on My Head and Flew to Paradise, or the Heartbreak Dance. I start

naked and stand there onstage while Stevie Nicks’s “Stand Back” plays, and slowly I put on clothes, star in my own music video, and

dance around. Trademark moves: Sassy hair flips and sudden drops to the ground.

I’d describe the Carbon piece as: A requiem done to the last songs of Nico, Broadcast,

Biggie and Amy Winehouse. Food splurge: Cheese fries.

Favorite costume ever: A purple short-sleeve unitard from Wil-liam Forsythe’s The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude. It was like I was dancing in nothing. Trade-mark move: A mean grand jeté. I’m a jumper. Dream part: Puck, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The perfect stage: The Kimmel Center. I loved being able to see all the people and having the Orchestra onstage with us. Food splurge: Sesame chicken. My par-ents wanted me to be: Nothing else. I remember the moment my father figured out that this would be my profession, he asked, “You’d get paid to dance?” He was fine with it.

Signature style: Contemporary ballet. Hardest part of being a dancer: Waking up to an aching

body, then taking that aching body and warming it up enough to dance. This next show, in a word:

Hot. Favorite role ever: Any part in a Matthew Neenan piece. His movement comes so naturally,

I don’t even have to think. If I weren’t a dancer, I’d be: A gynecologist. I recently helped a friend

deliver her baby—one of the most amazing moments I’ve ever witnessed. Dance idols: Nata-

lia Osipova and Michael Jackson. Dirty Dancing or Footloose? Tough call. Dirty Dancing.

DANCE

THE DANCERSRhythm, music and absolutely peRfect bodies.

who could ask foR anything moRe? —nora kelly

Jermel Johnson, soloist, Pennsylvania Ballet Dancing in the North American premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s Jeu de Cartes, part of the ballet's Russian Suite: Ratmansky and Balanchine. Tara Keating,

dancer/artistic coordinator, BalletX

Dancing in choreographer Matthew Neen-an’s world-premiere ballet and a revival of

choreographer Alex Ketley’s Silt (both at the Wilma Theater, November 16th-20th).

Kate Watson-Wallace, dancer/choreographer/co-director,

anonymous bodies Performing at the Rocky Awards

during the Live Arts Festival (September 5th, Ruba Club-Studios) and debuting

an original piece created for Carbon Dance Theatre (October 28th-30th).

P H O T O G R A P H y B y C H R I S C R I S M A N , H A I R & M A K E U P B y D A W N E P I S C O P O