25 to Watch (2).

American culture is moving at a breakneck pace. Between email, cell phones and stop-and-go traffic, there's barely time to breathe, let alone attend a dance performance. Rather than wait for the public to come and see her, modern dance choreographer Kim Shipp of Santa Clara, California, has decided to go where the public is--shopping.

Shipp calls her solution Retail Dance, which she defines as an artistic collaboration between a merchant and an artist. Performances can take place in storefront windows, on escalators in the mall or inside shops amid the display cases. She has given two performances to date, one in the amphitheater of the children's section at a Borders bookstore in Los Angeles and another in Palo Alto. It's only the beginning. Shipp says: "This is like a fire that needs to be lit, and we've barely got the match going."

Fanning the flames, Shipp is negotiating future performances. By next year, she hopes, a Retail Dance Festival in downtown San Francisco will bring together many companies, with lots of shopping and dancing in store.

Heidi Landgraf is the Assistant to the Editor in Chief of Dance Magazine.

16 Ashley Bouder: An Apprentice's Sorcery

BY LYNN GARAFOLA

Ashley Bouder is all of 17, an apprentice at the New York City Ballet, winner of the School of American Ballet's prestigious Mae L. Wien Award--and fabulously talented. She grew up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, studied (like her mom) with Marcia Dale Weary, and by age 12 was dazzling Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet audiences in showstoppers like Balanchine's Stars and Stripes pas de deux, which she danced at last year's SAB workshop. She loves to jump and turn; she's even gotten to like adagio. And she makes allegro footwork look easy. She's a born performer, lighting up the stage from the moment she steps out. Yes, she does get nervous (though you'd never guess it), but dancing a role like Stars, which she knows inside out, is definitely fun. She's a fan of Miranda Weese, Maria Kowroski, Jenifer Ringer and Wendy Whelan, all NYCB principals, as well as American Ballet Theatre's Julie Kent, who's so "beautiful." During Winter Season she danced Nutcrackers galore--practically every performance--and celebrated Christmas in the Big Apple. Her dream: to become a New York City Ballet principal dancer.

Lynn Garafola is a senior editor of Dance Magazine.

17 Paule Turner: Duchess with a Difference

BY BRENDA DIXON GOTTSCHILD

Look for sightings of Paule Turner, Duchess--this cross-dresser's self-conferred title--and his newly established ensemble, aptly named Court. As a transvestite performer, Turner's recent ancestral lineage includes Ethyl Eichelberger, RuPaul and Reginald Ellis Crump, who has worked with the Liz Lerman company and with Court.

Gender bending is just one device in Turner's repertoire of sensations. As an MFA candidate in Temple University's dance department, he was "always going for the outrageous," said one of his professors. Even when the concept was off, his sense of daring produced interesting experiments, with ironic violence as a frequent visitor. Turner and Court throw themselves into movement the way a fish takes to water. Duchess says he is interested in "movement that has a theater of its own, rather than referring us back to words."

His latest project: a two-year exploration titled Medea: Love Is the Devil, with Duchess playing the heroine, that begins this spring with in-progress showings in Philadelphia and New York. Turner's Vodun-inspired In the Mud played at last year's Philadelphia Fringe Festival and will travel to Scotland next August for the Edinburgh Fringe. His charismatic/enigmatic presence goes beyond conventional concepts of male/female, forcing gender into a gray area.

Brenda Dixon Gottschild, a Dance Magazine correspondent, is the author of Waltzing in the Dark.

18 Wayne McGregor, Virtual Virtuoso

BY DONALD HUTERA

The choreography of Wayne McGregor is reaching a gratifying maturity. Based in London, this prolific 30-year-old has been steadily working his way toward the top of Britain's contemporary dance scene. His major achievement thus far is a trio of digitally inspired dances starting with 1997's The Millennarium, passing through 1998's Sulphur 16 and concluding with Aeon in 2000. All three were repackaged into The Trilogy Installation. Aimed at live and virtual viewers, this scintillating opus had the honor of being featured last October in Dance Umbrella 2000's movement and technology week, alongside Merce Cunningham's Biped.

McGregor's trademark movement style is a particularly wriggling variation on neoclassicism a la William Forsythe. But McGregor is his own man, and one for whom dance is a razor-sharp tool of communication. Of his dances, the prolific, high-tech whiz kid says, "They're still live physical acts. For me the priority is still the body." Apart from creating for and with his own Random Dance Company, McGregor's recent activities include everything from community projects (a piece was devised last August with some two dozen London youths) to potent collaborations with dancers from The Royal Ballet, via the company's smaller-scale, experimental Artists' Development Initiative, overseen by dancer Deborah Bull. Duo:logue in three parts is the name of the next Random/Royal outing, April 18-21 in the Linbury Studio Theatre, Covent Garden.

McGregor, equally adept with toe shoes and bare feet, is offering nothing less than the next step in the evolution of new dance at one of the world's premier dance institutions.

Donald Hutera is a frequent contributor to Dance Magazine.

19 Caroline Rocher, Dance Theatre of Harlem's Rising Star

Sleek and sexy in Slaughter on Tenth Avenue and soft and dreamy as the Dark Angel in Serenade, Caroline Rocher has made her mark at Dance Theatre of Harlem. At 23, she has just been promoted to principal dancer. Growing up in France, she attended the Conservatoire de Montpellier, then studied at Maurice Bejart's school, Rudra, in Lausanne, Switzerland. After a year at the Crazy Horse cabaret in Paris, she set out for a New York experience. She enrolled in The Ailey School, but, she says, "I was missing ballet too much." So in August of 1998, she auditioned for DTH. A mere two years later, Rocher is dancing lead roles in Giselle, Agon and Prodigal Son. She likes dancing with DTH because, she says, "The repertory is versatile so you never get bored, and I'm learning a lot from Arthur Mitchell."

--Wendy Perron 

20 Li Chiao Ping: True Grit and Grace

BY GIGI BERARDI

Dancer, choreographer and artistic director Li Chiao-Ping's style of dance is a unique blend of acrobatics, modern dance and Chinese martial arts. Born Nancy Lee in San Francisco, California, she now teaches at the University of Wisconsin. Li is prolifically creative, choreographing over fifty pieces in her young career, many in collaboration with her partner, videographer/artist Doug Rosenberg.

Li says that, growing up, she was always trying to be a son, and fought stereotypes of what girls can't do. She has earned a reputation for a fierce presence on stage, brilliant technique and consummate execution of theme and movement. Critics have termed her strong, graceful and expressive in every bone of her body.

Li's oeuvre explores themes of culture and identity through abstract composite char acters that inhabit emotionally oddball worlds. In Chi, her signature piece, based on a concept of life force or inner energy, she jumps to land face down on the floor in a four-point landing--again and again. In her recent nationally acclaimed Men's Project, six male choreographers--Mark Dendy, David Dorfman, Joe Goode, Daniel Nagrin, Gus Solomons jr and Mel Wong--each created a solo for her.

This daring performer's bravest role may be her own recovery from a near-catastrophic automobile accident one year ago that resulted in nine surgeries and a near-amputation. With characteristic drive and energy, Li is dancing again with her company, most recently in a performance at Danspace Project/St. Mark's Church in New York.

Gigi Berardi, a Dance Magazine correspondent, is the author of Finding Balance: Fitness and Training for a Lifetime in Dance (Princeton Book Company, Publishers).

21 Bill `Crutchmaster' Shannon, Bionic Angel

BY SALLY SOMMER 

Bill Shannon dances like a new bionic man made of metal and flesh with a hip-hop heart. This is a dancer on edge, tiding steel poles, who developed his art on the street. Also known as "Crutch" or "Crutchmaster," Bill Shannon challenges our ideas about what is awkward.

On crutches since he was 5 years old, Shannon has metabolized them into his dance as elegantly as the ballerina has transformed the toe shoe into an extension of her leg. Dancing on futuristic steel crutches with curved bases, Shannon is a beautiful alien creature gliding through space in loping strides. Steel is transformed into metallic wings, long legs, or oars that propel a skateboard. Through his dancing Shannon forces you to look at life afresh, to see movement with clear vision. He blasts sentimentality. He is a break-dancer who defies gravity, a dancer who rearranges all notions about being disabled. He can hover in midair like a bird of prey, gazing at the watchers with the cool eyes of a predator. He is fierce, without pity. So we have no pity for him. Then, with a slight shift of the head and attitude, he becomes an angel balanced on steel pins or an off-kilter Charlie Chaplin precariously waiting for the inevitable pratfall.

Sally Sommer is a freelance writer and a professor at Duke University.

22 Kyra Nichols: The Best Just Gets Better

BY ROBERT GRESKOVIC

Late work isn't necessarily great work, and in the case of great dancers, it can even leave much to be desired. But in some rare cases, there comes a sheen that seems to grow more lustrous. This appears to be the case with Kyra Nichols, who at this marker in the glorious career she began with New York City Ballet in 1974, continues to dance sublimely. Last season her performances with NYCB were among classical ballet's highest highlights. There would seem no reason to expect the new year to be any different for this ever-scrupulous, ever-pure ballerina. In the parts she still chooses to dance, transcendent roles in Balanchine ballets such as Mozartiana, Vienna Waltzes, Robert Schumann's "Davidsbiindlertiinze " and Liebeslieder Walzer, she can even surpass her formidable previous outings.

Exactness of execution is remarkable and rare, said Nichols's fabled mentor, George Balanchine. But, he noted, she has it. He went on to suggest that such a gift was essentially "God-given." Look for her performances in 2001 to be godsends, every one.

Robert Greskovic, the author of Ballet 101, reviews dance for The Wall Street Journal.

23 Dancewear's Junction: Fashion, Function

BY ROSE EICHENBAUM

Dancers in the new millennium are finding that functional clothing can also be fashionable. Designer prints, vibrant colors, shimmery fabrics, bra tops, capri pants, even beaded camisoles and vinyl have found their way into the dancer's closet.

"Dancers want stylistic choices and multiple usage out of their clothes," says designer Marcea Lane. "With today's designs they can go to class, performance and out to a club, all with the same outfit." Two-piece sets, athletic wear with racer-stripe trim, boot leg cut pants that rest on hips instead of waists, halter and handkerchief tops and loose-fitting, hip-hop-influenced clothing are the current look.

Even ballet wear that is fairly prescribed is becoming strappier and more decorative. Judy Spodek, head designer for Capezio, says, "Today's dancer wants to be in style, but has to consider movement and performance, but likes some individuality." Because dancewear designers are deliberately blending comfort with popular fashion trends, dancers no longer have to sacrifice style for their art.

Rose Eichenbaum is a Los Angeles-based contributing photographer to Dance Magazine.

24 Paul S. Abrahamson, Courting the Moose

BY KAREN DACKO

Contemporary ballet choreographer Paul S. Abrahamson, artistic director of Chicago's Moose Project, immediately established his reputation for professionalism and quality with Her Last Spring (1987), his initial offering to the Pittsburgh Dance Council's Choreographers' Continuum, which nurtured him for a decade.

Since then, the former Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre member's textural ballets with emotional undercurrents--epitomized by Already It Is Dusk--have acquired maturity. His broader focus, shaped by musical eclecticism, has produced the music-driven Serenata Notturna, a technically complex abstraction demanding control and fineness, and the thematic Ritmos de Pies, which, fueled by Latin spirit, showcases technical virtuosity.

With an articulate classical vocabulary, conscientious work ethic and commitment to contemporary ballet, the native Chicagoan, whose choreography is internationally produced (including in Cuba), moves into the millennium poised to explore new artistic territory. His burgeoning 9-year-old Moose Project (a name inspired by his Joffrey Concert Group nickname), now boasts an administrative staff and a three-year plan to augment his repertory with works by other contemporary ballet choreographers.

The Project appears in late January at Chicago's Next Dance Festival and with the William Ferris Chorale on March 30 before launching a two-series subscription season (beginning April 6-8).

Karen Dacko is a contributing dance editor of Pittsburgh Magazine

25 Miami City Ballet: Villella Victorious

BY TOBI TOBIAS

The ferocious, impassioned energy that charged Edward Villella's dancing with the New York City Ballet--think Prodigal Son, think Rubies--now fuels an entire company, the Miami City Ballet. With Villella at its helm, MCB, a mere 15 years old, proved to be a major-league contender at the Kennedy Center's Balanchine Celebration last fall, slip ping by the more established and more staid San Francisco Ballet, run by Villella's fellow NYCB alum Helgi Tomasson. An inspired Balanchine custodian, Villella supervises productions that throb with life. He secures the services of ideal stagers, such as Suzanne Farrell, and provides them with a group of dancers he has groomed to be lusty, musical and alert to the specific, potent atmosphere that permeates each ballet like a perfume.

Balanchine remains MCB's chief worldclass choreographer; the company even does his Nutcracker. But Villella, ever alert to rich possibilities, has also scheduled Frederick Ashton's Les Patineurs--a lovely example of the British master's work and a crowd-pleaser to boot. He also has his eye on the Jerome Robbins repertoire. The new year finds MCB visiting its multiple home sites in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. New York, which still fancies itself the dance capital of the world, gets a mere three one-night stands in April, and these are in outlying venues. What's wrong with this picture?

Tobi Tobias is New York Magazine's dance critic.