
Steven Woodruff
WriterSteven Woodruff currently pursues a varied career as a musician, dancer, writer, and teacher.. He has performed as a violinist with The Inland Empire Symphony, Orchestra of the Foothills, Claremont Chamber Orchestra, and the Pasadena Orchestra Da Camera. He is a member of HOLLOW LOG; a world music band that released a CD entitled “Catch A Caber”. He wrote, directed and played music with HOLLOW LOG for Jamie Nichols’ critically acclaimed choreography, IF She Could Remember, performed live at the historic Alex Theatre in Glendale. As a traditional musician and dancer he has appeared with Aman International Music & Dance as a soloist and choreographer. Mr. Woodruff is known through out the east coast and England for his knowledge and expertise in traditional music and dance. He is the artistic director of RATTLE UP (founded in 1993), a group of men that perform dances drawn on the sword dance tradition of northern England and the Welsh/English border. Their 1995 performance on the Los Angeles Music Center Holiday Program at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was nominated for a LESTER HORTON DANCE AWARD by the Los Angeles Dance Resource Center. Mr. Woodruff has also danced roles in the File Mal Gardee and Nutcracker with The Redlands Festival Ballet, Dance Corps, Ballet of The Foothills, Media City Ballet and Pasadena Dance Theatre. In1994 he performed at the Los Angeles Dance Kaleidoscope Festival in Charles Maples’ ballet Fall Of The Feet. He danced as a guest artist with Wenta Ballet of Los Angeles in a premier performance of “Fantasy a la Mazurka” at The Ivar Theatre in SPLIT: Dance In & Out Of LA, The Jaime Rogers’ Studio Dance Ensemble in the 2006 Lester Horton Dance Awards show with guest artist Ben Vereen and again at the Jazz Dance LA Concert at the Japan American Theatre in June 2006. He performed with Jamie Nichols’ contemporary dance company FAST FEET 1993-2003 and also acted as music director, prop maker and set designer. He was the recipient of the LESTER HORTON DANCE AWARD for Outstanding Achievement in Set Design 2001 for Jamie Nichols’ She Don’t Work At The Pizzeria No Mo, performed by Fast Feet at The Luckman Fine Arts Complex –CSULA in Jazz Dance LA 2001. Mr. Woodruff is active as a teacher and educator and was an adjudicator for The Los Angeles Music Center’s Spotlight Awards for 10 years and in the past for The Herb Alpert Foundation Scholarship Awards. He has taught Social Dance, Folk Dance, The Theory and Analysis of Dance and Jazz Dance at California State University Los Angeles, Adult Ballet at Le Studio in Pasadena, ballet & jazz at California Dance Arts Academy and co-directed the children and adult dance program for 10 years at the Pasadena Athletic Club. He has served on the Dance Panel for The Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department 1999-2000 Cultural Grants and The Board of Directors of the Jazz Dance LA Foundation 2000-2001. Mr. Woodruff holds a B.A. in Music/Asian Studies from Oberlin College and has studied chamber music at Dartmouth College, Keene State College, Carleton College, and Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music. He has been reviewing and writing articles for online publications in Los Angeles since 2010.
Contact
- 626-316-9469
- gdaebaile@gmail.com

Flowered Faces, Challenging Contexts Mark L.A. Dance Project Return to Live Performance
For a few moments before the beginning of Solo at Dusk, Bobbi Jene Smith’s new, commissioned work for Los Angeles Dance Project, the blue sky above the improvised outdoor theater and the purple floor covering for the stage area glowed with a vivid wash of color. With the company’s down town studio parking lot transformed it was clear this drive-in style performance was not going to be a make do substitute for the pandemic era but a bit of magic that would have been hard to come by or reproduce in any actual theater. Twilight, the golden hour (call it what you will), all of it enhanced Smith’s nostalgia driven dances. Coupled with Alex Somers’ fragile music, the themes of memory and loss hung over Smith’s suite of dances with a ritual quality.

Book Review: “Final Bow For Yellowface” Lays Out A Route Toward Inclusion
Phil Chan's book "Final Bow For Yellowface" is an ever relevant read that tackles the topic of racial stereotypes within dance, while laying out a route towards increased inclusion in the performing arts.

L.A. Dance Project’s “I Fall, I Flow, I Melt” Is A Vivid Bach Exploration
Choreographer Benjamin Millepied aims “to free the dancer” to experience the music on his or her own terms.

"The Last Ship" Is Sting’s Ode to His Tyneside Roots
A review on "The Last Ship" starring singer Sting.

L.A Dance Project Wraps Up Ambitious Two Month Festival
Benjamin Millepied's is concluding his two-months festival "L.A. Dances" with strong performances.

Historic Modern Dance Joins Current Works in LA Dance Project Festival
A review on the new L.A. Dances two-month festival.

L.A. Dance Project Festival Turns Up the Heat on Collaboration
A review on Benjamin Millepied's new festival "L.A. Dances" as he collaborates with multiple choreographers.

Matthew Bourne's Cinderella Relives the Blitz
The revived production of Cinderella bundles together the Blitz, a familiar fairytale, and English caricature in a heart-warming concoction that pokes fun at English social life but also swells with national pride.

LA Dance Project Offers Big Themes And Glorious Music In New Work By Millepied
It was an evening in which the movement unified the music, continually renewing the admonitions of fall, flow, melt.

Balanchine’s Nutcracker: Bright New Era For Trademarked Ballet
Review on Balanchine’s Nutcracker, performed by the Miami City Ballet.

Robbins A Suite of Dances Gets Informal Audition at Colburn School
The Colburn School presented a rare performance of Jerome Robbins' A Suite of Dances, originally created for Mikhail Baryshnikov.

McGregor’s “Autobiography” Is An Unconventional Dance Spectacle
McGregor duplicates the 23 pieces of the human genetic code in a program of 23 short vignettes set against the electronic music of the American rising-star sound artist, Jlin.

Paul Taylor: The Last of America’s Modern Dance Giants is Gone
Paul Taylor was the last of America’s founding modern dance titans. A graduate of Martha Graham’s company, he went on to remake modern dance in his own indelible image during a 64 year career and an opus of 147 dances.

'Moon&' Forges Tenuous Connections with Big Themes
A review on Los Angeles based dance company SZALT's performance at the Ford Theatre.

ABT, La Bayadere, And The Temple Of Doom
Dance at the Music Center closed out its season with American Ballet Theatre’s La Bayadère.

Collaborative Wealth Of La Dance Project On Display In Musco Center Premieres
LA Dance Project’s debut last weekend at Musco Center for the Arts capped a busy few weeks for the company following a series of performances at their new Los Angeles performance space.

Second Annual Palm Springs Dance Festival Returns to Annenberg Theater
The second installment of the Palm Springs Dance Festival returns to its desert home with performances at various Palm Springs venues, culminating in a Gala Performance at the Palm Springs Art Museum’s Annenberg Theater.

Malpaso Dance Company Leaves the 'Cubanismo' in Cuba
Review: Cuba’s newest contemporary dance ensemble, Malpaso Dance Company performing on the Music Center series down town, left most of the 'cubanismo' behind in their Saturday evening repertory program.

“The Red Shoes” is Matthew Bourne’s Love Letter to Film and Dance
Of all Matthew Bourne’s works for New Adventures, many of which have been seen here in Los Angeles, The Red Shoes makes the best case for an ocean-going integration of dance, scenic design, and music.

“Polina” Integrates Dance and Drama with International Flair
A review on "Polina, " a dance film about a young Bolshoi classical dancer leaving Russia to join a contemporary company in France.

Scottish Ballet “Streetcar” A Vibrant Departure
A review of the Scottish National Ballet’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire, as they performed at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California.

For Matthew Bourne Dance is an Adventure
Early Adventure features three original works by Matthew Bourne.

Martha Graham Company, Wild Up Bring On A Smashing Modern Dance Program
Modern dance company, Martha Graham Company, gives a terrific program at the Valley Performing Arts Center in Los Angeles.

New Vision for Brand Library Dance Series Opens in May
Glendale’s Brand Library gathers LA based dance companies for a new series.

Abraham and Taylor: Dance in the Worlds of Identity Politics and the Imaginary
Paul Taylor with his newly minted American Modern Dance and Kyle Abraham with Abraham.In.Motion fielded concerts in Los Angeles.

Powerful Trio of Classic Works Carries Limon Dance Company Program
America’s legacy modern dance companies have each found unique new routes keeping their founding choreographer’s visions on today’s stages.

ABT’s “Whipped Cream”, Charming with a Touch of the Macabre
Alexei Ratmansky sugar high new work 'Whipped Cream' brings the American Ballet Theatre to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

Nickerson-Rossi Dance Is Building a Dance Festival Empire in Palm Springs
The Palm Springs Dance Festival is a new dance festival to start in the desert of California.

Jessica Lang Dance Offers Gimmicky Repertory in Music Center Performance
While Jessica Lang is a busy experimenter assembling dance from high concept ideas and interactive dance with film, it is her pure dance works that seem to strike the deepest chords.

Rockettes Continue Tense Standoff with CEO Dolan Over Inauguration Show
What the nation thinks of the Radio City Music Hall group scheduled to perform at President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration.

Rockettes Take on Trump and the Inauguration Entertainment Black Out
The controversy behind the Rockettes and their scheduled appearance as part of the inaugural festivities looked like it was going to be resolved within a couple of news cycles, but...

Outside Looking In, Inside Looking Out: Ratmansky’s Nutcracker for ABT
Among the many visual delights of Ratmansky’s new Nutcracker for American Ballet Theatre there is one in particular, as arresting as it is beautiful, that lingers after the curtain has gone down on the performance.

Nutcracker: The Old Greeting, Kind and True!
Is The Nutcracker getting worn out? Steven Woodruff reviews Los Angeles Ballet's production of The Nutcracker.

“Le Corsaire”, Ballet’s Hapless Fantasy for a Dangerous World
Mikhailovsky Ballet, a company made in the 21st century by the big money of Russia’s newly minted business kleptocracy, is touring America with its Disney-fied adaptation of an Imperial classic.

Force Majeure: LACDC Premieres Four in Latest Series
Force Majeure, Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Company’s latest themed evening takes up where their last series at the Atwater Village Theater, the Vivaldi inspired Four Seasons, left off.

Barak Ballet and JPL: Mars Mission at Pasadena’s ARC Performance Space
It’s not often any ballet company does a double bill with Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But the unlikely happened this past weekend at Pasadena’s ARC performance space.

BODYTRAFFIC Adrift in Broad Stage Concert
A review on BODYTRAFFIC's recent performance at the Broad Stage, Santa Monica.

Celebrate Forsythe Retools Old Ballets for New Performances
San Francisco Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Houston Ballet came together in a remarkable program of choreographer William Forsythe’s works at the Music Center.

Welcome Back, Bill!: A Forsythe Festival at the Music Center
WIlliam Forsythe makes an LA return in a kind of Fall for Dance festival program featuring his old and new works danced by three American companies: San Francisco Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Houston Ballet.

BALLET X Misses the Music at Laguna Festival
Ballet X stuck with its brand of eccentric contemporary ballet in works that at times looked attractive but said little.

LA Ballet Concludes Story Ballet Season with Ashton’s Romeo and Juliet
LA Ballet’s season of story ballet productions wraps up with a premiere of the newest of their classic ballets, the English choreographer Frederick Ashton’s 1955 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.

SZALT (dance co.) and “Water Stories” Embrace Personal Narratives and Collaboration
Given the current circumstances surrounding water and drought in California, Water Stories, the most recent evening length offering by Szalt at the MorYork Gallery in Eagle Rock might have been a work invested with political and environmental concerns.

Misty Copeland: The Ballet Star and Her Marketing Juggernaut Are Everywhere
What is the "Misty Copeland effect"?

Visual Appeal, Downtown Edge in Bill T. Jones “Story/Time”
Jones’s piece covers many stories, his mostly, each about a minute in length. They are poetic vignettes of family, race, and sex, the same themes that have been the engine for many of his Jones’s narrative works.

Lucinda Childs Dance Company Brings Back a Glossy “Available Light”
Labels are an often used but unfortunate barrier in the art world. Minimalism is one that has been regularly applied to concert music, dance, and opera, but it tends to put any work in a box.

“Dido and Aeneas”, Ancient Music Made New by Mark Morris and His Accomplished Band of Dancers
Count yourself lucky when revivals of Mark Morris Dance Group’s full-length works show up somewhere near you.

“Power of Ailey” Merges American and Euro Zone Works
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater presents 3 programs at the Music Center. One of them, “Power of Ailey” is mostly a male affair.

“An American in Paris”: Wheeldon’s New Adaptation for the Stage is All About Dance
Christopher Wheeldon leads Vincente Minnelli's famous film starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, "An American In Paris”, to Broadway.

The Land of Taylor with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s Looks Recharged in New Season at Lincoln Center
A review on Paul Taylor Dance Company's performance at the Lincoln Center.

“The Rockettes New York Spring Spectacular” at Radio City Music Hall: A Huge Show That Leaves Little to the Imagination
Radio City Music Hall's new Spring show features numbers choreographed by Warren Carlyle and Mia Michaels, costumes by Zac Posen, and of course dancing by their famous Rockettes.

collidEdance Delivers a Fierce Concert Dance Odyssey
With Erica Sobol’s new full-length dance odyssey runaway! by collidEdance at the Avalon Hollywood, concert dance has migrated from the tidy domain of the concert hall and black box performance space to a venue better known as ground zero for current music and the Hollywood club scene.

The American Legacy Company Returns to L.A. With Old and New Works After a Decade-Long Absence
The three works on the Paul Taylor Dance Company program at the Music Center give you a pretty good idea of the kinds of worlds that Taylor inhabits.

Cirque’s “TOTEM” Visually Appealing But Short on Content
Cirque du Soleil’s “Totem” isn't nearly as profound nor as entertaining as many of its Cirque predecessors.

No Shortage of Geniuses for the MacArthur Fellows Program
Two out of twenty four recipients for MacArthur Fellowships 2013 are from the dance world: Alexei Ratmansky and Kyle Abraham.

Then. Now. Onward! : LACDC Embraces The Rite of Spring Centennial
Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Company returned to the Diavolo Theater this past weekend with new works by guest choreographers and two works by LACDC Artistic Director, Kate Hutter.

RHAW: Rennie Harris Awe-inspiring Pinch Hits at Carpenter Center
Philadelphia’s Rennie Harris RHAW proves to be a revealing and riveting look into the crucible of that city’s current street dance scene.

Backhausdance Gets Physical on Carpenter Center Dance Series
The Orange County company, Backhausdance, shares the stage with thousands of bright red balls with its latest work The Elasticity of the Almost.

Antics Performance Debuts New Work at LATC
Antics Performance, under company Artistic Director Amy Campion, voyaged in a retelling of the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh.

Malashock Dance in Hidden Agendas Proves Provocative and Timely
Malashock Dance in its studio performances of Hidden Agendas showed just how sharply focused and vivid a small company performance can be, even without the advantages of a full scale theatrical production.

14th Dance Under The Stars Choreography Festival
For the second year in a row Olivier Wevers and his company Whim W'him were awarded top honors at the 14th annual Dance Under the Stars Festival

LACDC - The Nature of Things
Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Company returned to the Brewery and the spacious, workman-like Diavolo Dance Theater stage for two weekends of performances of four new works.

The 20th Annual Lester Horton Awards
The Dance Resource Center of Greater Los Angeles in its annual Lester Horton Awards program recognized outstanding Los Angeles dance companies in a two hour program.

Dis-Illusions II - Donna Sternberg and Dancers
Donna Sternberg and her eponymous company have been busy lately hooking up high concept dance works with ambitious topics in the world of science.

Truths - Regina Klenjoski Dance Company
Regina Klenjoski is a choreographer who is not afraid to take on big themes.

Backhausdance Presents Incandescent
Backhausdance has just concluded a terrific weekend of performances at The Irvine Barclay Theatre.

Malashock Dance: The Floating World
John Malashock with his new multi-dimensional concert piece, THE FLOATING WORLD, shows just what an ambitious, small, contemporary company with lots of imagination is capable of when it comes to creating new works for dance.

Los Angeles Ballet - The Nutcracker
Los Angeles Ballet's Nutcracker is making its appointed rounds this December with performances in Glendale, Westwood and Redondo Beach.

Fusion - CSULB
Except for the biggest and best of the major dance companies, live orchestral music is something of an endangered species in the concert dance world these days.

13th Dance Under The Stars Choreography Festival
Those traveling from beyond the Southland to present their works included Thodos Dance Chicago, Sonia Dawkins Prism Dance Theatre and Whim W'Him (both from Seattle), Milwaukee Ballet Company, and Creative Outlet Dance Theatre from Brooklyn, New York.

The Tokyo String Quartet
At Colburn's Zipper Concert Hall across the street, the Tokyo String Quartet in collaboration with the Colburn School presented a couple of super-sized chamber music works-- Mendelssohn Octet, Opus 20 and Tchaikovsky.

3rd J.U.i.C.E. Hip-Hop Dance Festival
The J.U.i.C.E. HIP-HOP FESTIVAL at the Ford delivered the peace, love and diversity show we've been used to since the festival presentation debuted three years ago.

Fracture at the Ford Amphitheatre
The Ford Amphitheater continued with its wide ranging summer festival of dance on September 16th with FRACTURE, featuring four Los Angeles dance and theater companies along with the music performance ensemble, STRING THEORY.

The Fourth Annual Mix Match Dance Festival
Mix Match Dance Festival, a series featuring mostly local companies, completed its fourth annual series of performances at the Electric Lodge in Venice this past weekend.

California Contemporary Ballet Presents UNCAGED
UNCAGED aims to give us a profound glimpse of the human condition through performances by five more or less local choreographers working in the area of contemporary dance and ballet.

Dance Around Town
The Ford Theatre kicked off its summer dance series last weekend with a double bill featuring BODYTRAFFIC and L.A. Contemporary Dance Company/SONOS.

LA Ballet - NewWaveLA 2010
Los Angeles Ballet brought its most recent repertory evening titled NewWaveLA to the Alex Theatre, in Glendale CA.

The 19th Annual Lester Horton Dance Awards
Review and award winners list of the 19th Annual Lester Horton Dance Awards, in Los Angeles.