Tag: Girls

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Entertainment

Lizzie Borden’s ‘Working Women’ Is About Capitalism, Not Intercourse

Lizzie Borden’s ‘Working Girls’ Is About Capitalism, Not Sex

While offering a smorgasbord of mildly kinky tastes, “Working Girls” is far from prurient. When, midway through, Molly makes a drugstore run to replenish the supply closet, the movie suggests a Pop Art composition of brand-name packages: Listerine, Kleenex and Trojans. The New York Times reviewer Vincent Canby noted that, although fiction, “Working Girls” “sounds as authentic as might a documentary about coal miners.”

Coal miners with ambition, that is: Molly, who has two degrees from Yale, is an aspiring photographer. Dawn (Amanda Goodwin) is a volatile working-class kid putting herself through college. Gina (Marusia Zach) is saving to open her own business. The women, who have amusingly little difficulty handling their generally well-behaved johns, are in control but only up to point. Midway through, their boss Lucy (Ellen McElduff) sweeps in, and as a gushingly saccharine steel magnolia, she is far more exploitative, not to mention manipulative, than any of the customers.

Borden belongs to a group of filmmakers, including Kathryn Bigelow and Jim Jarmusch, who emerged from the downtown post-punk art-music scene of the late 1970s. Back then, “Born in Flames” and “Working Girls” seemed like professionalized versions of the incendiary work produced by scrappy Super-8 filmmakers like Vivienne Dick and the team of Scott B and Beth B. Revisited decades later, “Working Girls” appears closer to Chantal Akerman’s epochal “Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.”

The similarity between the films is not so much subject (Akerman’s eponymous protagonist is a housewife prostitute) as attitude. “Working Girl” is notable for its measured structure, analytical camera placement and straightforward cool. Borden only tips her hand once, when she allows Molly — who has been sweet-talked into working a double shift — to ask Lucy if she’s ever heard of “surplus value.”

“Working Girls” is an anticapitalist critique that has scarcely dated, save for one bit of hip social realism I neglected to note when I reviewed it in 1987 for a downtown weekly. Asked how she heard about the job, a new recruit reveals that she answered a want ad for “hostesses” in The Village Voice.

Working Girls

Opening June 18 at the IFC Center in Manhattan; ifccenter.com.

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Health

Suicide makes an attempt amongst younger ladies surged by greater than 50% throughout pandemic, CDC says

Suicide attempts among young girls surged by more than 50% during pandemic, CDC says

Chameleon eye | iStock | Getty Images

Suicide attempts increased among 12 to 17 year olds, especially teenage girls, during the Covid-19 pandemic and got worse the longer the social distancing orders and bans on, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Government continued.

Visits to emergency rooms in hospitals among adolescents had already increased in early May 2020 as the pandemic spread in the United States, the CDC said in a study published on Friday. From the end of July to the end of August 2020, the average weekly number of emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts in 12 to 17-year-old girls rose by 26.2% compared to the same period of the previous year.

The disruption of daily life from pandemic lockdowns and social distancing orders could have contributed to the increase in suicide attempts, the CDC said. In spring 2020, there was a 16.8% decrease in emergency room visits for men and women between the ages of 18 and 24 compared to the same period in the previous year.

As of June 2020, 25% of the same age group surveyed adults reported having had suicidal thoughts in the past 30 days related to the pandemic, in line with 2019. However, actual visits to the emergency room for attempted suicide increased during the pandemic, the CDC said With.

For adolescent girls, the average weekly visits to the emergency room for suspected suicide attempts increased by 50.6% from February 2021 to March 2021 compared to the same period last year.

Visits to the emergency room for suspected suicide attempts include visits for suicide attempts as well as some non-suicidal self-harm, according to the CDC.

The data was collected by the CDC from the National Syndromic Surveillance Program emergency department visit data in 49 states. Not all states had consistent emergency room visit dates, and no data on race and ethnicity were available at the time of the study.

Suspicions of suicide attempts are often higher in young girls than in young boys, but in this study the difference was more pronounced due to the pandemic than in previous studies. The study points to an increase in emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts, not an increase in actual suicides, the CDC emphasized in the study.

The increase in alleged suicide attempts by young people could be attributed to social distancing, including a lack of connection with schools, teachers and friends. Other factors could include mental health barriers to treatment, an increase in substance abuse, and concerns about the health and economic situation of the family at home.

Average emergency room visits due to mental health problems and suspected child abuse have also increased in 2020 compared to 2019, potentially contributing to the increase in alleged suicide attempts.

The study finds that the increased amount of time spent with children at home may have made parents aware of their children’s mental health issues and prompted them to seek emergency room treatment, which may have contributed to the increase.

The study also found that the data likely underrepresented the actual number of alleged suicide attempts as Americans were reluctant to go to hospitals during the pandemic for fear of contracting Covid-19.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255.

Categories
World News

In Taliban-Managed Areas, Afghan Women Are Fleeing for an Training

In Taliban-Controlled Areas, Afghan Girls Are Fleeing for an Education

Two districts in northwest Afghanistan offer a glimpse into life under the Taliban, who completely stopped education for teenage girls.

By Adam Nossiter

Photographs of Kiana Hayeri

May 17, 2021

SHEBERGHAN, Afghanistan – At a meeting with village elders in the mosque, the order to close the girls’ schools was announced. The messages were filtered through the teachers in muted meetings at the students’ homes. Or came in a brief letter to the local school principal.

Appeals to the Taliban, arguments and requests were useless. Three years ago, girls over the age of 12 stopped taking classes in the two rural districts south of this low provincial capital in northwestern Afghanistan. Up to 6,000 girls were forced out of school overnight. Male teachers were suddenly dismissed: what they had done to give girls an education was against Islam, the Taliban said.

Across Afghanistan, the orders were similar to those given just 40 miles south of the capital of Jowzjan Province. In districts controlled by the Taliban, with few exceptions, there is no longer any schooling for all but the youngest girls. The Taliban’s message: teenage girls should be at home and help their mothers.

“I couldn’t go to school for two years,” said 16-year-old Farida, who was kicked out of school in the Darzab district at the age of 12 and was a refugee here in the provincial capital at the age of 14 My sister, who told me that there would be no more school – she is a teacher, ”said Farida. “So I was at home helping my mother with the housework.”

The schools in Sheberghan all have their share of teenage female refugees traveling north from Taliban-controlled areas to stay with relatives.

“I told my family,” I really, really want to go to college, “said 16-year-old Nabila, who came to Sheberghan with her mother from Darzab two years ago.” Maybe they’re just afraid of women. “

The reluctant consent of local people offers a glimpse into the lives of Afghans everywhere if the current slow collapse of state forces continues. Every day brings bad news about the rising uprising: more bases are overrun, districts conquered, outposts handed over and government employees and journalists murdered. Since May 1, when the United States officially began withdrawing, the Taliban have taken territory in virtually all parts of the country.

And over the weekend, a triple bomb attack on a school in the Afghan capital, Kabul, killed dozens of schoolgirls. While the Taliban denied responsibility, the perpetrator sent a clear signal: Education for girls will not be tolerated.

But the future has already arrived in the south of Jowzjan Province. The parallel universe that is the lot of many Afghans today is a living reality for the province’s education officials and teachers. With grim resignation they have to grapple with the fate of their neighbors who live nearby and yet on the other side of the mirror.

The Taliban control the districts of Qosh Tepa and Darzab – drought-stricken and impoverished agricultural areas that are home to around 70,000 people – and all 21 schools in these districts. They took command in 2018 after fierce fighting with local Taliban apostates who had declared allegiance to the Islamic State, as well as with government troops.

Despite the Taliban’s control, the district teachers trudge to Sheberghan, the provincial capital, every month to collect their salaries. This is one of many anomalies in a country that is already de facto controlled by two governments. It is better to have to pay teachers than to close schools. The dusty but busy city is still in the hands of the central government, but like other provincial capitals, it is an isolated island. The Taliban rule the streets, come and go.

The provincial government still employs headmasters for the conquered districts. But local education officials watch helplessly as Islamist insurgents add a large dose of religion to the curriculum, slash history classes and keep the girls away.

The teachers were fired. The Taliban use free government textbooks but strictly monitor their use and ensure that those who study Islam receive intensive training. And they punish teachers who don’t show up for work and tie up their wages. There are no days off. The Taliban have accused teachers in these districts of spying and shaving their beards.

“If we don’t obey them, we will be punished,” Jowzjan Education Director Abdul Rahim Salar remembered the teachers and school principals who told him. “They were worried about their lives.”

For the girls fleeing to Sheberghan to continue their education, there is a sense of a confusing fate that is imposed and narrowly avoided by the Taliban. Nilofar Amini, 17, said she missed the school she was expelled from three years ago. She had only arrived here in the provincial capital four days earlier.

“I want to be brought up,” said Ms. Amini, sitting with relatives in a room in an abandoned shopping mall.

Her high-pitched voice was muffled by the light blue burqa that the Taliban themselves imposed on teenagers – she wore it out of habit but removed it after the interview. Ms. Amini described her life since she was banned from school: “I sewed, made kilim rugs, handicrafts.”

She added, “The girls stay inside all day. You can’t even visit relatives. “The Taliban destroyed the cell phone towers; No chatting on phones.

Ms. Amini’s father, Nizamuddin, a farmer who sat next to her in the mall, pointed out the consequences of the Taliban’s restrictions on the education of girls: “I am illiterate. It’s like I’m blind I have to be led by others. That’s why I want my daughters to be raised. “

The Taliban’s educational policy for girls can vary slightly. Local commanders make the decisions, reflecting the decentralization of a movement that scientists like Antonio Giustozzi have called the “network of networks”. Human Rights Watch found in a report last year that while Taliban commanders often allow girls to go to school until the age of 12, it is unusual for them to allow older girls to do so. In some areas, “community pressure has pushed commanders to give girls better access to education,” the report said.

But not many. And not in this part of Afghanistan.

A teacher in the district, whose three teenage daughters are now excluded from school, said, “The situation is bad and I feel bad for her. You have nothing to do. “He added that his daughters only help their mother with household chores.

The teacher, who had met at the headquarters of the provincial school in Sheberghan, where he had collected his salary, asked not to use his name for fear of retaliation from the Taliban. He said his daughters keep asking when they can return to school.

“They didn’t let us study any longer,” said Fatima Qaisari, 15, in a dusty camp for refugees from neighboring Faryab province. She was 12 when her school closed.

Education officials describe an environment of oppression in which residents, parents and teachers have no opportunity to weigh up the strict and strict policies of the Taliban.

“We have been in contact with them many times. But there was no result, ”said Abdel Majid, the headmaster in Darzab.

“They tell us,“ Our government doesn’t want us to teach girls, ”he said.“ Nobody can disobey them. ”The Islamic state faction demolished some of its schools; others have no windows.

First, Mr. Majid told many girls to “play a game” with the Taliban and pretend they were younger than the minimum age. “After a year they warned me to stop,” he said.

He and others were told that girls’ schools would remain closed, at least until the emergence of what Taliban officials portray to confused residents as the insurgent grail: a top-down “Islamic system” where there may be such a place for the education of girls.

Shaiasta Haidari, the finance director of Jowzjan Province schools, said officials had sent a letter alerting Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to the situation. “Nothing happened,” she said. “Of course I’m not happy.”

Not far away at the Marshal Dostum School – named after General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former vice president and local warlord whose portrait hangs across the city – a handful of girls from Taliban-controlled districts are trying to make up for lost ground. One recent morning, streams of her schoolmates, laughing girls in black and white uniforms, streamed past the blooming grounds to start the school day.

In the director’s office, some of the refugees from Darzab and Qosh Tepa were amazed at the futility of the Taliban’s decision to expel them from school. Some said they wanted to be teachers; One girl was hoping to study engineering.

16-year-old Farida shook her head. “Your decision makes no sense. It’s not even logical. “

Nabila, the teenager from Darzab, added: “The Taliban do not have the sense to know that it is important for girls to go to school.”

Fatima Faizi and Kiana Hayeri contributed to the coverage.

Categories
Politics

Transgender Women in Sports activities: G.O.P. Pushes New Entrance in Tradition Struggle

Transgender Girls in Sports: G.O.P. Pushes New Front in Culture War

The last time South Dakota Republicans made serious efforts to ban transgender girls from school sports in 2019, their bill was known only by the nondescript numerical title of Senate Bill 49. The two main sponsors were men. And it died without ever getting off the committee, just 10 days after its inception.

But when the Republicans decided to try again in January, they were far more strategic in their approach. This time the sponsors were two women who modeled their bill after a template from a conservative legal organization. They gave the bill a name that indicated a noble intention: the “Act to Promote Continued Fairness in Women’s Sports”. Supporters from Minnesota and Idaho traveled to the Capitol in Pierre to testify that a new law was urgently needed to keep individuals with male biological traits out of female competitions, despite only recognizing a handful of examples in South Dakota.

“These efforts seem far more skillful and organized,” said Elizabeth A. Skarin of the American Civil Liberties Union in South Dakota, who opposes the bill. “Whenever you name a bill in South Dakota,” she added, “you know something is wrong.”

Then things took an unexpected turn. Governor Kristi Noem, seen as a possible candidate for the 2024 Republican president nomination, called for changes to the bill before signing it. The reaction was quick and harsh: Social-Conservative activists and Republican lawmakers accused Ms. Noem of being intimidated by pressure from business and athletics organizations that managed to stop laws in other states singling out transgender people for marginalization and ugly stereotypes nourish.

South Dakota is just one of more and more states where Republicans find themselves caught up in a culture war that seems to have come out of nowhere. It was sparked by a coordinated and poll tested campaign by socially conservative organizations such as the American Principles Project and Concerned Women for America. The groups are determined to take one of their last steps in the fight against the expansion of LGBTQ rights.

Three more states passed laws similar to those of South Dakota this month. They’re slated to become law in Mississippi and Arkansas this summer. Similar bills have been introduced by Republicans in two dozen other states, including North Carolina, where an unpopular “bathroom bill” enacted in 2016 sparked costly boycotts and caused conservatives across the country to reverse efforts to restrict transgender people’s rights.

“You are changing our society by making laws, and luckily we have some great states that have stepped up,” said Beth Stelzer, founder of a new organization, Save Women’s Sports, declining to “destroy women’s sports “of feelings. “Ms. Stelzer, an amateur strength athlete who was in North Carolina this week to introduce the bill, has also testified in support of new laws in South Dakota, Montana, and Arkansas.

Former President Donald J. Trump, who stayed away from the issue in the 2020 campaign, surprised activists when he kicked it off at a Conservative conference last month, saying that “women’s sport as we know it is going to die “If transgender athletes were allowed to compete.

However, the idea that there is a sudden influx of transgender competitors dominating the sports of women and girls doesn’t reflect reality – in high school, college, or work. Sports associations like the NCAA, which has promoted the inclusion of transgender athletes, have put in place guidelines to address concerns about physical differences in the biology of men and women. For example, the NCAA requires that athletes who switch to women receive testosterone suppression treatment for one year before they can compete on a women’s team.

Ms. Stelzer, who competes in a weightlifting league that transgender women are not allowed to participate in, says the goal is to surpass what she and other activists believe is a bigger problem. “We’re nipping it in the bud,” she said.

In college sports, where conservative activists have drawn much of their attention, the guidelines vary widely. Some states do not pose any barriers to transgender athletes; Some have guidelines similar to the NCAA that sets guidelines for hormone treatment. others have a downright ban or require students to verify their gender when interviewed.

Rarely has a problem that so few people come across – and one that opinion analysts have only recently dealt intensively with – has become a political and cultural hotspot so quickly. The lack of awareness creates an environment in which the real effects of transgender participation in sport can be overshadowed by exaggeration.

But the debate also raises questions – which ethicists, lawmakers, and courts are only now addressing – whether decades of efforts to offer women and girls equal opportunities in sport are compatible with efforts to provide transgender people with equal opportunities in life. A lawsuit in federal court in Connecticut filed by three high school runners who lost to competition against transgender girls will be among the first to examine how non-discrimination laws apply.

A mixture of factors has helped the social conservatives breathe new life into the issue: activists willing to abandon unpopular laws regulating public bathrooms; the awareness that women, not men, could be more persuasive and personable advocates; a new Democratic administration that quickly sought to expand and restore transgender rights that the Trump administration had overthrown; and a political and media culture on the right, which often reduces the nuanced problem of gender identity to a punch line about political correctness.

Activists who have fought anti-transgender efforts in legislation and in court say the focus on school athletics creates a false and misguided perception of victimization.

“There is a feeling that there is a victim of impermanence,” said Chase Strangio, an ACLU attorney who managed to temporarily block implementation of a transgender athlete ban in Idaho last year.

In fact, studies have shown that the majority of transgender students feel unsafe in school because of bullying and harassment.

“What we have is a speculative fear of something that didn’t happen,” added Strangio, who is a transgender man. “They act like LeBron James is putting on a wig and playing basketball with fourth graders. And not a LeBron James, 100. What you’re really talking about is young children who just want to exercise. They just want to get through life. “

But the isolated incidents that have been filmed or made headlines – for example, women’s weightlifting records broken by a new transgender competitor – are making for viral content backed by media personalities with big fans like Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan .

The topic is dealt with much more frequently in conservative media – and often confronted with a high dose of sarcasm. According to a review of social media content conducted by Media Matters, a left-wing watchdog for the New York Times, seven of the ten most popular stories about the proposed laws targeting transgender people so far this year are from the Daily Wire website founded by Mr. Shapiro. Two others were from Fox News. In total, the articles have been read, shared, and commented on six million times, according to Media Matters.

The increased media awareness on the right is in part due to how socially conservative activists have improved at packaging transgender-specific restrictions. They borrow a page from the anti-abortion movement, which has been largely led by men, and have begun to present women as public lawyers.

In Arkansas, where the governor signed the “Fairness in Women’s Sports” bill last week, chief advocates were Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, a candidate for governor, and the Arkansas Republican Women’s Caucus. The bill bans transgender women from participating in teams from kindergarten to college.

In many cases, lawmakers have worked closely with groups such as Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative rights organization that has discussed several Supreme Court cases on behalf of individuals alleging discrimination based on traditional beliefs about marriage and gender roles. Messaging, polling, and political support provide groups like the American Principles Project, Concerned Women for America, and the Heritage Foundation.

In the current Idaho case, opponents of the law argued that it was exclusive, discriminatory and in violation of the constitutional equality clause. Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents two female college runners who said they had “deflating experiences” after losing to a transgender woman, agreed that it was about equality, but in the context of creating “a level playing field.” “.

“When the law ignores legitimate differences between men and women, it creates chaos,” said Kristen Wagoner, the group’s general counsel. “It also creates tremendous injustice for women and girls in athletics.”

Restricting the rights of transgender people is an issue that is resonating with ever smaller proportions of the general population. A new study by the Public Religion Research Institute reported that only 7 percent of Americans are “completely against” pro-LGBTQ guidelines. But it is a vocal group that wants to show that they can develop their power in the Republican Party.

When Mrs. Noem sent the bill back to South Dakota Legislature on March 19, Despite saying on Twitter that she was “excited to sign this bill very soon,” socially-conservative organizations attacked, targeting her apparent ambitions of the president as a potential Achilles heel. “It’s no secret that Governor Noem has national aspirations, so it’s time she heard from a national audience,” the Family Policy Alliance, a subsidiary of Focus on the Family, wrote in an email to supporters.

Ms. Noem seemed aware of how damaging it could be for conservatives to believe she was on the wrong side of the problem.

On Thursday, she and her advisors participated in a hastily arranged conference call with members of the Conservative Action Project, which was attended by leaders from the country’s largest right-wing groups. Ms. Noem expressed concern that if the NCAA signed the law, as it did in North Carolina, it would retaliate against South Dakota by refusing to hold tournaments there, according to one person on the call. She has said she will only sign the bill if the regulations that apply to college athletics are taken out.

The activists were respectful but clear, this person said, telling her this was not what they would have expected from the conservative arsonist they had admired so much.

Categories
Entertainment

A Choreographer and Her Women Retell a Tragedy By means of Dance

A Choreographer and Her Girls Retell a Tragedy Through Dance

For the choreographer Tiffany Rae, dance is a language that is deeper and clearer than words. “I can show you better with dance what I have to say than actually talk,” she said in a recent interview. “You will understand how I feel.”

Part of what drives Ms. Rae – aside from her innate love of dance – is exploring issues rooted in social justice and black culture. Dance is a way to demonstrate both artistry and activism, and last summer she did both during a protest at Borough Hall in Brooklyn, where she preferred to dance than talk, and to her surprise, the crowd paid attention.

“Everyone sat down,” she said. “We didn’t even have to ask. It was just amazing – thousands of people sat down for everyone to see. “

At the protest, Ms. Rae, 24, presented a version of “Underground” that explores the trauma resulting from the struggle for racial equality and the continuing cycle of pain in black communities. She said, “The power that we had in our hands, in our faces – there was a kind of silence for everyone to say, OK, this is the time to focus, this is the time to listen.”

Gillian Walsh, a contemporary dance artist who interviewed Ms. Rae for Movement Research’s online publication Critical Correspondence, wrote, “Seeing this dance unexpectedly, so seamless between people making speeches and marching, really set me on fire.”

Ms. Rae, who grew up primarily in Brooklyn, has also created videos on Instagram and YouTube, some political and others for fun, such as The Parkers, her jubilant homage to the television series. Intended as a Thanksgiving gift for her followers, it went viral; Missy Elliott, whose music is featured, has republished it.

Her latest Rae Beast production, Unearth Birmingham, is more urgent: a response to the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church by members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1963. Four young girls were killed and many others injured. Ms. Rae’s film, shot in Gymnopedie, the basement of Bushwick United Methodist Church in Brooklyn, brings girls’ perspectives to life through an inventive, lively dance floor – full of hip-hop, modern, jazz and moments of improvisation – and music beginning with Cheryl Lynn’s “Got to Be Real” and ending with Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”.

14-year-old Naomi Southwell, who portrays one of the late girls, Cynthia Wesley, knew nothing about the Birmingham bombings before the project began. Ms. Rae let the girls see Spike Lee’s documentary “4 Little Girls” (1997), but her own narrative is more impressionistic than linear.

“She wanted to show people history through our movement,” said Ms. Southwell, a freshman at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music, Arts, and the Performing Arts. “She wanted us to express how we might have felt if we were these four little girls, if we were in their shoes.”

Towards the end, the four girls find themselves in a place they have never been to: a gym. Startled and confused, they stand close together as more young dancers enter, some dressed as schoolgirls (from the Dancers Dreamzzz studio where Ms. Rae teaches) while others cheerleaders with the Brooklyn Diamonds (which Ms. Rae was once a part of). . “The other girls come around,” said Mrs. Southwell, “trying to comfort us and show us that we will be fine.”

And then they all dance, superimposing shapes that reflect Ms. Rae’s eclectic background. She has trained in many genres including ballet, jazz, modern, West Africa, Horton, and hip hop. Thanks to cheerleading, she can move large groups.

And there is something else: she was the only player on the soccer team in middle school. (She was a cheerleader and soccer player at the same time for a while.) “I feel like soccer helped me be a strength dancer,” she said. “To dance softly and subtly, but still have that power behind it. ”

Her first time in a music video was Beyoncé’s “Let’s Move Your Body”. She was in elementary school. “Instead of paying attention to the dancing mostly, I was paying attention to what they were doing,” she said. “I would watch the choreographer.”

Now young girls are watching them. In a recent interview, Ms. Rae spoke about the Birmingham bombing, why it was important to show the innocence of her cast and how joy wins in the end.

What follows are edited excerpts from this conversation.

When did you first find out about the bombings and how did it affect you?

When I was little, I actually played one of the girls in one piece. It always resonated in my heart and I wanted to do something on my own.

That moment triggered so much. After this bombing, there was unrest – just like today. Even then, people who were racist, they realized: Oh my god, these are four innocent children. I have the feeling that this triggered the turning point a little.

I like the way your video jumps between grief and boisterous dancing.

I want you to know these girls are alive. Not to make it so sad, but to show the brightness at the end of this tunnel. I wanted to show that these are young girls; You have fun. Like they could have, but it was taken away. I always wanted to grab feelings.

I thought of studies that talked about how black girls are perceived as less innocent and more adult than other girls their age. Was that part of it too?

Yes / Yes! It’s so important. That’s why I made her so funny. And of course they did that themselves – these kids are really fun and full of energy and they are really girly girls. And innocent.

How did you develop the choreography?

I had to make sure I knew every single girl – her character. I don’t like to force choreography. I don’t have to take a thousand steps, but I want to do choreography, not just for the dancer’s eye, but for normal, everyday people so that they can feel what they are feeling.

Sometimes you don’t have to do everything so technically because the message doesn’t appear. So I knew I just had to be any girl. I’m fine – it has to be our turn here or she has to jump here. Or that has to be a kick. OK: what am I feeling?

You ask yourself

Sometimes I just have to sit back and not be a dancer for a while and just be a normal person. So sometimes it’s good for me to be on the train and just listen to music and just say, OK, if I wasn’t a dancer and I saw a show, what do I want to see? What do i want to feel And how can this movement relate to what I could convey? I think that’s how I was able to create this choreography.

How did you come up with group dance in the gym?

I knew I wanted something simple but loving. Something that would be simple but subtle. We don’t have to be sad forever. We have to grow and move forward. They look down on us and they shine. And it’s like we’re dancing That’s the point I’m trying to make. Dance is everything.