Rebecca and Michael have a knack for having great conversations across a wide range of the best of dance forms and the people who make them possible in America. They have the knowledge to get into the weeds of what makes for great performances but with a skill that makes it accessible even to newbies like me. If you have plans to see a performance check their podcast list to see if the dance or the dancers have been covered. You’ll likely find something that will enhance your enjoyment of the show!

Hey folks, Love your podcasts! Especially really enjoyed your interview with Silas Farley. More Silas please!! Love all the NYCB stuff, ballet dancers, bun-head topics. Thank you!

I have enjoyed dance, especially ballet and modern for many years, but at a superficial level. My wife and I started going to the Vail Dance Festival about 8 years ago, initially one or two nights but more recently all of the performances. As a part of the Festival there were conversations with the dancers, and other artists associated with the event. Rebecca and Michael were the interviewers. Initially we went to just one or two but have recently been going to almost all. We have really enjoyed the deeper perspective on what we were seeing, what it took for the performers to get to this stage in their careers, how choreographers got into choreography, etc. This podcast is, for us, a continuation of our learning more about all elements of dance, and a bit more about the personalities of the dance world. The recent episode on an interview with Martha Graham done by Michael Small when she was 95. Michael and Rebecca do a wonderful job of interviewing Small, introducing his recording, and pausing the interview to reflect on what was being said. It was so funny to hear about how she told Mikhail Baryshnikov to move out of the way at one practice. And it was heartbreaking to hear her reflect on how much she still missed dancing at the end of the interview. The thing is, this is just one of the many great interviews available at COD. If you are at all interested in ballet, this podcast is a must!

Both hosts are very talented and lively and well prepared. I really enjoy these interviews. Thank you for making a great show!!!

After one episode, you’ll want to hear the rest! Every interview is perfect and they feature so many incredible dancers/choreographers!

After several years, the podcasters keep improving. They get interesting guests and ask probing questions while always remaining polite.

At their most interesting with ballet guests or talking to each other, but always a a fun listen!

I’m an avid listener of CoD and have been for a couple of years now. Their curation of guests is methodical and the conversations are always insightful. I often revisit episodes because the content is just that wonderful.

This is my favorite podcast! I love love love the Balanchine focus. Love the interviews so much. I have become so much more educated about ballet and especially American/Balanchine ballet from this podcast. Listened for several years and have loved every episode! Some of my favorite episodes are: Georgina Pazcoguin, Margaret Tracey, Sara Mearns, first time you interviewed Peter Boal, India Bradley, Megan LeCrone, Susan Jaffe, Gretchen Smith, Ragamala— and I love the episodes where Rebecca and Michael chat just the two of them! Especially loooooved nerding out with you on the March Madness Balanchine bracket episode from a few years ago 💓 Thank you, Rebecca and Michael!

The content is good, but frequently hard to listen to due to mouth noises from Michael. A vocal coach may be helpful. Aspen series sound quality sometimes horrible. Explain/apologize at the top to say the whole recording isn’t like the beginning. Please edit the bad portions out or ditch the entire episode. I skip to the better audible portions, but losing patience, but I did delete an entire episode. I am not the sound editor.

The best podcast for dance lovers I know! Michael and Rebecca have many diverse guests from the dance world, especially ballet, and they are skilled and delightful interviewers.

This podcast is so wonderful and a true delight! If you love ballet, then you’ll love this. There is an array of interesting guests and the hosts work so well together.

You have found your home 🤗 this podcast is for you! Thorough and thoughtful reflections of ballet and dance and how it fits in the past, present, and future. Encyclopedic knowledge of all things Balanchine to boot.

Hearing the stories week to week from the guests has been such a fascinating experience about their journey through dance. It's just an amazing podcast. The hosts know just what to ask to bring out so much information!

Rebecca and Michael are so knowledgeable and insightful, each episode exudes their love and passion for the art form. Having a array of guests and touching on everything from ballet history, role origins, different legacies, and up and coming exciting things happening in the dance world, this is must listen for any ballet/dance lover.

A wide range of interviews with some of the biggest names in dance, with charming hosts

This podcast is my favorite one yet. I am a dancer and I understand every little part of these podcast.

I love the aim of this podcast—how it provides a much needed platform for dance artists! However, many of the interviews end up feeling superficial and predictable. I think this issue would be remedied by: 1) encouraging the guests to open up about past, personal struggles. The more candid, the more a person is relatable. Hence why Hope Boykin’s interview, in my opinion, is one of the strongest. 2) asking tougher questions. Don’t fear making the guests uncomfortable. Some claims (I won’t say by who) should’ve been questioned. 3) getting a more diverse roster of guests. The podcast tends to feature those who have had a clear and direct route to success. Why not interview more dancers who struggled to get work? Most dancers don’t make it; most don’t go directly from school to company. It can take some dancers years and hundreds of auditions before they make it. Interviewing those who had less of a linear path would be inspiring and informative for dancers of all levels. 3b) as a supplement to the former-mentioned: acknowledge the Balanchine bias. Avoid NYCB-affiliates making up over half of interviews.

Thank you for the “conversation” with India. It was easy to listen to, fun and interesting. She was articulate and funny and there was a nice flow in disseminating dance world topics. Sound like you all had a good time of sharing

As a parent of a pre-pro dancer, your podcast has given my husband and I a much clearer understanding of how to help guide our daughter and support her on this journey! Such valuable information and lessons on fortitude! Thank you!!!

This show is what got me into listening to podcasts, and to this day is still my favorite! I am an aspiring dancer so it is so inspirational to hear from such amazing people all the time. It is so interesting to listen to, and is executed beautifully.

A terrific series for those interested in ballet. I’ve learned so much.

As a ballet lover and mom of a teenage ballet dancer, your podcasts are invaluable to me. I enjoy so much learning all the background stories and picking up little nuggets of information that I can use to help guide my dancer's future. The interview with Margaret Tracey (most recently) was particularly informative and relevant to me. Thank you for providing this source of up-to-date information for those of us "in the trenches" of the ballet training world and beyond.

This is one of my favorite podcasts! I’m a former dancer who is now far removed from the dance world. It’s been years since I’ve taken a class but Im still obsessed; living in nyc, I go to shows weekly when possible. While I certainly love going to the ballet with my (non dancer) friends, there is nothing quite like talking about ballet, with people who... actually know what they are talking about! This podcast makes me feel like I’m on the inside of the dance world again... thanks for that! Xxx PS) id love for you to do a podcast on the on goings at nycb... id also love to request an interview with Harrison Ball - and Christine Shevchenko of ABT xx

I’ve been listening for many months and can’t remember how I first learned of this series. I find it fascinating to hear from performers, artistic directors, and other guests in response to questions from Michael orRebecca. Often I’ve watched the guests perform (many present or past “favs”)somewhere along the way. Given my age, I have watched many of the guests perform and then heard from them about another aspect of their dance career such as a principal dancer who has retired, but is now in the role of teacher, artistic director, or leader of a ballet school. Love getting to know more about these folks who bring so much joy!

A wonderful podcast that has interviews with all the stars of ballet, as well as teachers, choreographers, and dance writers. Really fun to listen to!

I love this podcast! Great insights and interviews with a widening spectrum of dance artists. I’d love you to keep expanding your reach into different genres and dimensions of dance. You two (and often your guests) have soft, smooth, even-toned voices, and I appreciate that. However, I often listen in transit, and it’s tough to hear you clearly even with the volume all the way up. Also, in live Q&A sessions I always find it helpful to restate the audience member’s question, for both volume and clarity. In the recordings we cannot hear the audience. So keep up the excellent work, and pump up the levels a bit please!

Listening to this podcast (not unlike Meet the Composer a Nadia Sirota) pretty much can give u a bachelors degree in dance history and theory. I’ve coupled it w watching lots of YouTube performances. 👍 Now if they’d work in some contemporary composers who create scores for new ballers. 😝🎼

As a former professional dancer and current dance teacher, I look forward to this podcast weekly. It discusses relevant issues in the dance community as long with providing a wonderful resource for dancers and dance history. Bravo!

We got to this podcast after following Tiler Peck to the Vail Dance Festival; then Vail prompted this podcast. I’ve been through many of the recent episodes and now I’m about to go back to the beginning with the intention of listening to everything. To be clear, I have never danced, pretty much never. But we love to watch dance. I feel like Rebecca and Michael are bringing us more inside the dance world. I love the combination of dancers, artistic people, and critics. They all add to our understanding and enjoyment. I’m even ready to try to get down to Miami. Well done. I hope you can keep it going.

As one might assume based on the background of the interviewers, this podcast primarily focuses on the ballet world and more specifically the ballet world as connected to Balanchine. Not all of the episodes feature dancers from Balanchine companies, but very many do. Which is just fine by me! Rebecca and Michael are interesting interviewers, have easy to listen to voices and the quality of the recording is high. I assume that since they have chosen a broad title for their podcast - Conversations on Dance rather than Conversations on Ballet - that they intend for the subject matter to grow beyond ballet as listenership grows. As someone who also loves modern dance I am excited for this prospect as much as I am excited to listen to more insights about Balanchine! I would love to hear Rebecca and Michael interview some of my favorite modern dance dancers/choreographers.

Enjoying your podcasts so much! Great content and variety. From staying on top of what’s happening in the ballet world today to connecting to the past. From artistic directors to today’s top dancer’s to ballet legends. Great job, keep them coming!

I haven't listened to everyone episode but so far I find them to be interesting and insightful for the world of ballet. The title is misleading in the sense that the people interviewed and perspectives solicited all come from and are about rather large classical/neoclassical ballet companies and the worlds around that, rather than any other forms of dance.

This is one of my favorite ballet podcasts. Rebecca and Michael often ask their guest at least a couple of harder or more revealing questions that he or she wouldn't normally be asked in a standard, snowball dance media outlet interview. Such questions are always framed kindly and respectfully, and are usually received with excitement by the guest who appreciates that interviewers took the time to come up with such thoughtful questions. As a listener I really appreciate that. They also have amazing guests, so that doesn't hurt either.

I listen to a few interview style podcasts and have to say that Rebecca and Michael are great interviewers. They ask intelligent and well thougt out questions that give their interviewee direction for the conversation while at the same time giving the interviewee plenty of time to answer. They don't interrupt, or go on their own bunny trail, which really gives the listener a chance to hear the person they signed on to learn more about. Kudos! I will recommend this podcast to all the dance afficianados and dancers I know.

Great podcast for dance lovers and podcast lovers interested in the performing arts

Rebecca and Michael are wonderful hosts. Love hearing them talk with other dancers and with choreographers, directors, etc. Hoping for many more episodes!

This podcast is accessible by all fans of ballet.

Rebecca and Michael are two of my greatest friends and two fellow artists who I admire very much! The dance world is full of so much more than what the audience sees when they attend a performance and these talks are full of interesting topics and behind the scenes thoughts! We speak with our bodies out there on stage but it's beautiful to hear them speak with their words about a topic they are so passionate and so well versed about! I'm so excited that they are sharing their ideas and experiences with the world and I can't wait for more to come......

Insightful commentary on the dance world. Thanks Michael and Rebecca.

This has been the best way to spend my afternoons on layoff.. Imagining being back in the studios with these guys;) Two beautifully inspiring dancers and people sharing a lifetime of love for ballet! What more could you ask for!

A great inside peek at the complex world of ballet!

This podcast is a wonderful peak behind the curtain of what its like to be a member of a professional ballet company. Full of tips, tricks, and advice!

Rebecca and Micheal are the best!!!! Wonderful dancers to listen to and to watch onstage!!!!

Rebecca and Michael certainly have a lot of experience and really know what they are talking about! It will be interesting to see what topics they take on in the future!

They are just starting out, but looking forward to what they do in the future.

I have really been enjoying this pod. Very light, entertaining, and informative. Looking forward to more!

Great to see professional dancers giving us a peek into what dance is like. My daughter and I have been enjoying this podcast!