Edward Schoelwer,
Director of Red Shell Mgmt,
Announces Red Shell Mgmt’s Kitchen Choreography Blog
An online cook book of delectable recipes by past and current dance luminaries from Ashton to Zimmer
When asked about the connection between cooking and choreography, Bessie Schönberg stated: "It is easy to explain. Both are expressions of creativity."
Need help figuring out what to make for dinner? Google “Red Shell Mgmt Kitchen Choreography” to find recipes for main courses, salads, soups, desserts, and cocktails. No ordinary recipes--these recipes (and the personal stories connected to them) were collected from professionals in the world of Dance. For example, you will find ballerina Misty Copeland’s recipe for sautéed kale with flounder; tap teacher, choreographer, and performer Brenda Bufalino’s pasta sauce; and Ballet Hispánico artistic director and choreographer Eduardo Vilaro’s recipe for black beans. A blog on the Red Shell Mgmt website, Kitchen Choreography is a fun online collaborative cook book that celebrates expressions of creativity through food as shared by dancers, dance teachers, choreographers, artistic directors, dance promoters, agents, managers, and publicists, and the culinarily curious.
An examination of these offerings will give you the food idea you seek and insight into the life of the originator of the recipe as well as the world of professional Dance. Kitchen Choreography is meant to be as diverse as the kaleidoscopic subject of Dance. Modern dance pioneer Doris Humphrey, the founding artistic director of the Limón Dance Company, was not particularly interested in cooking, but she did make desserts, and accordingly Kitchen Choreography includes her recipe for icebox cake. Marcellus Harper, executive director of Memphis ’ Collage Dance Collective, contributed his family’s recipe for crab cakes. Diana Byer, founding artistic director of NYTB / ChamberWorks, contributed her chicken soup recipe to help cure the annual Nutcracker cold. Edward Schoelwer contributed a recipe for a foodway popular in Cincinnati, his hometown, called geméis.
The seeds of Kitchen Choreography were planted decades ago during a conversation between Edward Schoelwer, president of Red Shell Mgmt, and the legendary teacher and mentor Bessie Schönberg (for whom the Bessie Awards are named). Bessie had recently been a guest in the home of Merce Cunningham and she reported that Merce was a very fine cook. Thinking about other notable foodies like George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, Ed asked if there was a connection between cooking and choreography? “Of course,” Bessie answered, “And it is easy to explain. Both are expressions of creativity.”
In November of 2020, at the height of the pandemic, when all the world was stuck at home, the Kitchen Choreography project was begun. Quirky emails calling for recipes were sent out with the subject line “How Is Your Kitchen Choreography?” Dozens generously responded by sharing their “specialties” from their private lives (submissions are still welcomed). The important thing to remember is that only ideas are being exchanged—not money. Finding pleasure in life and community are the intended outcomes. A list of participants to date is included with this release. Recipes have been collected from multiple sources so that the blog features dishes from the past as well as the present. One will find recipes from Doris Humphrey, Geoffrey Holder, George Balanchine, Robert Joffrey, Tanaquil Le Clercq, and Arthur Mitchell.
Now that a sizable number of recipes have been collected Red Shell Management is proud to announce to the public that Kitchen Choreography is live online and available to use, share, and add to.
Just go to https://redshellmgmt.org.
Red Shell Mgmt is a “boutique” arts management company based in the USA, which primarily represents
dance companies and mission driven theater projects.
Visit https://redshellmgmt.org and Bon appétit.
Edward Schoelwer
Red Shell Mgmt
eschoelwer@redshellmgmt.org / (646) 495-1564