The City University of New York has launched the CUNY Dance Initiative (CDI), a residency program providing rehearsal and performance space to NYC choreographers and dance companies. The new program, which brings a host of benefits to both CUNY campuses and local dance artists, is supported by a lead $200,000 two-year grant plus additional two-year funding. NYC choreographers may now apply for a residency.
The First Edition of Valentina Kozlova's International Contemporary Choreographers and Dancers Competition will take place Monday and Tuesday, April 28 and 29 at Symphony Space in New York City. Competitors will present their dancing and/or choreography on Monday before a distinguished panel of dance figures from around the world. On Tuesday, the awards will be announced, followed by a performance of winners and special guests.
This fall, the United Dance Merchants of America (UDMA) Dance Resource and Costume Show will return to Georgia, New Jersey and Illinois featuring more than 10,000 costumes and hundreds of products and services. The UDMA Dance Resource and Costume Show will bring master teachers, leading costume designers and innovative dance professionals together under one roof, giving dance teachers and studio owners a unique opportunity to meet face-to-face with the industry’s most-trusted experts.
The Limón Dance Company, founded in 1946 by legendary Mexican choreographer José Limón, returns to the Joyce Theater in NYC on April 29-May 4. The company will present a program framed by two Limón masterworks: Mazurkas and Psalm, along with world premieres by Dianne McIntrye and Sean Curran. The season will be dedicated to Alan Danielson, a treasured colleague and School Director of the Limón Institute, who died earlier this year.
Steps Beyond continues its Artists Talk Series with “Dance Company or No Dance Company: That is the Question” – a frank discussion with dance company artistic directors on the pros and cons of starting and maintaining a dance company. The discussion will be hosted this Friday, April 25 at 8 p.m. in the spacious 4th floor studio at Steps on Broadway in NYC.
Alight Dance Theater, a small dance ensemble based in Greenbelt, Maryland since 2010, will present Dance in the Garden, a free outdoor performance series produced in partnership with the Chesapeake Education Arts & Research Society. Alight Dance Theater is creating three site-specific works to be performed in the Three Sisters Demonstration Gardens in the spring, summer and fall of this year. The first performance will be April 26.
The 13th Annual DANCE OPEN International Ballet Festival will be held this year on April 23-28 on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg, Russia. This season’s main focus is original contemporary choreography. It will present the Dutch National Ballet, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Malandain Ballet Biarritz and stars from companies such as The Royal Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Hamburg Ballet and Bolshoi Ballet.
Coming up this summer, Steps on Broadway will offer “Summer Study NYC: A Contemporary Dance Intensive.” This program is open to domestic and international students and offers dancers the opportunity to study with some of New York’s leading artistic directors and contemporary choreographers. The program’s first session is June 16–July 11 and the second session is July 14–August 8.
VIBE Dance Workshop is returning to Atlanta this summer after kicking off its inaugural season last year. VIBE, led by co-directors Tara Shepard Myers and Emily Yewell-Volin, provides daily classes in barre strengthening, jazz, contemporary and hip-hop taught by current industry professionals. Dancers have until Thursday, May 1 to register.
The results for the 2014 Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) have been announced, boasting many American winners this year. As the world's largest student ballet scholarship competition, the final round of YAGP took place at Lincoln Center in New York City on Wednesday, April 9.
CoreDance Contemporary presents Thresholds of Being, a diverse program of modern dance, on Friday and Saturday, April 18 and 19 at 8 p.m. at The Actors Fund Arts Center in Brooklyn, New York. CoreDance, an Australian modern dance company residing in New York, will present the NYC premiere of Of Loss: Grief’s Transitions, a work exploring the seven stages of grief, in addition to A Woman’s Work.
American Ice Theatre, a new contemporary ice dance company in Chicago, will present its spring concert Let's Dance! on Saturday, May 31. Along with the AIT ensemble, the show features work from finalists in the Young Artists Showcase, an online international figure skating choreography competition. Guest stars include 2014 Olympic Bronze Medalist Jason Brown, 2011 U.S. Men's Champion Ryan Bradley and a cast of world-class skaters all coming together in the name of “dance” on ice.
Now through May 15, the Massachusetts Dance Festival (MDF) seeks performers and instructors for events to be held throughout Western Massachusetts this fall. Active dancers and teachers are invited to be a part of MDF Amherst in September or the Paper City Mini-Fest in Holyoke this October. These events will highlight the best in dance from throughout the region and beyond.
The Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company celebrates its 25th Anniversary Season with performances featuring repertory works and a world premiere on Saturday, April 26 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, April 27 at 3 p.m. in NYC. All choreographic works will be performed to live music by Artistic Director Nai-Ni Chen's frequent collaborators over the last 15 years.
Oregon Ballet Theatre’s offering of Celebrate at the Newmark Theatre this season marks the end of an era with the retirement of Principal Dancer Alison Roper, who will perform the company premiere of Nacho Duato’s Cor Perdut in every show. Also on the Celebrate program is the pulsating and colorful Petal, a company premiere by Helen Pickett, and Matjash Mrozewski’s The Lost Dance, created on OBT in 2012. Celebrate runs for eight performances on April 17-26.
After offering programs in Spain, Switzerland and Italy, World Dance Movement will conclude 2014 with its 13-day program in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on August 2-14. World Dance Movement will give dancers the chance to not only train and study under international faculty for nearly two weeks, but to partake in various excursions in Amsterdam, a city well-known for its picturesque canals, world-famous museums and historical sights.
The 2014 Dance Salad Festival performances are scheduled for April 17-19 at the Wortham Center’s Cullen Theater in Houston. Now celebrating the 19th anniversary season in Texas and the 22nd season since its inception in Brussels, Belgium, Dance Salad Festival has gathered another world-class lineup of performers for this year. Famous in their own countries, the dance companies/dancers have won praise from critics and audiences wherever they have toured.
Visceral Dance Chicago, launched in fall 2013 under the artistic direction of Nick Pupillo, returns to Chicago’s Harris Theater on April 12 and 13. The company presents new works and world premieres by Pupillo and three female contemporary choreographers: Sidra Bell (of Sidra Bell Dance New York), Mónica Cervantes (formerly of Luna Negra Dance Theater) and Chicago native Robyn Mineko Williams (formerly of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago).
The Royal Ballet of Flanders, a dance company based in Antwerp, Belgium, will present the programme Beyond The Tutu on April 16-19 in Antwerp and May 9-11 in Gent. Beyond The Tutu is an evening that pays tribute to the purity of classical ballet, puts male dancers through their places and offers some challenging questions to the myths surrounding the art form. Three different choreographic works will be presented, including Cynthia Harvey’s La Bayadère, Nicolo Fonte’s Made Man and Alexander Ekman’s Tyll.
This season, Brooklyn Ballet has announced its first resident choreographer since 2007: the London-based New Yorker Julia K. Gleich. Gleich’s new work for Brooklyn Ballet will premiere this month at The Actors Fund Arts Center in Brooklyn. The season runs April 3-6 and April 11-13.
This year’s National Dance Week will be Friday, April 25 through Sunday, May 4. The week will host contests, performances and activities for the whole family in locations across the U.S., all to celebrate dance and promote fun fitness. For the third year, the National Dance Week Foundation (NDWF) will offer and promote a Dance Mob Contest, which encourages dance studios and independent dancers to stage an NDW-themed flash mob in their cities.
The new documentary following the story of Tanaquil Le Clercq, the legendary muse of choreographer George Balanchine, will be screened on Wednesday, April 9 at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, California. Director Nancy Buirski will be on hand following the screening of the documentary, entitled “Afternoon of a Faun, Tanaquil Le Clercq.”
Germany's Hamburg Ballet, led by American choreographer John Neumeier since 1973, will present the full-length production Messiah at the Hamburg State Opera just in time for Good Friday and Easter Sunday on April 18, 20, 24, 26 and 29, as well as
July 5. Messiah, choreographed by Neumeier, had its world premiere in Hamburg in 1999. Set to poignant scores by Georg Friedrich Haendel and Arvo Pärt, the ballet follows the story of Jesus Christ, his birth, his life and ministry.
Ron De Jesus Dance will present its first full evening of dance in Chicago on April 25 and 26 at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts. Hyper Human is a mixed repertory program featuring six works by notable guest choreographers Arte Phillips and Benjamin Millepied, in addition to RDJD Artistic Director and Chicago native Ron De Jesus. Acclaimed Chicago jazz vocalist Paul Marinaro will perform live the score for a world premiere suite of dances by De Jesus, called Without a Song… Mic Check 1, 2.
David Fernandez, choreographer and artistic director of Some Dance Company, and Ask La Cour, principal dancer at New York City Ballet, are joining forces to make Encore!, a performance to benefit Career Transition for Dancers, come to life. The performance, scheduled for Monday, April 28, will present dancers from New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, the NYC freelance community, schools such as the Joffrey Ballet School, Dance Theatre of Harlem and Ballet Hispanico, and more.
New York-based Complexions Contemporary Ballet will hold auditions on Sunday, April 27 at the Gelsey Kirkland Ballet Academy, located at 355 Broadway, NYC. Complexions is seeking male and female dancers for its 2014-15 season.
Presented by the Dance Council of North Texas, Dance Planet is promoted as America’s oldest and largest free dance festival. The 18th Annual Dance Planet festival, set for April 12-13, will take place at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in the Dallas Arts District. Dance Planet 18 will offer 30 free dance and fitness classes, as well as two Performance Showcases.
The Louisville Ballet closes its 2013-14 season on April 4 and 5 with Complementary Voices – a program designed by Artistic Director Bruce Simpson to challenge your perception of dance today. This triple-bill presents the company premiere of Ma Cong’s Tethered Pulse, a restaging of Adam Hougland’s Fragile Stasis and Val Caniparoli’s world premiere of Spaghetti Western. Bruce Simpson marks his retirement from the company with this production.
Germany’s Semperoper Ballett will present choreographer David Dawson’s Giselle on April 9, 11, 17, 20 and 22 at the magnificent Semperoper, which dominates the Theaterplatz on the river Elbe. Performances will feature live music presented by Staatskapelle Dresden. During Semperoper Ballett's run of Giselle, it will see two of its female principal dancers retire - Natalia Sologub and Yumiko Takeshima.
Miami Dance Festival celebrates its 11th edition between April 3 and May 15 with eight events and one panel discussion. Established by the Founder and Artistic Director of Momentum Dance Company, Delma Iles, the festival is a combined effort of her dance company and other dance companies, such as The PGK Dance Project of San Diego, CA. The festival will present a mainstage performance, as well as poety projects, public presentations, a world premiere flamenco event, a film night and a water ballet.
