The DanceNow NYC Festival just closed last week after a one month run. The three venues for the shows were Dance Theatre Workshop, Duo Theatre, and Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre. Among the arts, be they visual, musical, or performing, the dance scene in New York has been for many, many years…well, a huge scene. With performance art schools for children, back before any other city had them, to the universities, to the professional world, Manhattan is the place to dance and to see dance performed.
The DanceNow festival celebrated this, and celebrated the fact that dance brings people together, regardless of their cultural backgrounds and regardless of their financial status. On stage, all dancers have the chance to be equal. The festival was in its fifteenth year this year, and brought together more than fifty well known choreographers, who stayed in a best New York city hotel, and created works to honor the festival and the participants, of the past festivals, this current one, and those which will take place in the future. This is a contemporary festival, (http://www.labiennale.org/en/dance/index.html) meaning that traditional ballet was mixed in with works by some of the best in the fields of dance and choreography, of hip hop and theatrical performances.
The festival fifteen years ago was much different than the one that ended last week. This started out as a grass roots festival, with very few performers in small venues. But now this festival takes place downtown and has become one of the most comprehensive performing arts organizations in the city of New York. Each night various companies teamed up and put on collective shows, which included companies that did theater and spoken word pieces. This was one astounding couple of weeks, and one can only wonder about and anticipate what will happen next year. I for one, will be making plans to attend as soon as I can.
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