Dance Rising NYC With Studio 305 And Village Alliance Host A Day Of Dance At Astor Place For International Dance Day

Dance Rising NYC continues promoting embodied advocacy for the dance field by bringing the dynamic energy of dance to small businesses and public spaces. Dance Rising is again partnering with Bakery on Bergen and is collaborating with Studio 305 Fitness to bring dance to Astor Place, hosted by the Village Alliance. These partnerships with cultural organizations and local businesses across the city, Dance Rising reminds New Yorkers that the dance industry is an essential part of NYC’s cultural identity.

Formed as a grassroots collective at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dance Rising NYC has become a platform for embodied advocacy that affirms the importance of dance in all its forms. Two years later, the dance sector of NYC is still in crisis after a full year of fighting for recognition as a field in need of support by the state and city during the first year of the pandemic. Dancers live in every neighborhood in the city - and this sector - filled with skilled, empathic, tenacious artists and workers - can lead a vision for the arts in New York City: one where every New Yorker can be inspired and moved by arts and culture.

The Astor Place Day of Dance celebrates the industry’s tenacity and insists that dance is a vital performing art -- one that shapes NYC’s identity as a cultural center.

Everyone who loves to move is invited Friday April 29, 2022 to join free, public, silent disco style classes in the iconic Astor Square:

1:00-1:30 - Studio 305 Fitness

1:45-2:15 - Sue Ishige from Pony Box Dance

2:30-3pm - Miss Al Boogie - House Dance

3:15-3:45 - BodyStories - Hip Hop and Latin/Contemporary Mix

4:00-4:30 - Rokafella - Popping

The 2022 Video Tour

Now in 2022, Dance Rising launched a new Video Tour in partnership with two Brooklyn cafes – LOCOCO and The Bakery on Bergen – Dance Rising celebrates the survival of small businesses in NYC in the aftermath of the pandemic, and on International Dance Day, Bakery on Bergen will again be featuring the videos of over 400 dancers.

In a comment about partnering with Bakery on Bergen, Dance Rising founding member Joya Powell, director of Movement of the People Dance Company, says, “Dance has always been a part of the Vann family. I remember dancing in Akim’s father and mother’s, Teddy and Wanling Vann’s, basement in Brooklyn at a very young age, or dancing at Vann family birthday parties. We have grown into phenomenal Black women business owners, true to our NYC roots, making our fathers proud. It is a powerful statement when dance and small local businesses become collaborators. Thank you Akim, creator and owner of The Bakery on Bergen, for sharing your (wall) space with your dancing NYC community, for supporting MOPDC, Dance Rising NYC, and for your visionary activist practices involving community and care.”

DANCE RISING 2022 SCHEDULE

• Dance of Dance, Astor Place: 4 hours of free, guided dancing at Astor Square by emerging and legendary artists.

• Indoor projections in coffee shops: 60-minute video loops

  • The Bakery on Bergen, 740 Bergen St, Brooklyn, NY 11238

  • LOCOCO, East Williamsburg TBA

• Window displays: May-June nine video compilations on view in rotation in empty retail spaces

• Large scale projections:Projections at Anita’s Way, May-June 2022

• Full video series online: www.DanceRising.org/the-videos

The videos that are featured in Activated Architecture|Dancing Walls come from the hyper-local dance outs Dance Rising has organized over the past two years: 400+ dancers and companies across the boroughs and the tri-state area simultaneously took to the parks, streets, and rooftops to dance, calling attention to an entire sector that was shut down for more than a year by the pandemic. Dance Rising collected video recordings from these dance-outs, representing individual artists and established companies like Limon, Ballet Hispánico, Flamenco Vivo, Trisha Brown, Heidi Latsky Dance, The Bang Group, New York Theatre Ballet, Kinesis Project dance theatre, jill sigman/thinkdance,The Equus Projects, Renegade Performance Group, BodyStories: Teresa Fellion Dance, and Movement of the People Dance Company.

In March 2021, to honor the one-year anniversary of the shutdown of the sector and in partnership with 30 cultural institutions, Dance Rising held an initial Five Boro Video Tour, bringing the videos of 300+ dancers to all five boros in lobby displays, kiosks, bus stops, newsstands, social media and a multi-screen, 24/7 10 day installation at 20 Astor Place. These videos were also shared on park movie screens in Brooklyn, the Upper West Side and Inwood during summer 2021.

Partner organizations/venues:

Manhattan: Village Alliance, Meatpacking BID, Marcus Garvey Park, Hispanic Society Museum & Library

Brooklyn: Bakery on Bergen, LOCOCO

Queens: CUNY Dance Initiative, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning

Staten Island: Snug Harbor Cultural Center

Bronx: BAAD

More information, including rolling venue locations and details can be found at www.dancerising.org

Dance Rising’s Activated Architecture | Dancing Walls and DAY OF DANCE is made possible in part by support from the Howard Gilman Foundation, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, John and Jody Arnhold | The Arnhold Foundation, John C. Robinson, The Village Alliance and other generous individuals. Projections are made possible thanks to 4Wall Entertainment and Peter Nigrini.

Dance Rising videos are edited by Carley Santori. Dance Rising’s technical team includes Lauren Parrish, TD of DanceNOW at Joe’s Pub; Peter Nigrini, lighting and projection designer for Broadway, Bill T. Jones and the Park Avenue Armory.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS

Dance Rising was formed in August 2020 as an urgent response to the pandemic by a collective of independent NYC dance artists and administrators. A platform for embodied advocacy that unites the dance industry and amplifies diverse voices and bodies, Dance Rising focuses public attention on the field and engages with stakeholders about partnership and possibility. It also provides audiences with opportunities to enjoy safe, site-specific performances and celebrates local artists--a potent reminder of the importance of arts and culture in NYC. Led by Melissa Riker, director of Kinesis Project dance theatre, Dance Rising is fiscally sponsored by The Field and advised by Lucy Sexton of New Yorkers for Culture & Arts.

THE DANCE RISING COLLECTIVE

Active members: Kristina Bermudez/Project.KB, Teresa Fellion/Bodystories, DJ McDonald, Joya Powell/Movement of the People Dance Company, JoAnna Mendl Shaw/The Equus Projects, Melissa Riker/Kinesis Project, Juan José Escalante/National Dance Institute, Claudia-Lynn Rightmire

Founding members: Jill Sigman/thinkdance, André Zachary/Renegade Performance Group,Alyssa Alpine/CUNY Dance Initiative, Maura Nguyen Donohue, Remi Harris, Leslie Roybal/Flamenco Vivo, Amber Sloan, Xianix Barrera