Stefanie Nelson Dancegroup to Present EVERYONE DANCE Festival

New York City-based Stefanie Nelson Dancegroup presents EVERYONE DANCE Festival, an inclusive day of free dance activities available to everyone who would like to express themselves through movement. The event features a stellar lineup of Broadway performers associated with AHRC NYC, an organization dedicated to finding ways for people with developmental disabilities to build full lives (among them, Dale Hensley, Carol Schuberg, and Brad Bradley) who will be teaching open classes, and the award-winning choreographer Heidi Latsky, who will present an installation titled ON DISPLAY as well as a new duet work After These Messages, to name just a few.

The festival will be held on Thursday, May 12, 2022, from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm at Hudson River Park's Pier 62 (61 Chelsea Piers, New York, NY 10011). All classes are free and open to the public but registration is required to reserve a spot. For more information including a full schedule and registration link, visit https://www.sndancegroup.org/events/everyone-dance-festival.

Everyone Dance series started as a joint project of Stefanie Nelson Dancegroup and AHRC New York, providing movement classes and performance opportunities for disabled adults. The collaboration resulted in a workshop course that allowed people with intellectual disabilities not only to learn dance but also to teach it - as was the case with Ervine Haskins, a young man from Crown Heights who discovered his calling as a dance teacher when given an opportunity to instruct others. His remarkable story is the subject of this mini-documentary: https://vimeo.com/671316925 and he will be one of the festival's instructors.

The festival's curator and producer Stefanie Nelson has been exploring the subject of mental disability in her work as a choreographer (most notably, in her 2018 show A... MY NAME IS, inspired by a family member's struggle with the Alzheimer's) and has been working with AHRC New York City since 2014, co-creating the Everyone Dance series which she has been leading with this organization. Nelson explains: "It is my strong belief that dance's greatest social value is as a universal language of expression for everyone, not only highly trained and skilled dancers. Over the years, I've found enormous gratification and sense of purpose in my work with people who, when they dance, go directly into the heart of movement which is joy. When the COVID pandemic disrupted our live performances of Everyone Dance, I started thinking of ways to bring this initiative back - and I am very grateful for the opportunity to extend the benefits of this program to all New Yorkers."