Peninsula International Dance Festival Set For Next Month

In celebration of Peninsula Ballet Theatre's 55th anniversary season, the company today announced the launch of a significant new dance initiative, the Peninsula International Dance Festival (PIDF), scheduled for two performances Saturday, July 16 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, July 17 at 2 p.m. at the San Mateo Performing Arts Center, 600 North Delaware Street. Tickets are now on sale via peninsulaballet.org.

This inaugural Peninsula International Dance Festival will feature the extraordinary and exuberant artistry of over 160 dancers and musicians from nine Bay Area companies including: Parangal (Philippine); Ensambles Ballet Folklórico de San Francisco (Mexico); Chitresh Das Institute's Youth Dance Company (Indian Kathak); Melissa Cruz Flamenco (Spain); Jaranon y Bochinche (Afro-Peruvian); Ballet Folklórico Mexicano de Carlos Moreno (Mexico); Gurus of Dance (Indian Bollywood); Tribe and Poise'n (Urban Hip-Hop); and Peninsula Ballet Theatre (American jazz, country and ballroom).

Peninsula Ballet Theatre Executive Director Christine Leslie said, "The launch of the Peninsula International Dance Festival is a very exciting new initiative as part of our expanded mission to connect with more community residents on the greater Peninsula. Five years ago, we began exploring the addition of hip-hop to our classical ballet offerings and it has been a huge success, attracting a new audience to our theater. Presenting an international dance festival is an extension of the many diverse dance classes that are offered weekly in our five ballet studios at the Peninsula Ballet Theatre center. This is also our way of connecting with and proudly showcasing the extraordinary world dance and music talent in the Bay Area. We are very enthusiastic about the future and look forward to sharing this new festival with the public."

In recent seasons, while the company has continued to present annual classical and contemporary ballet programs, it has expanded its offerings to offer popular hip-hop dance productions (Hip-Hop Halloween and Hip-Hop Nutcracker), and earlier this year, their first Broadway musical theatre production (Guys and Dolls).

Carlos Carvajal, Peninsula Ballet Theatre's Artistic Director Emeritus, as well as former Co-Artistic Director of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, has been working closely with PBT's current Artistic Director Greg Amato and the directors of the selected companies to weave a production that captures the joy and passion of the common language of dance and music.

Carvajal, revered Bay Area dance leader said: "The Bay Area is unique in the entire world because of the racial and cultural diversity that has enabled us to produce an international festival of such high quality in which all of the participants, including the very best teachers and dancers, live in the immediate area. This is truly a cultural jewel which expresses in dance and song exactly what our society is desiring so intensely at this time - equity, diversity and inclusion. It makes me so happy to see the Peninsula International Dance Festival being held in San Mateo which is even more convenient and central to these groups. I know that it will continue in the future with great success."

PARANGAL

Parangal is a Philippine dance company, founded in 2008, that seeks to inspire, create awareness and advocate for Philippine indigenous people's culture, traditions, and stories through their attire, music, and dance. Artistic Director Eric Solano brings us another first look at his world-class choreography from the Philippines. Parageyan Kamatettoahan, Ancestor's Traditions showcases dance from the indigenous Yakan people of Basilan, Sulu Archipelago. The performance opens with a Fatiha prayer in Yakan classical language as the tuntungan lumber drum signals the call for the harvest. A dance suite, showing agricultural practice and celebration unfolds as we witness the rice planting, harvest and joyful wedding entrance of the bride and groom and reception. www.parangal.org

ENSAMBLES BALLET FOLKLÓRICO de SAN FRANCISCO

Ensambles Ballet Folklórico de San Francisco will debut a suite from the Mexican state of Sinaloa. Sinaloa is known for a bold, boisterous music style known as banda, which includes the regional variation known as tambora. The distinguishing sound of "banda" includes the huge brass ensemble featuring trumpets, trombones, rubs and drums. Ensambles Ballet Folklórico de San Francisco is excited to showcase the vibrant dances and costumes inspired by the religious and pagan traditions of the central and coastal areas of Sinaloa. Co-founded in 1992 by highly accomplished dancers and Mexican folklorists Zenón Barrón and Jorge Pacheco, Ensambles is a unique dance ensemble made up of a diverse group of 35 talented dancers who vary in levels of experience, age, ethnicity, and professions. Ranging from high school students, and adults with little dance experience, to seasoned dance professionals, all are committed to the continuation of one of the richest manifestations of tradition and culture in México-folkloric dance.

www.ensambles-sf.com

CHITRESH DAS INSTITUTE'S YOUTH COMPANY

Fourteen members of the Chitresh Das Youth Company will be performing Malkauns Tarana for the Peninsula International Dance Festival. A tarana is a genre of North Indian Classical Music that is comprised of bols, abstract syllables or words, rather than words that are narrative. Kathak dance is known for intricate footwork and fast pirouettes in complex rhythmic compositions and this tarana highlights these virtuosic elements of Kathak. This particular tarana was composed by the late Pandit Chitresh Das and choreographed by Charlotte Moraga, artistic director of the Chitresh Das Institute's Chitresh Das Youth Company. www.chitreshdasinstitute.org

Melissa Cruz FLAMENCO

Melissa Cruz is a Bay Area-based flamenco professional and has been a full-time flamenco artist and instructor for the past 15 years. She began her training with the Bay Area's acclaimed flamenco master Rosa Montoya and soon thereafter, joined Montoya's professional company. Highly acclaimed by the San Francisco Chronicle, Melissa has performed as a soloist in the San Francisco International Arts Festival and has presented in eight San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festivals, twice as a featured soloist. She maintains a full schedule of classes and is a frequent guest artist across the United States with the leading flamenco companies. In her own words, Cruz shares, "Flamenco dance and music is the result of a convergence of Eastern nomadic and Spanish Andalusian cultures characterized by dynamic movements, footwork with refined musicality and striking lines. Usually accompanied by guitar, vocals and percussive half-clapping called "palmas," dancers interpret a wide range of themes, from sorrow and persecution to joy and love. This presentation will be an interpretation that pays homage to traditional flamenco from the heart of Andalusia." www.melissacruz.weebly.com

JARANON Y BOCHINCHE

Jaranon y Bochinche is a multi-generational dance and music performance company that originated from San Francisco's Tradición Peruana Cultural Center, a community organization dating to 1995 with the mission to develop and diffuse the rich diversity of art, music and dance from Peruvian cultures in the Bay Area and beyond. Tradición Peruana offers an array of programs and services to children, youth and adults to promote cultural learning opportunities for a range of ages and communities. Artistic Director Juan de Dios Soto, along with Lydia Soto and Naman Black, has created a new work that features three types of Afro-Peruvian dance styles, Festejo, Afro. and Lando. The choreography will represent the experiences of the Afro-Peruvian community who live in a callejón, a traditional neighborhood in Peru formed around a small alley. www.perutpcc.org

BALLET FOLKLÓRICO MEXICANO DE CARLOS MORENO

Founded in 1967, Carlos Moreno's unrelenting passion for researching, teaching, and performing the traditional dances of Mexico have made him an accomplished producer of folklórico shows and a distinguished authority in Mexican dance and culture. For this reason, he and the Ballet Folklórico Mexicano receive frequent requests from theaters, cultural centers, and educational institutions in both the United States and Mexico to present performances and to offer master classes and lecture demonstrations for youth and adults. For the Peninsula International Dance Festival, the company will perform the mestizo dances of the Western Mexican state of Nayarit, a work comprised of sones and potorricos played with guitars and violins. These Huichol and Cora indigenous dances have great Spanish influence; it's a combination of nature and ancestry with the new world after the conquest. The women dance with flirtatious movements, fancy skirt movement, and complicated footwork; and the men shows their agility and courage by dangerously maneuvering their machetes while dancing.

www.balletfolkloricomexicano.org

GURUS OF DANCE

Gurus of Dance is America's largest Bollywood musical company specializing in creating Broadway-style Bollywood Musicals for the past 13 years. The dance team had the privilege to represent India at the Warriors (NBA) prime time show, Sharks (NHL) half-time show and at the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. They are the winners of the North America Championship, Dance USA Dance hosted by Zee TV at Broadway, New York. The dancers have performed with Bollywood stars such as Badshah, Mallika Arora Khan, Sunidhi Chauhan, Mika Singh, Dino Moroe and many more. For the Peninsula International Dance Festival, 30 artists from Gurus of Dance will present an excerpt from their Ramayan musical showcasing a prayer to Lord Ganesha. The style is a traditional Indian folk dance mixed with elements inspired from Hindi film dance. www.gurusofdance.com.

TRIBE & POISE'N

Artistic Directors and Lead Choreographers Stuck Sanders and Alee Martinez will present an all-new dance of authentic west coast hip hop featuring turfing and roboting with his signature dramatic narrative accessible for the whole family. Per Mr. Sanders, "Born in the Bronx, where the mix of Latin and Caribbean traditions met and mingles with the sounds of the '60s and '70s Soul, Disco and Funk, Hip-Hop is an inner-city dance style that reflects the turbulent history of dance and art. The Tribe and Poise'n, two Bay Area hip-hop groups, represent both East Coast and West Coast styles that have evolved to include acrobatic and airborne moves with gravity-defying head spins and backspins roboting, bopping, hitting, locking, popping, bustin', electric boogaloo, strutting, sac-ing as well as dime-stopping. What started as an expression of U.S. urban style has become an international dance sensation." www.trbecrw.com

PENINSULA BALLET THEATRE

Peninsula Ballet Theatre's Artistic Director Gregory Amato will present short entr'actes drawn from Americana styles of music and dance representing a broad swath of the United States: from sultry Manhattan jazz clubs and that structured improvisational style used by jazz musicians; to country/western cowboy culture and honky-tonk bars where romance and heartbreak reign supreme; to the Old Hollywood glamour of Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers with sweeping dances set to the greatest crooners of the day. www.peninsulaballet.org.

TICKETS & VENUE

Tickets for the 2022 Peninsula International Dance Festival are priced at $65, $45 and $35. Discounts for seniors (65 and up) and juniors (18 and below) are $5-off per ticket; Group Sales of 10 or more enjoy a 10% discount. Purchase tickets today at peninsulaballet.org. Two performances are scheduled: Saturday, July 16, 2022 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, July 17 at 2 p.m., San Mateo Performing Arts Center, 600 North Delaware St. This venue features ample free public parking.

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