The Fall for Dance Festival is an annual series of dance concerts sponsored by Mayor Bloomberg and the MetLife Foundation(tickets are only $15!). The festival consists of five different programs held at the spectacular New York City Center. Each program showcases four performing companies of contrasting styles (tap, ballet, cultural dance, etc.). This year I was lucky enough to get a ticket to Program 3 (last year the tickets sold out within an hour!).
I arrived at the City Center, which is pretty unassuming from the outside on 55th Street. But once I entered the theater I was blown away by the huge space and beautiful ornate blue and gold proscenium arch. The nearly 2,750 seat house was packed with people of all ages – dancers, cultured New Yorkers, dance teachers (I ran into BDC ballet teacher, Beth Goheen), dance writers (I recognized Dance Magazine editor, Wendy Perron) and critiques.
Program 3 included works by:
- Ballet West – Grand Pas from Paquita – ballet
- Tu Dance – High Heel Blues – jazz/modern duet
- Nan Jombang – Tarian Malam (Night Dances) – Indonesian dance/martial arts
- Moiseyev Dance Company – Moiseyev’s Classics – traditional Russian dance
Other performances in this year’s Fall for Dance Festival (9th season) included:
- American Ballet Theatre
- BalletBoyz
- Circa
- Fang-Yi Sheu & Artists
- The Hong Kong Ballet
- Jared Grimes (tap & hip hop teacher at BDC!)
- Jodi Melnick
- Juilliard Dance
- Ka Leo O Laka I Ka Hikina O Ka La
- LDP – Laboratory Dance Project
- Maria Pages Compania
- Martha Graham Dance Company
- Nederlands Dans Theater
- Pacific Northwest Ballet
- Shantala Shivaalingappa
- Shen Wei Dance Arts
This season of incredible performances (at amazingly low prices!) continues from September 27 – October 13. If you missed out on this year’s Fall for Dance, be sure to mark your calendars for next year – tickets go on sale online the first week of September.
“So bring your family, grab your friends, join us and fall in love… Fall for Dance!”