This year is a huge one for Ballaro Dance: 2024 marks TEN years as an organization. From the early years of 'big vision' and 'distant dreams,' to an ongoing initiative to develop innovative art and build community in places near and far, Ballaro Dance has become a recognized organization in its home base of New York City, and beyond. This year we accomplished a lot, but before we look back at the past 12 months, let's take a peek at the past nine Seasons:

The first five years: In 2014, Ballaro Dance produced Barefoot From Buffalo at The Riverside Theatre sharing 60-minutes of repertory over two evenings in NYC. This inaugural Season began an annual single concert tradition: Brothers and Sisters was produced at The Riverside Theatre in 2015 and toured to SUNY Brockport and was shared at St. Francis de Sales Church in NYC, Sounds in Space was a collaborative evening with David Schanzer in 2016 and the concert toured to the Flickinger Performing Arts Center in Buffalo, NY in 2017. The 2019 production of Open Air was the largest project at the time: the Company shared a dual themed evening of both site-specific and repertory work in New York, NY, Brockport, NY, Sandy Hook, CT (where we hosted our first official Season gala at Appleberry Farm!), Oyster Bay, NY, and Buffalo, NY. These concerts included residencies with local dancers, guest teaching opportunities, and moments to connect with audience and community. It was the start of something big, our wheels were turning....and then the pandemic hit in early 2020.

The more recent years: Looking back to the start of those 'pandemic years,' we had no idea that this would be a most fruitful time for Ballaro Dance, learning to lean into community in new ways to develop sensory-rich art that impacts, and is impacted by, the people it serves. During this phase of Ballaro Dance which began in 2020-2021, so much was occurring as the Company moved from a single concert tradition to ongoing, 10-month programming starting with the launch of our YouTube Channel SEE Ballaro Dance! This period brought us The NETcracker & The Adventures of Moon Rabbit: two virtual community productions featuring Community KIDS, Community TEENS, and members of the greater MOVE Community. We began weekly free classes on Zoom; we hosted Yappy Hours to inspire members of our SHARE community to spark collaboration. WE. WERE. BUSY. In 2021 we produced a second gala event at Appleberry Farm, presenting the first iteration of Embedded Memories, now a long-standing piece in the repertory that has been shared almost a dozen times already with communities at SUNY Brockport, in Newtown, CT, Saratoga Springs, NY,  New York, NY, and Ramapo, NJ - just to name a few. In 2022, Ballaro Dance returned to the NYC stage with 2D + 3D = CommuniD sharing new, innovative works made while in quarantine, and featuring a hybrid performance format with performers as far as Iraq!

Speeding ahead looking at 2023-2024, an evening-length work, The Distance, was produced at The Underground Theater in NYC, and the Company held the fourth annual summer SEE MOVE SHARE Dance Intensive & Performance Project. The first midwest touring opportunity took place in St. Louis, MO in June and Ballaro Dance received a two-year grant from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to lead a nationwide community project. Phew. Most recently, TEN: A Decade of Ballaro Dance celebrated this amazing ten-year accomplishment. Ballaro Dance will finish the Season with a fifth annual collaborative concert with Lux Mea Women's Choir and host a movie night at Syndicated Movie Theater in Brooklyn, NY! Just before the New Year, Ballaro Dance will return to Rochester, NY for the first-ever Mid-Winter MOVE mini-residency at the end of December.

SO...why Ballaro Dance? With all of the wonderful art to SEE & MOVE through, why SHARE your support with us?

Ballaro Dance is about the PEOPLE:

-- Our 2024 CORE Company MOVERS: Hannah Dillenbeck, Tessa Fungo, Marina Vianello, & Jen Silver, 2024 Apprentices & Guests Maddie Burnett, Natalie Katz, Alexandra Love Strouse, & Christina Tribo, and members of our greater MOVE Community...

-- Longstanding collaborators like Filmmaker Zoran Prodanovic, Choir Director Kaitlin Simonson, Appleberry Farm Director Becky Osborne, Musicians like Rob Bethel, Thea Mesirow, Tony Boka, Creatives like Allison Patrick, Ashley Garrett, Joe D'Emilio, and so many others...

Ballaro Dance is also about the WORK: making dance accessible and meaningful through opportunities to SEE, MOVE, & SHARE together through sensory-rich, interdisciplinary art that invites people to feel and experience deeply, and personally, is what we're after...and we need your help to do it.

Coming up in 2025: We've got several exciting things already on our calendar for next year!
 
-- We'll be at Nazareth University teaching and performing at the Movement & Dance Festival in January, we've been invited to present work in Washington, DC at the Aurora Dance Festival in March, and Ballaro Dance will host another nationwide virtual project with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to share Embedded Memories in Brooklyn, NY in June with funds from a substantial Impact Grant. In August, Ballaro Dance will return to Aquila's Nest to perform at the lovely vineyard!

-- Ballaro Dance has also been selected to host Valerie Lim for a three-month placement next summer. A Singaporean artist based in the UK, Valerie will join Ballaro Dance in-studio on some creative projects and support administrative goals with support from a UK placement grant.

-- And there's so much more...

Thank you for helping us to grow the past ten years, and thank you for helping to launch us into the next decade of Ballaro Dance! We appreciate YOU.