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| 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center |
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| 92ND STREET Y HARKNESS DANCE CENTER |
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The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center offers a diverse array of programs for a variety of constituencies: the dance-going public, non-professional dancers, social dancers, children, senior citizens, professional dancers and dance educators.
DANCE CENTER HISTORY
"Without the support of the 92nd Street Y, the entire revolution in dance might not have succeeded." - Agnes De Mille |
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| Known in dance circles as "the birthplace of modern dance," the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center is part of modern dance history. Modern dance literally began at the Y in 1935 with a program called "A Symposium on Modern Dance." In this first-of-its-kind event, the great modern dance pioneers Martha Graham, Louis Horst, Hanya Holm, Charles Weidman and Doris Humphrey presented their companies. The program was a huge success and that same year, the first modern dance faculty was formed at the Y. The faculty included the "Big Four" -- Graham, Holm, Weidman and Humphrey -- as well as Anna Sokolow, Bonnie Bird, Elsa Findlay and Nancy McKnight. Over the course of the 1930s, '40s and '50s, Merce Cunningham, Jerome Robbins, Agnes De Mille, Erick Hawkins, Robert Joffrey, Alvin Alley -- whose groundbreaking Revelations premiered at the Y -- and many other modern dance innovators taught and choreographed at the Y. |
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| The Y also played a leading role in the development of children's dance education. Bonnie Bird, chairperson of the Y's Children's Dance Division in the 1950s and '60s, developed an innovative program for teaching children's dance educators. She also formed The Merry-Go-Rounders, a highly successful company that presented dance to children. Today, the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center offers dozens of children's classes, while the center's Dance Education Laboratory continues the tradition of training dance teachers (see below for more detail on both programs). |
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| In 1985, the Dance Center formed an enduring relationship with the Harkness Foundation for Dance, which supports several Y dance programs including workshops for professional and non-professional dancers. In 1994, this affiliation blossomed into a full partnership with a generous gift from Harkness and the naming of the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center. |
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PERFORMANCE PROGRAMS |
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"[I]f history means anything at all, looking in on the annual series of recitals by up-and-coming choreographers at the 92nd Street Y is a way of seeing the future." -Sylviane Gold, Newsday |
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| The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center has several performance programs. The largest is the annual 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Project, which has featured the choreographic stars David Dorfman, Maureen Flemming, Molissa Fenley, Jane Comfort, Joy Kellman, Neil Greenberg and Bill Young, to name but a few. |
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| On an ongoing basis, the Y has two less formal dance performance programs: the vaunted Fridays @ Noon and Sundays @ Three series. These series offer audiences the bargain-priced opportunity -- Fridays @ Noon is free and Sundays @ Three is a mere $10 -- to see dance up close (the performances take place in the Y's intimate Buttenwieser Hall) and to talk with the artists about their work (a discussion follows each performance). Twice a month Fridays @ Noon presents emerging choreographers. The programs last about an hour, making them ideal for school classes, many of which come (the children are astute observers). Once a month Sundays @ Three presents established choreographers like Donald Byrd, Doug Varone, Douglas Dunn, Danny Lepkoff, Kathy Wildberger, Mark Haim, Bill T. Jones and David Dorfman showing new works or works-in-progress. The informal setting allows the choreographers to focus on their work without having to worry about the sometimes distracting elements of a big production. |
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EDUCATION PROGRAMS |
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For Non-Professional Dancers |
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The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center is a major player in the area of education for dance professionals and non-professionals. For non-professionals, the Y offers classes in the basics -- ballet, jazz and modern -- as well as not-so-basics like Afro-Caribbean, Flamenco, and tap. The Dance Center also teaches movement: the Alexander Technique, the Feldenkrais Method, body alignment, the Isadora Duncan Technique and spinal gymnastics. For social dancers there are classes in ballroom and swing and the popular Saturday Night Parties offering, first, lessons, and later, free dance in ballroom, swing, tango, country-western and folk dance including but not restricted to Israeli folk dance. The Y also has courses for older adults and a multitude of programs for children (ballet, tap, modern, hip-hop) as young as three.
For Professional Dancers and Dance Educators |
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For Dance Professionals |
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| The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center is a major player on the professional front through the Dance Education Laboratory (DEL), Choreolab, and the Workshop Series for Professional Dancers. DEL offers curriculum-development courses for dance teachers, Choreolab offers the aforementioned Fridays @ Noon and Sundays @ Three programs as well as a Space Grant Program providing up-and-coming choreographers free space in which to work, and the Workshop Series gives professional dancers a chance to work with leading choreographers like Douglas Dunn, Doug Varone, Eiko & Koma, David Parsons and Doug Elkins. |
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© 2010 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association
All Rights Reserved. |
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