Downtown Dance Festival Brings Global Dance Closer to Home

Manhattan’s Battery Dance Company will bridge waters for the first time this year with its multiday Downtown Dance Festival, presenting performances on the greens of Governors Island. During the course of nine days, 30 companies with styles including flamenco, hip-hop, Indian, and Chinese traditional dance will tackle the stage on the island and also, as in previous years, at Chase Plaza and Battery Park in Lower Manhattan.“New Yorkers are very open-minded and look for new opportunities to get out of the heat and explore new places,” the artistic director of Battery Dance, Jonathan Hollander, said of his decision to add Governors Island to the performance venues.During nine months every year, Mr. Hollander’s Battery Dance is more than just a performing dance company; it takes on the role of presenter, seeking sponsorship, culling companies, and searching for sites in preparation for the annual festival, which begins its 27th incarnation this Saturday. Mr. Hollander takes it upon himself to bring dance to the people with post-performance opportunities for audiences to learn excerpts from the choreographies they’ve just seen.“I have traveled all over the world and I still think that the amount of dance here is more than anywhere else,” Mr. Hollander, whose own company has performed in countries including India, Turkey, South Korea, Mongolia, and China, said. “Yet general people on the street don’t have anything to do with the dance world. We need to demystify dance.”The Downtown Dance Festival is one way Mr. Hollander has tried to do so for more than two decades. These daily, free, outdoor performances take place during daylight hours — over lunch or on weekend afternoons — thus reaching audiences who don’t frequent the typical concert-dance theater, such as families with children who are too fidgety for prolonged seating, professionals who think dance is not for them, or downtown senior citizens who appreciate events within walking distance.“The dance community aggressively needs to pursue new audiences,” Mr. Hollander said. “There’s a lot of great dance out there and we want people to know about it. We think it’s our obligation.”Dance and movement exhibit a shared humanity, across borders, cultures, and ethnicities, Mr. Hollander said. “I am constantly inspired by what I see overseas,” Mr. Hollander, who is traveling to 10 countries this year, said. “There are moments of serendipity when I see something maybe in South Korean dance, something that looks like waves on the shore, and it looks like what’s in one of my own modern dance pieces that we’re performing.”New York audiences can have a similar experience in Lower Manhattan, where, in a single day, they may see traditional Chinese dance by Dance China NY, followed by classical from Ballet Noir, traditional Kabuki by the Japanese Sachiyo Ito & Company, Isadora Duncan’s more than century-old repertoire, and finally some flamenco moves by Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana. New York audiences, Mr. Hollander hopes, may start seeing connections themselves and thus open themselves to more unfamiliar cultural forms, whether in dance or elsewhere.“We all have the same anatomy and people have explored this anatomy throughout history in folk dances,” Mr. Hollander said. “It’s sort of like beadwork. When you see Mexican and Indian and Native American beadwork, it makes you realize that they’re all coming from the same place. I love the opportunity to break the matrix, so that audiences realize they can access other forms.”With people tightening their belts throughout the arts world, the Downtown Dance Festival is increasingly collaborating with other arts organizations to make the festival happen. Two festival days will focus fully on classical Indian dance and contemporary choreographies by South Asian dancers in a first-time collaboration with the Indo-American Arts Council. The Center for Traditional Music and Dance has also extended a hand and helped bring traditional dance from Japan and the Ivory Coast to the outdoor stage.“Once you see how people respond and what effect the festival has, it’s impossible to stop,” Mr. Hollander said. “We get lots of letters and e-mails, and I recognize people year after year even though I don’t know their names. I know for example there’s a large senior center following, older people, retirees. For them it’s great to have free events that they can walk to.”Saturday through August 24. For complete schedule, see batterydanceco.com.

Downtown Dance Festival Brings Global Dance Closer to Home

Downtown Dance Festival Brings Global Dance Closer to Home

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