Dear BDA Community:
While October may be half-over, there’s still plenty of sun and even more fun to come as a part of Boston Dance Alliance’s “International Moves & Food” outdoor dance series on The Esplanade.
Special thanks to BDA members Velouse Joseph & Meghan McGrath of Jean Appolon Expressions and to Rebecca McGowan & Natasha Sheehy for the Haitian Folkloric and traditional Irish dance sessions, respectively, these past two Wednesdays.
The next two Wednesdays we’re excited to feature BDA members Eli Pabon of MetaMovements followed by Samadrita “Sam” Bhattacharyya & Meghma “Meg” Banerjee of Souls of India for Latin and Classical Indian Dance sessions, respectively, both of which will be followed by food from corresponding parts of the world.
Hope to see you this & next Wednesday at 5pm on The Esplanade! In the meantime, see below for all of the other opportunities to dance in & around Boston this week!
All the best,
Aaron Myers, Executive Director
WBUR selected BDA’s fiscal sponsee Beth Mochizuki – who also was one of the master class teachers at our open call auditions last month – as one of the 2024 Makers. BDA is beyond proud to be supporting Beth and her Asian American Ballet Project in her artistic journey.
The 2025 We Create! Festival Fellows will explore this year’s powerful theme: “The Movements that Free(d) Us.” Through their unique lenses, these artists will delve into how movements—both personal and collective—shape our paths to liberation.
2025 Fellowship Artists
- Tanya Nixon-Silberg
- Charmaine Santiago-Galdón
- Zaquia Luisa
- Carmen S. Rizzo (BDA Fiscal Sponsee)
- Mnfath
- Simon Montalvo (BDA Fiscal Sponsee)
- Egbesola Efunyemi
- Giovanna Sosa Santos
- Jovielle Gers
- Nitika
- Yaya Inaru’Ni
- DeVante Love
- Ananth Udupa
- Danza Orgánica
This year’s fellows, working across various mediums such as dance, poetry, puppetry, and film, will examine how their perceptions of freedom inform their personal liberation and the liberation of their communities.
Mark your calendars for the We Create! Festival on April 11-12, 2025, and stay tuned for more details on this transformative event.
Congratulations to The Dance Complex, A Trike Called Funk and VLA Dance for being awarded the Expand Mass Stories Grant!
The Dance Complex‘s “Dancing Through Time: The Untold Stories of The Dance Complex” will compile dance narratives from a wide spectrum of sources that include local dancers with a global perspective. With their $20,000 award they will create interactive content for a website (active and archival intents), a podcast, live displays, and performances.
BDA’s fiscal sponsee A Trike Called Funk was awarded $20,000 for “GraffiTour Oral History Project”. GraffiTour is an artist-designed & -narrated tour of graffiti in the city of Boston that A Trike Called Funk plan to pilot for free in 2025. The GraffiTour will feature audio recordings of the graffiti artists providing insights on their artwork and its relationship to the communities where their artwork lives.
BDA’s fiscal sponsee VLA DANCE‘s “For Nina, a zine archiving stories of liberation” was also awarded $20,000. “The For Nina Project” is a series of interviews of 15 Black femme dance and movement leaders in Massachusetts archived in audio recordings, written interviews and visual arts responses.
BDA Member Events This Week
FREE! – Join us and our partners at the Esplanade Association today for a vibrant evening with salsa, bachata, merengue, dembow and reggaeton! You’ll learn follow-along routines for all levels with Eli Pabon of MetaMovements and enjoy Latin American cuisine, all for FREE!
This event is a part of a new partnership series – international moves & food – happening Wednesdays in October, 5-6:30 PM between the Hatch Shell & esplanade playspace.
Join the celebration of the vibrant and dynamic Afro-Brazilian culture at “An Evening in Brazil.“ This immersive experience will transport you to the streets of Rio through live music, electrifying samba, capoeira performances, and rich visual displays. Presented by Cornell Coley and featuring dance performances by SAMBAVIVA and Carmen S. Rizzo. Thursday, October 17 & Friday, October 18, 6:30-9:30 PM at the Hibernian Hall, 184 Dudley Street, Boston. Tickets: $12.50-$25.00.
Sara Juli presents and performs in Period.The End?, a live comedy variety show about menopause and perimenopause. Through live comedy, storytelling and a panel of experts, Period.The End? invites the audience to reinvent how we approach menopause and this exciting stage of life. Thursday, October 17, 7 PM, at The Cabot Theater, 286 Cabot Street, Beverly. Tickets: $35.
FREE! – Choreographed by Founder Betsi Graves, Urbanity‘s fall dance crawl event brings together the talent of Boston movers, musicians, storytellers, and poets to dive into the many layers of history in the South End neighborhood. This one-of-a-kind event takes you and your friends to multiple locations with performances happening at each one! Performers include: Urbanity’s Professional Company, Afrobeats Dance Boston, Dance with Parkinson’s, Urbanity’s Second Company, Urbanity 2, Urbanity Youth Companies and Crews, Nobyn and Valerie Stephens. Thursday, October 17-Saturday, October 19, 7 PM. Locations include: The Croft School, Blackstone Community Center, Ruth Lillian Barkley Apartments, Franklin Square, Bates Arts Center, Urbanity Dance, Gardens on Harrison Ave, and The Smith.
Rasik presents a new classical Indian dance concert series starting this weekend. Featuring eight acclaimed and emerging dancers, enjoy four styles of classical Indian dances – Mohiniyattam, Odissi, Bharatanatyam, and Kathak. Saturday, October 19, 7 PM and Sunday, October 27, 5 PM at The Foundry, 101 Rogers St., Cambridge. Tickets: $15-$200.
Created by New England dance artist, Ellen Smith Ahern, and collaborators from around the country, Kate Elias (WA), Pete Dybdahl (GA), Jacob Elias (NY) and Josina Guess (GA), Vulture Sister Song explores human and more-than-human relationships through story, song, sculpture and dance. With live storytelling and poetry, folk songs and electric lullabies, a migrating herd of lanterns, wild movement and a healthy dose of humor, the performance brings together artists and community members to celebrate the possibilities of vibrant interdependence. Saturday, October 19, 7-8 PM, at The Dance Complex, 536 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge. Tickets: $5-$40.
In the warm embrace of things safe and familiar, we can feel the joy of our humanity. Join Boston Moving Arts in “Welcome Home,” a soothing and stimulating evening of delicious movement of contemporary dance. Friday, October 18 & Saturday, October 19, 8 PM at the BU Dance Theater, 915 Commonwealth Ave., Boston. Tickets: $30. BDA members get 50% off!
The Click’s Monster Mash Halloween Bash is a FUNraising Halloween Performance and Party that – for one night only – will transform The Dance Complex into a spooky and spirited funhouse of tricks and treats. Come dressed in your best costume and compete in our costume contest! Take a peek into your future at our tarot reading corner! Have your Venmo locked and loaded to reach into our Halloween grab bag for a very special treat! Featuring performances by The Click, the Community Contemporary Repertory Class, and friends of the collective. Sunday, October 20, 7-9 PM, at The Dance Complex, 536 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge. Tickets: $20-$30.
FREE! – Williams College hosts a Dance Theatre Workshop with Maya Krishna Rao as a part of a residency. In this session Maya will demonstrate some elements of Kathakali – a classical dance theatre form from Kerala, India. In additon, students will get to experience a few of its principles of acting. Thursday, October 17, 4:00-5:30 PM, at the Dance Studio, 1000 Main Street, Williamstown. Also as part of this residency, Maya will perform You Really Want to Know My Story, a reflection on how skewed the criminal justice system is, how it dehumanises people who lack resources and education. Monday, October 21, 7-8 PM, at the Adams Memorial Theatre.
Kif Kif Bledi / Raissa Lei are also in residency at Williams College, offering a North-African dances & Fusion workshop. Sunday, October 20, 3-5 PM, at the MainStage. They perform Kif-Kif? Transmission! Monday, October 21, 7-8 PM, at the MainStage.
FREE! – Boston University’s Dance Theatre Group (DTG) is pleased to present MOTION ART 2024, a Fall Dance Concert. This collaborative site specific performance of dancers, singers, artists, musicians, and poets highlights the power of overlapping forms of art. It will feature performances and guests from a variety of student art-makers at BU from student groups. It will be an evening of rotating throughout the space led by guides, so there will be no seating. Thursday, October 17, 8:30 PM at 808 Gallery (entrance on Essex St.), 808 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston.
Danza Orgánica will be performing, and Mar Parrilla will join the panel on Intergenerational Trauma at the Boston Arts Activation 2024: Harmony and Healing. Saturday, October 19, 9:30 AM-6:30 PM, at the Bruce Bolling Building in Nubian Square, 2300 Washington St., Roxbury.
United Dance is thrilled to announce Arts Unbound, an inclusive art festival that promises to captivate audiences of all ages and abilities. Offering a day filled with creativity, performance, and community engagement including dance, music, and art workshop, interactive art-making stations, photo booths, storytelling sessions, games, live performances by the United Dance Company, and so much more. Saturday, October 19, 10 AM-5 PM at Northeast Arts, 85 Seaverns Ave., Jamaica Plain. Tickets/Registration: pay what you can.
North Atlantic Ballet presents Dracula. He may be a vampire, but he has an affectionate side for his victims and inherits their essence which could lead to a disastrous outcome for the Count. Saturday, October 19, 7 PM and Sunday, October 20, 12 PM at The Cabot Theater, 286 Cabot Street, Beverly. Tickets: $34.75-$68.00.
“Unbroken,” by Jo-Mé Dance Theatre includes 4 works by choreographers Naoko Brown and Joe González, featuring one that tells the story of a man’s fight for justice. Saturday, October 19, 7:30 PM at the Strand Theatre, 543 Columbia Road, Boston. Tickets: $35-$50.
Global Arts Live presents a thrilling dance group from Argentina, Malevo, which specializes in Malambo, a traditional Argentine folk dance, and merges it with urban percussion and other dance styles. Saturday, October 19, 8 PM, at the Berklee Performance Center, 136 Massachusetts Ave., Boston. Tickets: $42-$65.
BalletRox, a non profit organization, a treasured resource of the City of Boston is seeking teachers for our Boston Public School and External Partners Programs, and subs for their studio programs. They believe in giving everyone “A Chance to Dance” by providing low cost tuition and scholarships to children in need. They bring dance to the Boston Public Schools and have a robust afterschool program. BalletRox Empowers the Youth of Boston thru Dance. They are currently seeking a Musical Theatre dance teacher for the Healey School (Somerville). Program begins October 21, runs thru December on Mondays 2:35-3:35 PM. They are also seeking new, exciting Dance Teachers, Teaching Assistants, and Substitute Teachers to teach children and teens (ages 2 and up) for their external Boston Public School programs and studio classes. Teachers with a BFA, BA and/or MFA strongly encouraged to apply. BIPOC strongly encouraged to apply. A generous compensation of $60/hr will be awarded for each teacher. Teaching assistants can expect to earn $25/hour. Please send resume to: LisaDKelleher@BalletRox.info.
Local Cultural Council Programs serving every city and town in Massachusetts offer grants to projects benefiting their community. In FY25 Mass Cultural Council will invest $5.7 million into the Local Cultural Council (LCC) Program, the nation’s largest grassroots cultural funding network. Mass Cultural Council allocations to LCCs range from $5,700-$305,600, based on a formula that reflects state aid to municipalities. Deadline: October 16, 2024.
YoungArts Program application closes this week! This application-based award for emerging artists ages 15–18 or in grades 10–12 from across the United States includes cash awards of up to $10,000, mentorship, creative and professional support, nomination for U.S, Presidential Scholars in the Arts and more. Deadline: Thursday, October 17, 8 PM.
Midday’s Rough Drafts applications are now open. This process-focused program supports early and mid-career contemporary dance makers to strengthen their craft and iteration. Up to six artists/companies will be selected to participate. This program is meant to supplement artists’ current plans to create, continue developing, or re-investigate a choreographic project. Rough Drafts is not a choreographic residency and does not provide funds or rehearsal space; rather, it is a professional development opportunity intended to support artists in optimizing their current projects as a tool to reach future artistic goals. Deadline: November 10, 2024.