INTERVIEW: Battery Park City hosts 36th annual dance festival
The lower tip of Manhattan put on its dancing shoes this past weekend with the 36th annual Battery Dance Festival, presented by Battery Dance in association with Battery Park City Authority. From now until Aug. 19, audiences can catch a variety of free dance performances from cutting-edge companies from around the world. The action begins nightly at 7 p.m. at Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park in Battery Park City, New York City. The closing night performance, which is ticketed, begins at 6 p.m. at The Schimmel Center at Pace University.
If readers head to Battery Park this week, they won’t be alone. Each year, the festival gathers a crowd of approximately 12,000 spectators.
This year’s offerings include routines from Fadi J. Khoury’s FJK Dance, Dimple Saikia, Buglisi Dance Theatre, Mophato Dance Theatre from Botswana, The Movement Playground and Bollylicious from Belgium, among many, many others.
At the center of the festival is Jonathan Hollander, director of Battery Dance. Recently, Hollander exchanged emails with Hollywood Soapbox about what audiences can expect this year. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What can fans of Battery Dance expect at this year’s festival?
Six evenings of glorious performances against Manhattan’s most spectacular backdrop and one indoors performance with an eye-catching display of dance from Belgium, Botswana and the U.S.
How challenging is it to pull all of the performers together and handle logistics?
We work year-round in order to curate and coordinate all of the myriad details that go into presenting the festival each year. Thirty-six years is a long haul — NYC’s longest, in fact — but each year we get a little more proficient, and, of course, the results are more than worth it!
What makes this space in Battery Park so special?
Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Park is a treasure! The natural amphitheater formation, with the stage on the Esplanade and the audience on a graded upper level, gives the impression of an ‘infinity stage’ with the dancers appearing to dance on the water. Magical!
Why is it important to keep the event free for audiences?
Battery Dance’s mantra is artistic excellence — social relevance and access to the arts for everyone. Being able to offer the festival free to all is our annual give-back to the community that supports us. We want to open minds and hearts to the beautiful art form of dance, to expose people to the wonders that exist right under their noses here in New York City and to the precious artistry that we are lucky to encounter in our cultural diplomacy tours overseas. The festival gives us that opportunity each year, and it is one of the most important elements of our legacy.
Do you believe the company’s continued success has helped to achieve the original goals of Battery Dance?
Quite honestly, we were very modest in our goals at the onset back in 1976. We believed that there could be an ever-expanding audience for dance, if people were exposed to the art form as part of their daily lives — encountering dance in parks, plazas and piers of lower Manhattan during the workday. That philosophy proved to be compelling, not only at home, but overseas as well.
For example, we helped colleagues in South Africa to replicate our festival in Cape Town! We have achieved more than four decades of dancing, teaching, producing, carrying forth our endeavor to create riveting works of dance that illuminate, inspire and intrigue audiences.
In addition, we believe that together we can be stronger — and that explains our embrace of collaboration, partnerships and providing opportunities for our colleagues to show their work on our stage, providing low-cost studio space in our Tribeca home and sharing our best practices through our on-line cultural diplomacy toolkit: http://toolkit.batterydance.org.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Battery Dance Festival continues this week until Aug. 19. Click here for more information and tickets to the closing-night performance at The Schimmel at Pace University.
