CT Dance Now!
An annual series of virtual dance events hosted by Connecticut Dance Alliance in partnership with Connecticut University and Collegiate dance departments and the Quick Center at Fairfield University. Events will consist of performances, discussions and classes offered by dance professionals, artists and educators representing dance across the state.
The CT Dance Now! series is free. Our programs and events are supported by our membership and tax-deductible donations.
The Roots of Jazz
with
Melanie George
March 27, 2023
6-7 PM
Named one of Dance Magazine’s 30 over 30, Melanie George is the founder and director of Jazz Is… Dance Project and Associate Curator and Director of Artist Initiatives at Jacob’s Pillow. As a dramaturg, she has contributed to projects by Raja Feather Kelly, LaTasha Barnes, Susan Marshall, Alice Sheppard, Machine Dazzle, and Urban Bush Women, among others. Melanie is featured in the documentary UpRooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance, and founded the global advocacy website jazzdancedirect.com. Publications include chapters in Working Together in Qualitative Research,Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches, and Rooted Jazz Dance: Africanist Aesthetics and Equity in the Twenty-First Century. She is the former Dance Program Director at American University, and has guest lectured at Harvard University, the Yale School of Drama, and The Juilliard School. Melanie is the recipient of the Outstanding Leadership Award from the National Dance Education Organization.
Register Here
Past Events
Elm City Dance Collective
A New Haven Arts Organization Fulfilling its Commitment to Service
November 7, 2022
6-7 PM
Lindsey Bauer and Kellie Ann Lynch, Co-Artistic Directors of Elm City Dance Collective, will present a slide-show with mixed media to demonstrate the breadth ECDC’s work in New Haven. They will discuss the who of ECDC, why the organization exists, and how ECDC fulfills its commitment to service as a New Haven-based arts organization.
Broadening our Reach
Connecticut College Dance Professor Shani Collins
October 3, 2022
6-7 PM
An evening highlighting and celebrating the work of Shani Collins. Shani Collins Achille first stepped foot on Connecticut College’s campus as a performer in the OnStage performance series in Palmer Auditorium. She joined Connecticut College in 2009 and now, with profound gratitude, shares her work with this community as she continues to experience teaching/learning, building history, and culture through dance.
Ballet Pedagogy
The Hartt School, University of Hartford
March 7, 2022
6-7 PM
Come join members of the Hartt School’s Ballet Pedagogy program and take a look inside the process of preparing the next generation of ballet teachers in the evolving science and art of teaching this art form.
Introduction to Bharatanatyam Dance with Hari Krishnan,
Wesleyan University
February 14, 2022
6-7 PM
This virtual session will introduce you to Bharatanatyam, the classical dance style from South India and will focus on its beautiful dynamism, rigor, and detailed oriented movement, accentuating the hands, feet and face. The class will introduce you to the fundamental aesthetic, social and technical principles underscoring the culture of the dance from classical and contemporary contexts. You will learn the fundamentals of Bharatanatyam technique in the form of rhythmic and interpretive phrase work.
Trinity College Dance Department
January 31, 2022
6-7 PM
The evening will feature discussions with Ginette Christie, Rebecca Pappas & Arien Wilkerson about what it means to make work as Hartford artists and collaborate with student performers and a preview of Trinity’s spring dance concert
Sacred Heart University Dance Program
December 13, 2021
6-7 PM
Join us for an overview of the Sacred Heart University Dance Program hosted by Assistant Director of Dance, McClaine Timmerman, and 4 current students.
Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts Half Day Program Presents
“We Danced Through the Pandemic”
November 29, 2021
6 – 7 PM
Trinity College Presents Sound in Motion
Monday, October 25, 2021
6-7 PM
How might sound and motion live together in dance? What excites the ear and the eye? What troubles them? What traditions inform how we invent in these art forms today? Choreographers Peter Kyle and Rachna Agrawal, Trinity College Department of Theater and Dance faculty members, are joined by their musical collaborators, James Bigbee Carver and Shahzad Anjum, to explore these and other creative questions surrounding the wondrous partnership between music and dance. The program will conclude with a Q & A with the artists.
Dancing Under All Conditions!
A Dance Class with Katja Kolcio, Wesleyan University
Monday, October 4, 2021
6-7 PM
This dance class will combine a mindful-movement warm-up, creative exploration, a full bodied energetic movement phrase, group-movement-listening, and a breath and focus-oriented meditative ending.
During any major social transformation or crisis, like this pandemic, movement practice is essential. Our world and our rules of engagement are changing before our eyes. Creative physical movement is integral to our physical and psycho-social well-being, and through it we learn how to navigate our world. On a basic level, we dance to energize our muscles, to stimulate circulation of blood, breath, oxygen. But, equally important, we also need to move in ways that help us adjust physically, and make sense of our circumstances–to orient ourselves to our new environment. We dance to feel joy, and sometimes we dance to simply feel. This is the overarching purpose of this class: to experiment with new ways of moving, imagining, being and collectively creating our world.