Battery Dance Festival, New York City’s longest-running free public dance festival, was established by Battery Dance as the Downtown Dance Festival in 1982. Pre-pandemic, it drew audiences of approximately 2,000 people each night in its iconic setting at Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Park. The Festival went virtual in 2020, attracting 30,000 viewers across 206 countries. In 2021, it ran as a hybrid model with over 10,000 in-person and over 21,000 virtual audience members. This year, the Festival welcomes in-person and live-streamed audiences from a new location at Rockefeller Park.

“When Super Storm Sandy flooded lower Manhattan, Battery Park City Authority reached out a helping hand, providing a beautiful site for the Battery Dance Festival which we’ve all enjoyed every summer since 2013. With the prospect of rising seas in future, BPCA is enacting a pro-active resiliency plan, lifting Wagner Park up to 12 feet, making it inaccessible this summer. But fear not! BPCA has invited us to move to Rockefeller Park this summer where we’ll benefit from the large lawn and river-front views, as we bask in the glow of performances by local and international companies.” – Jonathan Hollander, Founder and Artistic Director of Battery Dance

August 12, 2023 at Rockefeller Park

Young Voices in Dance

The Bowery Mission (NYC)

This summer, Battery Dance is partnering with the youth program of The Bowery Mission, which empowers children from low-income neighborhoods to thrive and succeed. A special Dancing to Connect will serve 15 middle-school girls from East Harlem and The Bronx. Working in our studios with teaching artist and former company dancer Robin Cantrell, they will collaborate to create their own dance work — then perform it onstage in the park during the Festival’s Aug. 12 “Young Voices in Dance” program.

Marley Poku-Kankam (NYC), All Four

“This piece was originally created for a composition concert in my last year of college with the Fordham/Ailey BFA Program. It is significant because it tells the story of my brothers and me. I have three brothers and our bond is unbreakable. This piece reflects on my unique relationship with each brother and how I see them. My goal with every person that experiences this work is for them to think back on their own family (related by blood or not) and savor every moment with them.” -Marley Poku-Kankam

Aliyah Banerjee & Shashank Iswara (TX), Taraana, NYC Premiere

Taraana, a Kathak-Bharatanatyam collaboration, explores acceptance and coexistence. The duet presents two ancient Indian classical styles with rigid frameworks, conveying how open-mindedly embracing the other form leads to harmony onstage, without compromise of technical purity. Using the style of “jugalbandi” (interaction between the two dancers), the work portrays its broader theme: how welcoming different identities, while preserving tradition, can create a culturally rich, conflict-free society.

Dareon Blowe (VA), How Do Five Parts Construct a Whole?, NYC Premiere

“My inspiration stemmed from the questions that we ask ourselves to facilitate growth and confront our trauma. We discussed as a group the meaning of existence, our place in society, and accepting that we have no control. We go through a journey of self-security that battles facades of ego and bravado. The dancers take us through a wave of development as a person. These are five separate entities that can also be seen as a collective. It’s about my process to self-realization, and becoming who I’ve always wanted to be, regardless of my past.” -Dareon Blowe

Mateo Vidals (NYC), There is Always Something Happening

This piece encapsulates the experience of chaos in our everyday lives. Something is always happening; how do we deal with it? We can either stand alone and give into the inevitable weight of life or smile in the face of demands and stand together. At pivotal moments in life, we are left with these two options. Through this work we discover a lighthearted yet profound series of connections, perseverance and humor as we navigate our existence.

Luke Biddinger (PA), La Vie En Rose, World Premiere

“This is my liberation. With music by my idol, Grace Jones, I was able to make something that can show the feelings that represent my life up until this moment. It’s a sort of autobiography: the story of my life in love. So I truthfully only made this for me, to find an understanding of my broken heart. It has no specific visual intention, just my juvenile instinct. So while it may be an ignorant and selfish display of my joys and sorrows, try and see your life in mine, as I am simply wearing my heart on my sleeve.” -Luke Biddinger

Cameron Kay (NYC), Interface, NYC Premiere

Cameron Kay’s most recent work Interface explores the dynamics of different energies—corporeal and conceptual—and how they interact in space. Featuring an original score composed in collaboration with Farai Malianga, Interface emphasizes how individual voices can shift space. The work visually embodies how the dancers’ bodies serve as vessels for potential and kinetic energy, how entities magnetize and repel and react to one another. The dancers play with the extremes of time, mass, and space, manipulating the bounds of forces and energy.

Samanvita Kasthuri (MO), Krtaghna, NYC Premiere

Krtaghna is an Indian-classical fusion piece that reflects on environmentalism. Krtaghna follows the story of Mother Earth caring for man and growing him with love, only for man to grow and exploit the five elements of the Earth. Mother Earth, battered and broken, has no choice but to destroy the Earth. This dance is a cautious warning to humans, urging people to be grateful to the Earth. Krtaghna utilizes traditional Indian classical elements of dance with a Western sound in its music, as well as the usage of English words and quotes.

Micah Sell (NYC), Outline, World Premiere

This work explores the literal and figurative architecture between two human beings. How do we relate to or reject the commonality between our innate structures? How do we as human beings explore one another’s outlines, shadows, patterns and textures? What happens when two human beings with the same questions encounter one another? This piece researches the process of questioning and discovery.

Queensborough Community College (NYC), Discovering, World Premiere

This work was developed as part of Battery Dance’s Dancing to Connect Teacher training program in collaboration with Queensborough Community College, under the mentorship of Aviva Geismar of QCC and Clement Mensah of Battery Dance.

Willem Sadler (Canada), Soullessly Flying, World Premiere

What happens when we leave a zone of comfort? Do we break, or do we grow? What happens when we stay within comfort? Do we refine knowledge, or become dull from repeating information? An artist’s job is to always find comfort in new spaces, to enhance their mind and their artistry. However, becoming too comfortable can poison your appetite to grow. Patterns help us learn yet we must abandon them. The best way to move forward is to break the pattern. Otherwise, the pattern begins to rot.

Tulia Marshall (NY), A fraction of a true self

“A fraction of a true self” poses the question of what would happen if all versions of yourself: past, present, future, good, bad, selfish, compliant, greedy, jealous, etc were to coexist? Would there be chaos? Would there be acceptance? This work is a physical manifestation of an exaggerated identity crisis and what it is to deal with imposter syndrome.

Joanne Hwang (NYC), Static State of Perfection

Utopias will never happen, as humans are inevitability flawed by nature. Utopia has an inherent contradictory nature, and with the conquest of this idealized perfect reality, a paradox emerges: that utopia cannot exist without dystopia.

Batara Gowa (Indonesia), Lebonna, U.S. debut

Lebonna (2022) is a dance piece inspired by the ancient oral literature of Toraja titled “Massudilalong sola Lebonna”. It tells the story of the war commander, Massudilalong Paerengan, and the most beautiful girl in his village, Lebonna. In their relationship, both of them vowed that their love would be eternal and they would remain together in life and death. They also pledged to be buried in the same grave once they passed away. However, fate had other plans, and their love story ended tragically. Sponsorship provided by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia and Kampung Seni Baruga Kaluarrang.

Battery Dance (NYC), A Certain Mood

“A Certain Mood” is inspired by the Hans Hofmann painting of the same name. Hofmann’s use of space and color gave me a feeling of darkness moving into light. As a painter, I often transpose the movement of the brushstroke into my choreography. I wanted to capture the vibrant quality of Hofmann’s work by showcasing the athletic movements of the dancers and embody the energy of the painting. -Tsai Hsi Hung

Reuel Rogers (Curaçao), Power, World Premiere

A solo dance work that explores the power to make things happen which exists within each one of us, the concept of making and achieving goals, and a celebration of the power of nature: the wind we cannot see, but feel, and the waves we can touch, but cannot hold. Sponsorship provided by Dutch Culture USA.

Keturah Stephen (NYC), A Yearning Desire, NYC Premiere

This piece was created to highlight different stages and moments in the choreographer’s life in an effort to show moments of isolation and also moments of community and the importance of relationships that we often long for. In the end, we are met with a sense of surrender, because we finally let go of what we are searching for and learn to accept who is in front of us.

Nu-World Contemporary Danse Theatre (NYC), The Called and The Chosen, NYC Premiere

The Called and The Chosen is a contemporary look at an ancient tradition as a tribe gathers for a young member’s rite of passage ceremony. Within this ceremony, the elders and ancestors guide her as they pass the mantle through prayers in a generational blessing. The work’s title refers to how Black people use faith, the Church, and each other as a place of refuge and sanctuary.

Trainor Dance Inc. (NYC), Courante

Is Courante a dance for angels, animals, or the possessed? Performed by a cast of seven from Trainor Dance, this exhilarating piece is a romp into the wilderness of the heart via pulsing, soaring, and careening bodies. Set to Caroline Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize winning composition, Courante will leave you twitching in your seat, ready to try some moves in your own body.

IMGE Dance (NYC), (no)man

(no)man is a dance rollercoaster traveling through ideas of home and identity while juxtaposing cross cultural movement as a reflection of power & privilege. Weaving together their signature fusion movement, rhythmic footwork and world music, IMGE questions who is included and excluded in this borrowed space and time.

SOLE Defined (DC), SOLE Defined LIVE, NYC Premiere

SOLE Defined LIVE is an immersive performance exploration of music and movement rooted in ancestral memory, embodied storytelling, and African Diasporic Percussive Dance. SOLE Defined LIVE performers use the body as an instrument, creating a sonic and kinesthetic symphony by synthesizing Tap, Stepping, Body Percussion, Sand Dance, Gumboot, and audience participation, interwoven with original arrangements by Tamar Greene (Hamilton), Ryan K. Johnson (STOMP), Raina William, and Patrick O’Neal.

Erv Works Dance (NYC), Veiled From the Womb

Veiled from the Womb explores memories of erasure. The grandson of an African American grandfather and Puerto Rican and White grandmother, Will’s aunts, mothers and siblings were not allowed to learn Spanish or the cultural heritage of his grandmother. The piece explores brief glimpses of that culture and its suppression as well as what it may have been like were he to have been exposed.

Jiemin Yang (NYC), Here We Root (Excerpt)

Here We Root is an original contemporary dance inspired by Asian immigrants’ stories, focusing on the Chinese diaspora in Flushing, New York. It invites audiences to experience, reflect on, and celebrate Asian immigrant identities and experiences. The piece combines movement with text, theatre, and an original score.

Teodora Velescu and Lari Giorgescu (Romania), Special People, U.S. debut

The dance performance “Special People” invites the audience to become aware of contemporary people’s exacerbated self-centered nature. The word “special” ironically describes individuals who picture themselves as superior to everybody else because they happen to be richer yet who rely on external, trivial props, and not on their inherent worth, to draw attention to themselves and claim their position on the social ladder. The performance is structured in five sequences based on an original vocabulary of movement to portray how the consuming desire for material goods impact one’s body and attitude; the fabulous costumes made by the designer and scenographer Corina Boboc and the original soundtrack complement the expressive choreography to create a vivid picture of the absurdity of a purely materialistic life. This performance is a co-production of the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, UNATC & unteatru Theatre.

Batara Gowa (Indonesia), Lebonna, U.S. debut

Lebonna (2022) is a dance piece inspired by the ancient oral literature of Toraja titled “Massudilalong sola Lebonna”. It tells the story of the war commander, Massudilalong Paerengan, and the most beautiful girl in his village, Lebonna. In their relationship, both of them vowed that their love would be eternal and they would remain together in life and death. They also pledged to be buried in the same grave once they passed away. However, fate had other plans, and their love story ended tragically. Sponsorship provided by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia and Kampung Seni Baruga Kaluarrang.

Fanike! African Dance Troupe (NYC), UPLIFTED!

UPLIFTED! represents humanity’s eternal desire for healing, strength and to be uplifted through the journey of life. UPLIFTED! shares the stories of people as they pull on their ancient history and culture to request, gather and then release their healing back into the universe.August 15, 2023 at Rockefeller Park

India Independence Day

Rudrakshya Foundation (India), Kali Krishna, NYC debut

Rudrakshya Foundation, an all-male professional troupe and school founded in 2000 by choreographer Guru Sri Bichitrananda Swain, hails from Bhubaneswar, capital of the eastern coastal Indian State of Odisha. The ancient classical dance form of Odissi to which Rudrakshya is dedicated, is depicted in the carvings of ancient Hindu temple friezes in Puri, Bhubaneswar, Konark and Cuttack. Guru Bichitrananda received training from the pre-eminent guru of Odissi, Padma Vibhushan Kelucharan Mohapatra and his leading disciple Sujata Panigrahi.and passes on his learnings and his choreographic creations to young men in the traditional form of teacher and students living and learning together.  Rudrakshya has been presented in festivals and theaters throughout India and on tour in Europe, Asia and North America. This is the troupe’s first appearance in New York City and celebrates Indian Independence Day, with sponsorship from the Consulate General of India in New York and State Bank of India – New York.

Durgesh Gangani (India), The Legacy

Durgesh will be performing works of his grandfather Pt. Sundarlal Gangani, who was a legendary Kathak Guru with a global impact and pioneering personality who brought Kathak to the Indian university education system in the year 1951.

Amarnath Ghosh (India), Maragatha Manimaya

This piece is what is known as a Tarangam in Kuchipudi which is where the dancer performs intricate rhythmic patterns while balancing on the edge of a brass plate. This piece describes the glory and splendour of Lord Krishna.

Julian Donahue Dance (NYC), Displacement

An intimate duet exploring gesture as it relates to two femme presenting bodies.

Citadel + Compagnie (Canada), Soudain l’hiver dernier

Originally created for Montréal Danse in 1987 by James Kudelka, this dance for two men explores variations on the theme of not failing someone, as lifting or supporting a body always implies some kind of trust. Here it is a bedrock of faith. Sponsorship provided by the Consulate General of Canada in New York.

Tabanka Dance Ensemble (Norway), Progress, U.S. debut

The final section of an evening-length work, Limbo Where Stereotypes go to Die, Progress is a physical push and invocation towards a “making of space” for the unpoliced Black body and its autonomy and agency in Norway. Sponsorship provided by The Royal Norwegian Consulate General in New York.

Teodora Velescu and Lari Giorgescu (Romania), Special People, U.S. debut

The dance performance “Special People” invites the audience to become aware of contemporary people’s exacerbated self-centered nature. The word “special” ironically describes individuals who picture themselves as superior to everybody else because they happen to be richer yet who rely on external, trivial props, and not on their inherent worth, to draw attention to themselves and claim their position on the social ladder. The performance is structured in five sequences based on an original vocabulary of movement to portray how the consuming desire for material goods impact one’s body and attitude; the fabulous costumes made by the designer and scenographer Corina Boboc and the original soundtrack complement the expressive choreography to create a vivid picture of the absurdity of a purely materialistic life. This performance is a co-production of the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, UNATC & unteatru Theatre.

Jerron Herman (NYC), Lax, World Premiere

Lax is a punk concert in a sleep store, at least in the mind of the performer. It’s an observation on how getting rest is athletic and energetic, through a disabled lens. Lax was commissioned by the Stephen Petronio Company for the 2023 Bloodlines (future) Program, made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Carolyn Dorfman Dance (NJ), NOW, NYC Premiere

The dance for eleven virtuosic dancers was created by renaissance artist and nationally renowned dancer/choreographer Juel D. Lane (a former Carolyn Dorfman Dance company member currently dancing with award-winning choreographer and director Camille A. Brown). NOW showcases Juel’s signature fast-paced, heart-stopping choreography in a defiant journey of thriving and creating despite the fearful and difficult time in which we continue to find ourselves.

Dancers Unlimited (Hawaii/NYC), Edible Tales (Excerpts) Soul Food & Kanaloa, NYC Premiere

The work explores cultural heritage, social justice and sustainability, using food topics. Kanaloa is the vast depths of the unconscious, the primordial connection we have to all life on earth and each other, and the origin of all fresh water. Kanaloa is the natural process of the ocean, the waves, the salt water, the currents, and all living things inside of the ocean. The ocean is the highway by which not only humans migrate across geographic areas, but our food as well. The work is a contemporary dance celebration of our origins, our migrations, the foods we bring with us. Soul Foodis a process of remembering, digging deep into the ancestral memories through percussion and dance steps to connect with ourselves, our ancestors, and heal from the trauma placed on generations of African American bodies.

In memoriam: Jennifer Muller (1944-2023)

Jennifer Muller/The Works (NYC), Miserere Nobis

Miserere Nobis (2014) is an entreaty for mercy and grace. In an age of unspeakable conflict and cruelty, loss and grief, each of us asks forgiveness for all of us.

Tribute to Turn of the 20th Century American Modern Dance Pioneers

Dances by Isadora (NYC), Isadora Duncan: Under a New Sky

A selection of works by Duncan from 1905-1923. Grand Marche was created c.1914 during Isadora’s year at Bellevue following the tragic deaths of her children in 1913. Originally set to the music of Franz Schubert, it has been reimagined here to music of African American composer George Walker (“Lament/Lyric for Strings”). In contrast, the vibrant Valse Brillante (Chopin) is offered as a quartet with a new and powerful generation of dancers.

Time Lapse Dance (NYC), American Elm and Piece for a Northern Sky

“American Elm” deepens the ongoing climate-engaged collaboration between choreographer Jody Sperling and composer Matthew Burtner. In this solo expressing human kinship with trees, the dance explores shifting tempos, from arboreal stillness to human hurriedness, to mingle the perspective of tree and person.

“Piece for a Northern Sky” is a whirling meditation on planetary motion. This piece is one of Sperling’s signature solos inspired by the style of Loie Fuller (1862–1928). Considered one of the “mothers” of modern dance, Fuller was a visionary and Queer artist with an expansive legacy. Her innovative performances conjured mesmerizing, multimedia spectacles out of fabric, motion, light and image.

Denishawn (NYC), Denishawn (Excerpts)

Audrey Ross, believing that these historic dances should be preserved and performed for contemporary audiences, gathered a group of stellar dancers to perform dances by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, the titular Mother and Father of American Modern Dance. Performances took place October 2021 at the Theatre at St. Jean’s in NYC, and select works will be revived specifically for the Battery Dance Festival.

Lori Belilove/The Isadora Duncan Dance Company (NYC), Tribute to Ukraine

Artistic Director Lori Belilove and her Company pay homage to the Ukraine. The Company performs this work honoring the heroism and valor and grit of the Ukrainian people. Belilove, herself a descendant of Ukrainian ancestry, reimagines these dances that evoke the cry, the terror, the loss.

Adriana Ogle & Toru Sakuragi (NYC), Softly as in a Morning Glow

Toru previously choreographed “Softly as in a Morning Sunrise” with an exploration of flow, rhythm, grounding, and playfulness in mind. Adriana first choreographed to “Moonglow” as a dedication to Dianne “Lady Di” Walker. In collaboration, the choreography evolves and deepens alongside new understandings of the artists’ personal roles/identities in tap dance.

Amanda Treiber (NYC), Wind-Up

Wind-Up is a playful contemporary ballet for four dancers drawing inspiration from flocking birds and what their relationships might be to each other, with music by Ryan Anthony Francis. The music also borrows themes from other musical works that reference birdsong.

Bruce Wood Dance (TX), In My Your Head, NYC Premiere

In My Your Head, by artistic director and resident choreographer Joy Bollinger, is a viscerally kinetic work set to the music of British pop band Radiohead. The piece explores the emotional shades of a disillusioned generation in contemporary American society. In My Your Head addresses the effects of propaganda, government distrust, and future frailty, shifting from the mundane, to the mad, to the mournful at both a tender and riveting pace.

Citadel + Compagnie (Canada), Soudain l’hiver dernier

Originally created for Montréal Danse in 1987 by James Kudelka, this dance for two men explores variations on the theme of not failing someone, as lifting or supporting a body always implies some kind of trust. Here it is a bedrock of faith. Sponsorship provided by the Consulate General of Canada in New York.

Boca Tuya (NYC), Like Those Playground Kids at Midnight

Like Those Playground Kids at Midnight is a highly physical and intimate duet work by Omar Román De Jesús, filled with tenderness, connection and trust, set to Songs My Mother Taught Me from Gypsy Melodie, Op. 55, by Yo-Yo Ma & Kathryn Stott.

Tabanka Dance Ensemble (Norway), Progress, U.S. debut

The final section of an evening-length work, Limbo Where Stereotypes go to Die, Progress is a physical push and invocation towards a “making of space” for the unpoliced Black body and its autonomy and agency in Norway. Sponsorship provided by The Royal Norwegian Consulate General in New York.

Reuel Rogers (Curaçao), Power, World Premiere

A solo dance work that explores the power to make things happen which exists within each one of us, the concept of making and achieving goals, and a celebration of the power of nature: the wind we cannot see, but feel, and the waves we can touch, but cannot hold. Sponsorship provided by Dutch Culture USA.

Battery Dance (NYC), The Wind in the Olive Grove

Saeed Hani explores the sense of home in Hofmann’s Olive Grove and Wind paintings, and its relation to the natural beauty of Syria and the spiral of war that has forced a generation of artists to flee. The olive tree is a symbol of his Syrian homeland and reminds him of a time of innocence during his childhood when no one could conceive that events would tear the country apart. In utter contrast is Hofmann’s representation of wind which represents, for Hani, the upheaval and chaos that descended on his country and forced him to leave.