Delaware County Dance Festival Steps Onto Media Theatre Stage, 8/2

The first Delaware County Dance Festival, which organizers are expecting to become an annual event, will kick off on Thursday, August 2 at The Media Theatre. It all starts at 7pm with several local dance companies, troupes, and solo performers highlighting various genres of dance.

Jesse Cline, the theatre’s artistic director, looks forward to the showcase of one of the most popular elements of music theatre. “Audiences love to watch all of the types of dance including modern, ballet, jazz, and even hip hop,” he said. “This event will be ongoing each summer, with more dates on the schedule in the future, and is the beginning of a Media Theatre Arts Festival for us and other non-profits involved in the performing arts. We will create a Media Performing Arts Council with the focus being on the performing arts.”

Deborah Krull, a new member of The Media Theatre’s Board of Directors, has worked with Cline in getting the momentum for the festival. “When Jesse mentioned the proposal, it connected with me as my daughter is a young dancer,” she said. “Our family loves every style of dance and the importance it has to our culture as a whole.”

Cline continued, “Dance is a very specific form of communication,” he said. “It became an important part of storytelling in music theatre when Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma utilized it for the first time as a major part of a musicals’ narrative. As Delaware County’s most popular music theatre, a Delaware County Dance Festival is a logical event for us.”

“The festival allows various dance companies and performers an opportunity to have a space to perform their unique pieces within an evening focusing on all of them for one ticket price and on the same stage” Krull said.

Participants in the festival include the renowned Academy of International Ballet Classique, based in Media. Maintained by artistic director Denis Gronostayskiy and executive director Josie Singer, the company is a non-profit corporation which is the first and only professional ballet company in Delaware County, which includes its school.

Broadway Bound Dance Academy will also perform. Also based in Media, the company is dedicated to the principle that dance is for everyone, from the youngest of children to the mature adult. Donna Rannalli, the Director for Broadway Bound, focuses on a nurturing principle that allows each individual dancer to find their own pace to excellence.

The Lansdowne based MM2 Modern Dance Company, under the direction of Steven Weisz, has established itself as an incubator, providing support, space and opportunities for new emerging dance artists, who wish to explore the choreographic process, in order to cultivate and introduce new work to new audiences. Weisz looks forward to the August 2 festival saying "This celebration of dance will support and promote artistic vitality in the region."

Touch of Class Dance Studio based in Broomall and Downingtown is also involved. Debbie Apalucci is their director and her website states that they provide quality dance education to all ages in a manner which will develop technical ability and personal self-esteem.

Another Media based company, Sangha Space, is represented as well. Lori Coyle is the director. She explains that “Our goal is to bring the joy of Argentine Tango dancing to the borough and the region. We connect with ourselves in classes and social settings and remind the community that our movement is a part of our practice of living a healthy satisfying life.”

Regionally based educator Sun Mi Cho is highlighted as well. She believes that “Teaching is a partnership with students layered with a foundation of admiration and respect, with absolute investment.” Her ballet is created through good health, a strong core of training and pure technique.

In Cline’s School of Theatre, and, in particular, The New School, he instructs on Monday nights, follows the basic premise put forth by legendary instructor Sanford Meisner that “Acting is living as truthfully as one can under an imaginary circumstance.” He says, “That philosophy is particularly true of the participants in this dance festival. Without the basic core of truth, the communication does not take place. This is a perfect tie-in with our mission.”

For tickets to The Delaware County Dance Festival visit mediatheatre.org or call 610-891-0100.