Broadway Dance Comes to bergenPAC with New Jersey Ballet Tonight

Broadway dance comes to the bergenPAC when the New Jersey Ballet revives "Ballet on Broadway" Saturday, May 2 at 8PM in Englewood.

Featured are two Broadway production numbers by award-winning choreographer Patti Colombo; the Challenge Dance from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Too Darn Hot from Kiss Me Kate. Plus the New Jersey premiere of March, a fast, flashy, high-steppin' ensemble piece by Broadway veteran James Kinney that's bound to make you feel deliriously, glad-to-be-alive happy.

Earlier this year, James choreographed an original new dance work for DANCE TRACKS NYC, set to Stephen Sondheim's "Another Hundred People" (part of a three-part suite) inspired by a recording with an orchestration by Luther Henderson and conducted by Paul Gemignani, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The piece was performed with a hand selected group of 7 dancers at Lincoln Center's Clark Theater. The piece generated excitement and Dance Tracks Director Pamela Pardi asked James to continue fleshing out the piece and come back in April for another showcase at The Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. He expanded the piece to 12 dancers. That piece had a Working Title of "March" and also included the music of George Gershwin, which was the remainder of the three-part suite. For this New Jersey Ballet debut, Kinney is being assisted by Jessica Dillan, who danced the female principle role in the original staging. 

Ballet on Broadway takes place at bergenPAC, 35 North Van Brunt, Englewood. Tickets range from $20 to $50. Click here for more information.

This season, New Jersey Ballet becomes the first New Jersey dance company to reach the half century mark and only the second professional performing arts organization in the state to do so.

For nearly half a century, New Jersey Ballet has thrilled audiences from Bergen to Cape May with top quality professional ballet and has given hundreds of thousands of adults and children their first introduction to ballet and inspired in many a lifelong love of the arts.

The repertory includes works choreographed by some of the greatest names in the world of dance: Balanchine, deMille, Tudor, Nebrada, North, Pourfarrokh, Taras, Sappington, Renvall, Tomal, Vernon, Vesak, Petipa, Chabukiany, Saint Leon and Bournonville. The company's artistic advisors include 3 of the greatest international dancers of the 20th century; Edward Villella, Eleanor D'Antuono and Leonid Kozlov, who coach the dancers in repertory they themselves danced at New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre and the Bolshoi.