Dance Rising: NYC to Present A Second Hyper-Local Dance Out

Dance Rising: NYC presents a second hyper-local dance out across all five boroughs on December 3 and 5, 2020 from 3-3:30pm.

NYC professional dancers will take to the parks, streets, and rooftops to dance, focusing public attention on an industry that is struggling to survive due to closures and lack of support during COVID. All artists identifying as a professional dancer, choreographer or teacher are invited to take part. To sign up and for more information, visit www.dancerising.org/.

Dance Rising NYC is a platform for embodied advocacy that affirms the importance of dance in all its forms, makes dance visible in a reopening landscape, and sparks crucial conversations about the future of the field in NYC.Dance Rising was formed in August 2020 in response to the pandemic by a collective of NYC dance artists and administrators, and is led by Melissa Riker, director of Kinesis Project dance theatre.

Riker said "The economic impact of the pandemic on the dance industry has been devastating. Most dance professionals lost all or a majority of their work when theaters, studios, and outdoor festivals shut down in March, and there is still no clear timeline of when it will be possible to return to teaching, rehearsing, and performing in person. Dance Rising is the dance industry's way of sharing the incredible skills of our city's beautiful artists, while reminding lawmakers and audiences that dance and dancers need their support in this time of public health crisis and closure."

A physical, visible advocacy platform that unites the dance industry and amplifies diverse voices and bodies, Dance Rising NYC focuses public attention on the field and engages with stakeholders about partnership and possibility. It also provides audiences with opportunities to enjoy safe, site-specific live performances and celebrates local artists--a potent reminder of the importance of arts and culture in NYC.

Dance Rising is based on two interconnected components that encompass live and video formats:

• Hyper local dance-outs: a mass, city-wide, physically distanced action of hundreds of professional dance artists in all styles and forms, each dancing at a location of their choice on specific dates and times. More than 200 dance artists across all five boroughs participated in Dance Rising's first hyper-local dance-out, held on October 1 and 3, 2020.

• Large-scale video and projections: in the coming months, screens and surfaces across the city will display footage from these dance-outs, bringing visibility to the industry at a time when live performance is on pause.

Are you a dancer, choreographer, or other dance professional in any dance form? Sign up. Get the score. Grab a friend to film you and dance indoors or outdoors on December 3 and/or December 5. Spread the word to your colleagues. https://bit.ly/SignUpDanceRising

Help the Dance Rising Team multiply participants in all dance forms to get the NYC dance industry out on the streets on December 3 and December 5. Help amplify the event with your own promotion. Our goal is to activate at least 500 dancers. The organization toolkit can be found here: https://bit.ly/DROutreachToolkit

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