WHITE WAVE Dance to Present 2016 DUMBO Dance Festival This Fall

On Thursday, September 29, 2016, WHITE WAVE Dance celebrates the 16th Anniversary season of the DUMBO Dance Festival (DDF) with a Gala Opening that heralds the most anticipated four-day festival of contemporary dance in the greater New York City region. Committed to the development in dance as an important art form, WHITE WAVE scours the globe in search of the most innovative of today's dance makers, both emerging and established, and brings them to Brooklyn for one extended weekend.

For four nights and three days, dance lovers will experience a veritable cornucopia of the best of contemporary dance. The DUMBO Dance festival is committed to advancing the best of dance by providing on-stage and behind-the-scene opportunities for 70 dance troupes from across America and the globe, allowing them to experience, first-hand, the incomparable vitality of the New York dance experience

"This is a festival about opportunities," says Young Soon Kim, Artistic Director of White Wave Dance "The DUMBO Dance Festival provides an opportunity for over 300 performing artists to showcase their work. Further, it offers New York audiences the chance to participate in one of the most diverse displays of leading-edge choreography and excellence at no cost."

Again, this year's WHITE WAVE's annual DUMBO Dance Festival will be presented in association with Gelsey Kirkland ArtsCenter in their the state-of-the-art, 333-seat theater, located at the heart of DUMBO.

The Gala evening features performances by the two host companies, WHITE WAVE Young Soon Kim Dance Company and Gelsey Kirkland Ballet. Joining them will be the New York premieres of works by Oniin Dance (Italy), Joseph Toonga/ Just Us Dance Theatre (England), RH+ (Renata Skobo + Hyun Kim (Poland), as well as of bones||hollye bynum (New York), and Annielille Gavino-Kollman (Virginia).

With all performances free of charge, the 16th DUMBO Dance Festival features 70 contemporary dance troupes combining over 300 artists who will present solo, chamber, and full scale works. Dancers from across the United States, Canada, Hungary, Poland, England, Japan, South Korea, and Italy will join the New York's active dance community to offer the full range of new directions in dance in the 21st century.

In this anniversary year, the roster of companies includes: Tina Croll + Company, Spaces of Fontana|Dance Collective, Michiko Kiyofuji, JANOS FELEDI-FELEDI PROJECT, The Now Unboxing Project, Annielille Gavino-Kollman/Malayaworks, Lauren Beirne Dance Works, Winnie Berger/Mook Dance Company, Aimee Plauche & Performers, Left Side Labs, AJ Sharp, Jihyun Kim, Chien-Ying Wang & Paul C. Ocampo, Daniel Ching, Amanda Hinchey & Dancers, Joseph Toonga/Just Us Dance Theatre, Chuck Wilt/UNA Projects, Svetlana Khoruzhina, Tracy Halloran Pearson/ConteXture dance Detroit , XAOC Contemporary Ballet/Eryn Renee Young, Joyce King/JKing Dance Company, Danielle Staropoli, Johnnie Cruise Mercer/TheREDproject, Victor Lozano, Ellen Sickenberger, Michel Ashley Chord, Valerie Alpert/VADCO, Austin Goodwin, Susan Koper/sk dancers, [ V E S S E L S ] Kris Seto + Shoey Sun, Carolyn Dorfman Dance, Carolyn Dorfman Dance, Mary Seidman and Dancers, Guidong Zhou, Verlezza/Fois, Amos Pinhasi, Andrew Jannetti & Dancers, IAM Arts, JUNGYUN, PARK/BUSAN ARTIST6, Eisenhower Dance, Jin-Wen Yu, Micaela Taylor, Daniel Padierna, FJK Dance, Erick Montes/Danceable Projects, Jordyn Kahler, Tomomi Imai & Dancers, Sung Ok Choi/Meta Dance Project, Junghwan kim, bom kim /Aandamiro art company, of bones||hollye bynum, The Chimera Project, Jeanette Stoner and Dancers, Nickolas Fields, Pascal Rekoert/Flexicurve, Devin Richey, RH+ (Renata Skobo + Hyun Kim), Gelsey Kirkland Ballet, Oniin Dance Company, WHITE WAVE Young Soon Kim Dance Company, and more.

In its commitment to presenting dance for all, the 16th annual DUMBO Dance Festival is proud to announce the following events in its exciting 2016 program:

Family-Friendly Program: Sunday, 2nd October, 12 noon-3pm
Celebrating the next generation of dancers... and their parents (!) WHITE WAVE's Kids Can Dance education program will lead Hip Hop/B-boy and Modern Dance classes for kids of all ages. Following the class, nine companies will take to the stage in a fun, exciting, and educational program featuring the best, family-friendly performances of the 2016 festival.

The full performance schedule will follow next week.

Founded by Korean-born Ms. Young Soon Kim in 1988, the WHITE WAVE Young Soon Kim Dance Company is dedicated to inspire audiences through multi-dimensional dance productions reflecting themes and philosophies of both modern and timeless. Our mission is to be a potent stimulus for evolution and expansion of the dance/arts world. By producing dance concerts, festivals, and educational activities, WHITE WAVE provides both emerging and established choreographers/companies with an environment where they can congregate, create, and present new dance works in the midst of the world's foremost dance scene, New York City.

WHITE WAVE created the DUMBO Dance Festival in 2001 in response to the dance community's need for performance opportunities that would not only present, but also produce the work of rising choreographers at little or no cost to the artist. The festival is now recognized as New York's most prestigious gathering of choreographic excellence encouraging exploration, creativity, and originality. For the past 14 years, White Wave has presented festivals at WHITE WAVE John Ryan Theater in DUMBO. In 2015, after the loss of our own home theater our festivals were presented in partnership with the Gelsey Kirkland ArtsCenter (DUMBO Dance Festival) and the 92 Y Harness Dance Center (2016 Wave Rising Series), marking the beginning of a new era for WHITE WAVE's festivals.

WHITE WAVE's festivals have garnered critical acclaim from The New York Times, PBS Ch.13 "NYC-Arts", The Wall Street Journal, The Daily News, The Village Voice, Channel 7 "Eyewitness News," and Dance Magazine. As WHITE WAVE has grown, so has the buzz surrounding us, garnering rave reviews in the local and international media. In its 16 year's history, WHITE WAVE Dance has presented over 2,600 choreographers/dance companies and over 13,500 performers to a total of more than 70,500 Audience members.

Visit www.whitewavedance.com for more information about the GALA OPENING NIGHT ticket and DUMBO Dance Festival.