Dallas Black Dance Theatre Featured In International Dance Day Festival

International Dance Day is an annual global celebration of dance held on April 29th. The International Theatre Institute (ITI) will present an online celebration of video excerpts by dance companies from 17 countries. Representing the U.S. is Dallas Black Dance Theatre and Rennie Harris Pure Movement.

The virtual dance festival can be viewed on the International Dance Day website: https://www.international-dance-day.org/mainevent.html. The program starts Thursday, April 29, 2021, at 7:00 am CDT, and the U.S. section of the program begins approximately at 9:00 am CDT.

Dallas Black Dance Theatre will present the "Cool Water" segment of ODETTA, choreographed by Matthew Rushing, associate artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. The Reimagined 2021 duet, set to the Odetta Holmes song "Cool Water," was filmed outdoors on a pier at Dallas' White Rock Lake. Set to the musical genius of Odetta Holmes, the work pays tribute to Odetta's musical range of folk, gospel, and blues music. It had its world premiere in 2014 with the Ailey company and its DBDT premiere in 2019.

DBDT's 44th season has been entirely virtual, with many of its stage performances reimaged on film across the Dallas landscape. During the summer of 2020, Dallas Black Dance Theatre became the first professional dance company nationally and internationally to consistently present paid virtual performances as a new business model after the closing of live performances due to the COVID-19 pandemic. DBDT is the oldest and largest professional dance company in Dallas, the fourth largest African American dance company, and the tenth largest arts organization of color in the United States. The company consists of 12 professional, multi-ethnic, full-time dancers performing a mixed repertory of modern, jazz, ethnic and spiritual works by nationally and internationally known choreographers.

ITI first launched International Dance Day in 1982. It is celebrated every year on April 29th, the birthday of Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810), creator of modern ballet. The International Dance Day message is to celebrate dance, revel in the universality of this art form, cross all political, cultural, and ethnic barriers, and bring people together with a common language - dance.

For more details, visit www.DBDT.com and www.dbdt.com/academy.