Triple Threat Dance Showcase Set for SOPAC, 2/19

SOPAC will present an exciting and unique dance showcase featuring three different genres of dance; Modern, Tap, and one that fuses West African Dance with the more contemporary Modern style. The Triple Threat Dance Showcase features performances inspired by the African diaspora, a modern dance company that is renowned for creating emotionally-driven work with a bold athletic style, and the joy and infectious spirit of the uniquely American art form called tap. Umoja Dance Company, Freespace Dance, NJ TAP Dance Ensemble, and will perform their idiomatic talents in a rare night that features three strikingly different types of dance. Tickets to the performance are $15-$20 and can be purchased online at SOPACnow.org, or by calling the box office at (973) 313-2787.

Donna Scro, Artistic Director of the Montclair-based Freespace Dance, focuses on the connection of human emotion and experience when approaching her choreography. "I hope the audience will walk away with an appreciation for different genres of dance and to recognize that the world of dance is rich and varied. To see that within the different scopes of dance, movement has a wide range of vocabulary to express art. In my portion, I hope to move the audience in thought and emotion," says Ms. Scro.

Ms. Scro received a 2008 Fellowship from New Jersey State Council on the Arts, for excellence in choreography. She has performed at some of the most internationally prestigious venues, including The Paris Opera House, Theatre de la Ville, the American Dance Festival (Korea and North Carolina), Spoleto Festival, Jacob's Pillow, The Egg, and in New York City at the Joyce Theater, The New Victory Theater, Central Park Summer Stage, Symphony Space, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, and Lincoln Center Out of Doors.

New Jersey Tap Dance Ensemble's mission is to preserve and promote the American art form of rhythm tap dancing. Artistic Director Deborah Mitchell is the recipient of some of tap dancing's most prestigious awards including the 2012 Living Legend Award, Flint, MI; Lifetime Achievement Flo-Bert Award 2007, NY; The Hoofer Award, 2007 NY; The Living Treasure Award 2007, Oklahoma City University; Savion Glover Award 2006. The company is based in Bloomfield.

Umoja Dance Company (Union) hopes attendees leave with an "interactive communal sharing of peace and love of African dance, drum and culture."

Karen Love, Artistic Director of Umoja Dance Company has won The New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Grant in 1995 and the Harkness Choreographers Space Grant at SUNY Purchase in 1993 and 1994. In 1997, Ms. Love was invited to The Bates Dance Festival in Maine as an Emerging Choreographer and later returned to teach for the Young Dancers Program. She was selected as a choreographer for the Choreographer/Dancer residency at the Yard on Martha's Vineyard.

Dance performances at SOPAC are supported in part by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and the Gertrude L. Hirsch Charitable Trust.

The dancers bring their steps to the SOPAC stage on February 19 at 8:00 p.m. Tickets are $15-$20 and can be purchased online at SOPACnow.org, or by calling the box office at (973) 313-2787.