The NORD/NOBA Center for Dance, a cultural community partnership between the New Orleans Recreation Department (NORD) and the New Orleans Ballet Association (NOBA) offering free dance programming to local youth, has been selected to perform at three upcoming Louisiana arts festivals. The company will appear at the fourth annual Louisiana Dance Festival in Baton Rouge on Saturday, October 3, at the 34th annual Red River Revel Fest in Shreveport on Saturday, October 10, and at the New Orleans Fringe Festival on November 13, 14, and 15..
This state-wide tour comes on the heels of the company’s third national summer tour. Since its inception in 1992, the NORD/NOBA Center for Dance program has continuously garnered national attention and awards, as well as invitations to appear on national stages. This recognition has steadily increased since Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, when the free dance program was one of the first community activities back in action.
Most recently, the company was chosen to perform at the renowned Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC in May 2009. In addition, the company was selected in 2007 to perform at Jacob's Pillow, the longest running international dance festival in the United States. They kicked off that tour with a performance at MNR Dance Factory in Los Angeles and then traveled to Alabama to represent New Orleans at the esteemed National Dance Education Organization Conference. In 2008, the company was also selected to perform on the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center, in Washington, DC.
At the Louisiana Dance Festival in Baton Rouge, the company will perform excerpts from Robert Battle’s 2002 work Alleluia, a piece they first debuted at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in May. At the Red River Revel and Fringe Festival, in addition to Alleluia, the dancers will present In the Spirit of U, a work created by Alfred Dove for the Company in 2008 in memory of his brother, famous dancer and choreographer Ulysses Dove. The Red River Revel and Fringe Festival appearances will also include The Heart to Hurt Ratio and Beautiful Subdivisions, two works created explicitly for the CFD Company by local artists Meredith Early and Maritza Mercado-Narcisse. NORD/NOBA Center for Dance students Lauren Landry, Zuzanna Mrozek, Courtney Ross, Raven Ross and Jonesha Spears will be joined on stage by local artists and CFD faculty Aline de Souza, Maritza Mercado-Narcisse and Erin Reho.
The Louisiana Dance Festival, hosted by the Louisiana Alliance for Dance, provides opportunities to showcase the excellent dance talent and choreographic artistry existing throughout Louisiana. The festival connects the dance community of Louisiana through quality workshops, master classes, and networking experiences.
The Red River Revel, winner of the 1988 President’s Volunteer Action Award, began in 1976 as the Junior League of Shreveport’s Bicentennial gift to the citizens of the region. The festival celebrates the arts with more than 100 visual artists from across the country, four performance stages that feature live music, and a large area dedicated specifically to providing arts education for children.
The New Orleans Fringe Festival, November 11-15, will be an extraordinary five days of theater, performance art and spectacle. Forty groups from around the country and New Orleans will be presenting over 120 shows in venues across the city. The shows include the exotic, the dramatic and the insane: drama, dance, one-person shows, cabaret, comedy, puppetry, clowning, improvisational, aerialist and many other creative works.
Currently celebrating its 40th Anniversary Season, NOBA is the Central Gulf region’s premiere presenting and service organization dedicated solely to the art of dance. NOBA’s dynamic Main Stage season annually features a diverse array of world-class companies and artists. Each year NOBA provides concerts, classes, workshops and lectures to more than 25,000 area dance enthusiasts of all ages. In addition, NOBA’s nationally recognized award-winning education programs provide the youth of our community access to quality arts programs with 2,500 activities annually through performances, classes, and workshops, more than 90% of which are free. The NOBA programs are a recipient of the 2005 Louisiana Governor’s Arts Award, and 2005 Big Easy Classical Arts Award.
The NORD/NOBA Center For Dance is a cultural community partnership between the New Orleans Recreation Department (NORD) and the New Orleans Ballet Association (NOBA). Founded in 1992 with seed money from the Freeport-McMoran Foundation, The Center was born out of a need to make dance accessible to all school-age children. A program that began with just 30 students now has an annual gross enrollment of more than 300 children at 5 NORD centers citywide. With a core curriculum of ballet, classes are open to any child in Orleans Parish with a demonstrated interest in dance. Through a professional faculty, master classes by NOBA Main Stage artists and other visiting artists, a mentor program and field trips, the Center works with each child to cultivate dreams and strengthen futures. The Center is the recipient of 2002 Coming Up Taller Award, nominated for the Big Easy Classical Arts Award for best dance performance, and has received national grants through the NEA and the National Guild of Community Schools for the Arts.
Photo by photo by Jonas Lundqvist
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