Battery Dance Festival

Battery Dance Festival, New York City’s longest-running free public dance festival, was established by Battery Dance as the Downtown Dance Festival in 1982. It draws in-person audiences of approximately 2,000 people each night from the large downtown population of workers, residents, families, tourists, senior citizens and dance fans from the greater NYC metropolitan area and beyond. The Festival went virtual in 2020, attracting 30,000 viewers across 206 countries. In 2021, it ran as a hybrid model with over 10,000 in-person and over 21,000 virtual audience members. Since 2023, the Festival has welcomed in-person and live-streamed audiences from its new home at Rockefeller Park.

“There's something about the sense of community, the sharing of cultures, the plethora of dance styles under the changing light from the late summer sky that invigorates the spirit every August. To our tried-and-true fans, we say ‘see you again soon!’ To newcomers, we look forward to surprising you with the beauty of Rockefeller Park and the delight of seeing phenomenal dance companies in the open-air setting,” said Jonathan Hollander, Founder and Artistic Director of Battery Dance.

Performance Schedule:

Sunday, August 11: A’nó:wara Dance Theatre; Battery Dance; Focus Dance Company; Sun Kim Dance Theatre; Alexandra F. Light; McKoy Dance Project || MDP; wee dance company.

2024 FESTIVAL ARTISTS (roster subject to change):

Sunday August 11:

A’nó:wara Dance Theatre (Montréal, Canada)

Hoop Dance and Where Do We Meet?, US premieres

Hoop Dance: The hoop dance is an Indigenous dance that has been shared across powwows all over Turtle Island (North America). It is a dance where the dancer tells stories by weaving intricate shapes from nature and life with multiple hoops. There is also a healing aspect to this dance and reminds us to stay connected with our natural world. Where Do We Meet: Two generations, the past and future. The strength of our Indigenous traditions; their reach into our future. Joined by blood, joined by culture. How do we move forward to the future without losing our past? Can this bond overcome space and time? Two Kanien'keha:ka (Mohawk) dancers - mother and son - find connection through the timeless transmission of dance. Sponsorship provided by the Consulate General of Canada in New York, the Québec Government Office in New York, and Canada Council for the Arts.

Battery Dance (NYC)

Howling Steppers (working title), World premiere

Battery Dance world premieres Howling Steppers (working title) by choreographer Rutkay Özpinar, created in Summer 2024 as part of the FUTURE 400 program, an initiative of the Netherlands Consulate General in New York. Additional sponsorship provided by the Netherland-America Foundation.

Focus Dance Company (Taipei, Taiwan)

Self Portrait, US premiere

In Self Portrait, choreographer Tsai Hsi Hung explores the theme of "unconventional beauty." The piece shows that beauty exists where we least expect it. The movement is influenced by Hung’s study of Chinese folk dance, Tai Chi, calligraphy, and abstract painters, such as Jackson Pollock. These elements fuse with a contemporary dance aesthetic to create a modern interpretation of these elements. The performance space is shaped by the emotions of the dancers. Sometimes the dancers connect with each other to emphasize these patterns, but other times, they each get lost in their inner world. As their witnesses, the audience is forced to confront and contemplate traditional representations of beauty. Sponsorship provided by the Taipei Cultural Center of TECO in New York.

Sun Kim Dance Theatre (NYC)

Lost and Found

Lost and Found is a captivating production by Sun Kim Dance Theatre that explores the journey of losing hope and the internal struggle to fill that void. Through spoken word and popping-based storytelling, this innovative piece invites the audience to embark on a voyage of self-realization, discovering what they have lost and allowing it to find its way back to them.

Alexandra F. Light (Fort Worth, TX)

Inimical Architecture, World premiere

Inimical Architecture is a pas de deux that examines the human relationship to nature and vice versa.

McKoy Dance Project || MDP (NYC)

Love, Nina, NYC premiere

Love, Nina is a solo work set to the haunting and rhythmic sounds of Nina Simone. Built in two sections, Love, Nina embodies femininity, heartbreak, struggle for strength, and readiness for a new future. A letter to all women, Love, Nina gets its name from Ms. Simone, who comically signed a letter she scribed to Langston Hughes. In this letter, Nina admired Hughes for his important work and explains how he inspired powerful emotions within her.

wee dance company (Görlitz, Germany)

De Torrente and Happily Ever After, US premieres

De torrente is a simple, personal encounter with the flow of water and time, whose inspiration comes from Handel's Dixit Dominus, verse 7 of Psalm 110: "He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head.” Happily Ever After: Since childhood, we are inundated with fairy tales about how we will eventually find and marry our soulmate; then the story goes: "…and they lived happily ever after." In adulthood, we are convinced that we were promised this happy ending. Yet, how many opportunities for happiness right under our noses do we miss by looking beyond them in constant search for that non-existent, promised dream partner? Sponsorship provided by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in New York and Goethe-Institut New York.