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Daniel Gwirtzman
Story by Elyssa Ramirez
Photos by Amanda Hiciano
Elaine Marie Benes would feel right at home.
Starting July 18th, students of the 2011 Washington Heights Summer Dance Festival will join local dance repertory the Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company every day, for six days, from 9 am to 6 pm, to participate in daily technique, repertory, composition, and master classes.
“It’s a rather pedestrian technique carried out to a virtuoso level. It’s a technique focused on complete control of the body,” explained company founder and director Daniel Gwirtzman, of the style of dance students and community members can expect from the program.
Come Sun., July 24th, the dance company and its Dance Festival students will perform a group of repertory pieces and original works in a concert open to the community.
Elaine Benes, the character on “Seinfeld” played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus whose unique freestyle dancing was featured as one of the show’s main storylines, could fit right in with many of the non-professional dancers that the Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company welcomes.
The dance company’s main philosophy of “anyone can dance” is truly reflected in the enrollment for this year’s festival.
According to Gwirtzman, there is already a senior citizen as well as a young dance teacher from the area signed up to participate.
And if last year’s pilot of the program is any indication, the student body will likely include dancers who range from ages 12 to those of college age, including, possibly, the future professional dancers of the community.
“This festival will have such a diverse group of students. We’re very interested to see how this diversity manifests this summer.”
That diversity was one of the main draws for Gwirtzman in founding – and keeping – the dance company in the Heights.
Having grown up in the area and loving the rhythms of the neighborhood, Gwirtzman chose 181st Street as the birthplace for the dance company in 1998. Since then, he has partnered with many neighborhood organizations, such as the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NoMAA) and the Washington Heights YM & YWHA. Of the latter, he cited his work with the Washington Heights Y as one of the most significant partnerships he’s fostered for the company.
Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company from left to right: Chloe Campbell, Derek Crescenti, Kaori Otani, Stacy Martorana, Nicholas Wagner, Jules Bakshi, Tony Bordonaro, Mollie Downes, and Aditi Datta
The Company and the Y have partnered on projects such as the Dance at the Gym project, a four month-long series of free lecture-performances presented by the core dancers of the company. The final installment of that series will also take place on July 24th at 3:30 pm.
Now, in addition to the support from the Y, thanks to a recent grant from the Open Society Foundations and Fund for the City of New York, the dance company is able to provide many need-based scholarships to those students who cannot afford to pay the full tuition for the program.
“Anybody who has the interest should not be denied,” Gwirtzman said of the available scholarships.
Students can still sign up for the program by visiting the dance company’s website, www.GwirtzmanDance.org, and downloading an application to send to the company.
In addition to taking advantage of the full dance immersion program, members of the community can opt to drop in a one of the master classes which will feature current and past Broadway dancers. These professionals will describe their career trajectories, teach a movement class, and offer a Q&A session afterwards.
Gwirtzman exudes excitement and pride when talking about the program that he hopes will garner a lot of interest from the members of the community. Dancers and non-dancers alike, he explains, will be welcomed with open arms into the classes at the Y.
As he puts it, “We’re optimistic that we’re at the beginning of a process of something that can take root in the community.”
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