OUR MISSION
Artichoke Dance Company creates unique dance works, presents public performances and offers participatory educational experiences in dance and dance making by using the interactive, cooperative, and community building aspects of dance to develop physical, creative, and social skills and artistic and cultural understanding. We create, perform, and educate in ways that entertain, enlighten, and enrich the lives of our audiences and participants.
OUR WORK
Artichoke Dance Company is known for its humorous theatrical athleticism, intricate partnering, and confronting contemporary social issues as well as integrative community programs. Partnering is central to our philosophy. The movement vocabulary relies on physical partnering techniques that the director Lynn Neuman has developed. The creative process is a collaboration between the artistic director, the dancers, composers, designers, and visual artists. Artichoke serves as a metaphor reflecting the various layers and textures of the company surrounding a delectable heart.
OUR HISTORY
Since its first concert in 1995, Artichoke Dance Company has held fifteen New York seasons and toured nationally and internationally. New York seasons include the Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, the Joyce SoHo, the American Theatre of Actors, the Ohio Theater, University Settlement, and Dixon Place. The company has also been presented at festivals including Fringe NYC, the Fringe Festival for Independent Dance Artists in Toronto, DancenOw/NYC The Festival, the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and the Piccolo Spoleto Festival. Recent commissions include Mondo Cane! and a co-commission from the Brooklyn Arts Council and DUMBO improvement district.
OUR PERSPECTIVE
Artichoke Dance Company believes the arts have the power to incite inquiry, engender transformation, generate growth and produce positive change. To this end, the company hosts a variety of educational programs and classes including:
-
‣Performing Partners, focusing on movements performed with a partner or in a group and aimed at developing trust and community as well as physical skills;
-
‣The Integrative Performance Project, bringing community members from all walks of life into the creation, rehearsal process and performance of a work;
-
‣Moving to Survive, providing workshops for survivors of domestic violence and abuse, and
-
‣Senior Arts In Action, a multi-genre arts program for senior populations simulating body, mind and spirit.
INSTITUTIONAL FUNDERS
Artichoke Dance Company has received funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Brooklyn Arts Council, the Brooklyn Community Foundation, the Manhattan Borough President’s Office, the Brooklyn Borough President’s Office, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Puffin Foundation, Altria Group, Inc. and Meet the Composer with additional support from R.R. Donnelley Financial, McVicker and Higginbotham, Materials for the Arts and Adobe.
“…proved modern dance can be as inconstant and daring an art form as bungee jumping.”
Kalamazoo Gazette
