Kennedy Center to Present Three-Day National Dance Day Celebration in September

The festivities will kick off on Thursday, September 15 and Friday, September 16 featuring evening performances on the Millennium Stage.

By: Aug. 17, 2022
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Kennedy Center to Present Three-Day National Dance Day Celebration in September

Practice your moves and dust off the dancing shoes September 15-17 for three days of in-person activities for National Dance Day! Presented through a partnership between the Kennedy Center, American Dance Movement (formally the Dizzy Feet Foundation), and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), this annual event invites people of all ages and abilities, from the littlest dancers to professionals, to participate in a free celebration of the joy of dance and movement.

Celebrating 13 years of National Dance Day, this year's festivities at the REACH highlight the abundance of dance in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. region and is curated in collaboration with the Kennedy Center's Social Impact programming team and with support from Washington, D.C.'s Dance Place. Select events are supported by the Kennedy Center Social Impact division's Office Hours, Millennium Stage, and Dance Sanctuaries programs.

The festivities will kick off on Thursday, September 15 and Friday, September 16 featuring evening performances on the Millennium Stage with local artist Krystal Butler and dancers sharing excerpts from the evening-length show, BreAkThRougH, which brings private conversations and stories about mental health to the stage through modern dance (September 15); and a work-in-progress with Project ChArma's Chronicles of Nina...what now, an exploration of Nina Simone's music paralleled to the black experience through modern, West African, and street-derived movement (September 16). Please note free tickets are required for the September 15 and 16 Millennium Stage performances and can be found via the Center's website.

Hosted by "Millennial Hype Man" KyleOnTheMic, and beginning at 1:00 p.m. Saturday, September 17, experience a variety of dance styles with something for everyone and every ability, ranging from Flamenco, Modern, West-African, to Street Styles, Afro-Caribbean, Indian Classical Dance, Tap, Ballet, and Contemporary. New this year, beginning at 1:00 p.m. and running through 8:30 p.m. in the Justice Forum, catch dance films by local area artists including Words Beats & Life, Tariq Darrell O'Meally, haus of bambi, Gabriel Mata, Human Landscape Dance, Greg David, Reanna "Rae" Grey, Kyoko Fujimoto, Carlo Antonio Villanueva, and Miriam Gabriel. All outdoor events on Saturday will have ASL interpreters and captioning for activities on the main stage.

Participants will have opportunities to learn the official National Dance Day routine on Saturday at 6:00 p.m. with former So You Think You Can Dance winner Bailey Muñoz as part of Millennium Stage. The routine brings together dancers and dance enthusiasts around the globe to celebrate National Dance Day as a form of exercise and of artistic expression. This year's instructional video will be released in the coming weeks and can be found via American Dance Movement's YouTube page. Then at 6:30 p.m., an evening length site-specific work responding to the architecture of the REACH will be performed. Created by Hayley Cutler and darlingdance, the postmodern dance All My Friends begins on the upper lawn of the REACH and travels across the campus, ending in front of the River Pavilion.

A full and detailed National Dance Day schedule is located on the Center's website. All National Dance Day events are free and access to the event space is first come, first served and may be limited due to capacity. Free tickets are required for the September 15 and 16 Millennium Stage performances and can be found via the Center's website. No reservations or ticketing required for September 17 activities.

National Dance Day was launched in 2010 by So You Think You Can Dance co-creator and American Dance Movement co-founder Nigel Lythgoe in partnership with Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, who introduced a resolution declaring the last Saturday in July to be the country's official National Dance Day. As of 2019, National Dance Day is celebrated annually on the third Saturday in September. Founded by Lythgoe and Adam Shankman (producer of Hairspray, Step Up, What Men Want and more), American Dance Movement creates an instructional dance video of the National Dance Day routine that invites participants to learn original choreography and put their own spin on it. The grassroots campaign highlights the importance of physical activity through dance, which, in addition to improving cardiovascular health, also improves self-confidence, self-expression and social skills.

In addition to the Kennedy Center, Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California; The Raymond F. Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, Florida; the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, California; and Westfield Century City in Los Angeles, California will be official 2022 host venues for National Dance Day. For more information about National Dance Day, please visit the American Dance Movement website.

For more information about the Kennedy Center, visit www.kennedy-center.org.



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