New York City-based Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company kicks off its 25th Anniversary Season this summer with the premiere of Everybody Can Dance, a 20-minute performance, followed by 40 minutes of social dance instruction with Daniel and the Company. The event is a part of Lincoln Center’s series of outdoor children’s storytimes, presented in partnership with The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Whether you prefer a fast groove, slow slide, a silly wiggle, or a giant leap, we all have one thing in common–everybody can dance! Dance educator, dancer, and choreographer Daniel Gwirtzman and the Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company presents choreography that explores shapes, patterns, and partnering, demonstrating that we all have what it takes to shuffle and skip and shimmy and shake.
Bring your family and friends of all ages to listen to the story and learn some new dance moves in this highly interactive event. The entrance to the garden is located on the north side of 62nd Street, between Columbus and Amsterdam. This event is Free and General Admission, first-come first-served. Just show up!
Presented as part of Lincoln Center’s Family Programming at Summer for the City, outdoor weekday morning Storytime sessions are intended to energize families and foster an early love for the arts. Curated by the Library for the Performing Arts, each Storytime event features narratives all ages will enjoy.
The name of the dance comes from a children’s picture book of the same title by author Kara Novolio and illustrator Ruth-Mary Smith. The story is perfectly aligned with the Company’s mission which has remained steadfast to its belief that everyone can dance. Free copies of the book will be given to the audience, which Daniel will narrate. The dance is a blend of the elegant and the quirky with a mash-up of over twenty pieces of popular music. Everybody Can Enjoy!
Company dancers Usman Ali Ishaq, Mariah Anton, Vanessa Martínez de Baños and Honza Pelichovský are having a ball rehearsing the genre-bending work, the Company’s newest. Says Daniel, “The theme of Lincoln Center’s summer programming is Summer Fun for the City, represented by the immense disco ball in the heart of Lincoln Center’s plaza. With an infectious score featuring several disco tunes, The Twist, classic jazz, and Taylor Swift, the dance features something for everyone and is guaranteed to get you boogieing in your seats.”
Following the performance, Daniel will lead the audience through a variety of fun and easy-to-learn folk and social dances, including his signature 70s dance, The Bus Stop.
Schedule of Events
11:30am: Performance Begins
11:50am: Interactive Dance led by Daniel and the Company
12:30pm: Q and A with Daniel and the Company
For more information, visit https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2023/07/26/everybody-can-dance-dance-storytime-daniel-gwirtzman-dance-company.
About Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company
Celebrating their 25th Anniversary in the fall of 2023, the nonprofit has been committed to education since its inception in 1998, operating with the philosophy that everyone can join the dance through multigenerational interactive programming. Incorporating dance and story into the film medium has been a consistent practice along with creating original programming for the stage. Collaborations that erode boundaries, blend genres and disciplines, take chances, involve community, promote accessibility, and celebrate performers’ individuality and humanity are areas of focus. The Company’s acclaimed recent creation, a digital educational resource, Dance With Us, showcases the Company’s decade-long practice working in the dance for camera genre. https://dancewithus.org. This June The American Dance Festival screened DGDC’s film “Charged” for the 90th Anniversary of the Festival.
About Daniel Gwirtzman
Daniel Gwirtzman–producer, director, educator, filmmaker and dancer–celebrates twenty-eight years as a New York choreographer and company director. His diverse repertory has earned praise for its humor, stylistic versatility, musicality, charisma and accessibility. “A flair for the entertaining,” says critic Elizabeth Zimmer. “Mr. Gwirtzman does know that in dance less can be more. And that’s a good thing for any choreographer to know” writes The New York Times. The New Yorker describes him as a choreographer of “high spirits and skill.”
For the New York City-based Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company, he has created more than one hundred repertory works known for their playful virtuosity, blending robust physicality with universal themes. His choreography has been performed at venues throughout the country and abroad. He has been awarded commissions, residencies and fellowships from institutions including the Joyce Theater Foundation (NY), Ucross Foundation (WY), The Studios at Key West (FL), Aktuelle Architektur der Kultur (Spain), Dora Maar House (France), The Yard (MA), Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (MA), CUNY Dance Initiative (NYC), Djerassi Resident Artists Program (CA), Sfakiotes (Greece), Gdański Festiwal Tanca (Poland), Raumars (Finland) and the Sacatar Foundation (Brazil).
A master teacher, Gwirtzman has worked at numerous universities. He has been a full-time faculty member at SUNY Buffalo State, Kennesaw State University, and The University of the Arts and is currently an Assistant Professor of Dance at Ithaca College’s newly inaugurated School of Music, Theatre, and Dance since 2019. Daniel holds degrees from The University of Michigan and The University of Wisconsin. He danced in the companies of Garth Fagan Dance and the Mark Morris Dance Group among others. He co-founded Artichoke Dance Company in 1995, which The New York Times called “a welcome addition to the New York dance scene.” As a dancer he has been described as “a willowy John Travolta, sensual, playful, a rag doll, unusually supple, and one who moves like the wind.”