Dancers aren’t born but nurtured, often
starting from a very early age. And that’s exactly what Diane
Jacobowitz has been doing – with a little help from a roster
of celebrity choreographers – for nine years with Kids Cafe Festival.
The festival is produced by Dancewave, an organization Jacobowitz
founded in 1979 to produce arts events, festivals and educational
workshops for children and young adults. This year’s Kids Cafe
Festival, at the Brooklyn Music School and Playhouse, included
dance and sport workshops on Jan. 19, taught by the Peter Pucci
Plus Dancers, a modern dance troupe whose namesake founder is
a former all-American athlete and member of the modern dance
group Pilobolus.
There will be an opening night benefit concert on Jan. 24, featuring
Jacobowitz’s own Kids Company in the world premiere of "Memories
of Bittersweet Lives," a newly commissioned work created
by modern dance choreographer Donald Byrd. Kids Company has been
working on the piece for an intensive 10-week rehearsal period
with Byrd and his assistants.
The Peter Pucci Plus Dancers will also host Kids Cafe Festival
performances and perform excerpts from "Pucci: Sport"
on Jan. 25 and Jan. 26 at 3 pm. (Kids participating in the workshops
will perform in the part called "Basketball.") And
Nana Simopolous, another festival host, will perform her own
Greek- and Middle Eastern-influenced music at the festival.
Other festival performance highlights include the Shenandoah
Contemporary Dance Theater and Gestures Ensemble from the Harbor
Conservatory for the Performing Arts in Harlem.
Jacobowitz’s Kids Company started in 2000 with "kids who
really wanted to study dance more seriously," she says.
Teenagers from throughout the city, who make it through an audition
process, benefit from the program’s professional environment
that both challenges and encourages.
Using space in the Berkeley Carroll School in Park Slope and
the Mark Morris studio in Fort Greene, the teenagers work with
internationally known American choreographers like Twyla Tharp,
David Dorfman, Doug Varone and Bill T. Jones. This spring Kids
Company will again work with Morris, who since his group’s move
to Fort Greene, has been closely involved with the company, creating
original pieces just for them.
Noah Weiss, a junior at Stuyvesant High School, has been with
Kids Company for four years.
"Being a part of a company and not in a class makes me feel
that what I’m doing is more important. You don’t only have an
obligation to yourself, but also to everyone else in the company.
There’s a sense of camaraderie," he told GO Brooklyn.
Noah, who lives in Park Slope, has danced in pieces by Mark Morris,
David Dorfman and Donald Byrd.
"This gives me an opportunity to have a challenge in dance
because we’re working with professional choreographers and doing
professional pieces," he said.
In December, Noah performed with Kids Company at the Dancers
Responding to AIDS benefit concert at the St. Marks in the Bowery
Church, and at a Christmas concert at the Tribeca Performing
Arts Center.
These kinds of events help Noah "get a taste of what it
might be like to be a part of a professional company." And
they’re exciting, he says because "I get to share months
of work with an audience, and I get a feeling of accomplishment."
Noah is not sure whether he wants to be a professional dancer,
but he does know that dance will always be a big part of his
life. He is one of a group of 20 youths choreographer-dancer
Jacobowitz is working with this year.
"I’ve worked with kids my whole life," she says. "I
became a mother in the early ’90s. I got the idea then of focusing
on kids. It’s an important focus now. It’s close to my heart."
The festival gives youngsters in Kids Company and throughout
the city and beyond the opportunity to learn, to share and to
show off. And it gives proud parents the chance to see their
kids at their most enthusiastic and graceful.
"Kids Cafe Festival 2003"
will be held at The Brooklyn Music School and Playhouse, 126
St. Felix St. at Lafayette Avenue in Fort Greene. The benefit
concert, featuring "Memories of Bittersweet Lives,"
by Donald Byrd, is at 8 pm on Jan. 24. Tickets are $100.
Festival performances of "Pucci: Sport" are at 3 pm
on Jan. 25 and Jan. 26. Tickets are $10 for children, $15 for
adults.
For more information about the schedule, call (718) 522-4696.
To make reservations for the festival performances or the benefit
concert call (718) 622-2548 or visit www.virtuous.com
(NYC events) on the Web.
