CMDE NEWS

It's raining grants for dance

Friday, August 14, 2009
Hackensack Chronicle
MANAGING EDITOR

When important economic indicators zag instead of zig, funding for arts and education programs is often the hardest hit.

However, Hackensack's Center for Modern Dance Education is the happy beneficiary of a trend reversal backed by a federal program designed to fuel a national economic recovery.

The non-profit organization on Euclid Avenue found out on July 24 that it will receive a federal grant totaling $25,000 through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, otherwise known as the federal stimulus package. Combined with a $10,000 grant from the New Jersey-based Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation announced on July 23, it appears that the Center for Modern Dance Education will keep a spring in its step even while the economy tries to regain its footing.

Federal stimulus package includes arts funding

While the $787 billion federal stimulus package signed into law in February is primarily focused on jobs preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency measures and aid to the unemployed, the package also includes assistance for arts and education programs. The round of grants announced at the end of last month sprinkled 631 separate grants for arts groups around the country, totaling almost $29.78 million that will be used to retain jobs across a wide range of arts disciplines. The grants will also support many projects that involve the arts, including commissions, residencies, rehearsals, workshops, performances, exhibitions, publications, festivals and training programs.

The grant for the Center for Modern Dance Education, which will be distributed through the National Endowment for the Arts, will be used to support the preservation of jobs at the center, such as dance instructors and administrators, during the current economic downturn.

Hackensack's representative in Washington, D.C. felt that these funds were well directed.

"I was delighted to help direct these federal dollars to the Center for Modern Dance in Hackensack," said U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D – Fair Lawn), a member of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee. "Dance and other artistic endeavors are important to nurture talent and instill confidence in students, and encourages them to reach their full artistic potential. The center will receive $25,000 through the Recovery Act, enabling it to continue to serve Hackensack's children and adults who want to pursue dance."

Dodge grant also backs dance

The Center for Modern Dance Education will also benefit from a $10,000 grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, a prominent foundation created in 1973 with an $85 million bequest from the youngest child of Standard Oil tycoon William A. Rockefeller, Jr. The Center for Modern Dance Education grant was among of total of almost $10.1 million in grants disbursed by the foundation to various cultural, educational, social and environmental organizations, including an $80,000 grant for the Hackensack Riverkeeper environmental advocacy organization.

Founded in 1962, the Center for Modern Dance Education has striven to provide quality dance programs for all members of the diverse Hackensack community, including free family classes. Times may be tough economically, but Elissa Machlin-Lockwood, the center's artistic director, is glad that the helping hand of the federal government, as well as the Dodge Foundation, reached out in a timely fashion.

"Even in the best of times, we manage on a tight budget," she said. "The current economy has impacted both our earned and donated income, even as the demand for accessible arts programming remains high."

"This grant will not only directly help support jobs in the arts, but will also help us continue to offer the kind of accessible programs that are such a big part of our mission as a community organization," Machlin-Lockwood added. "It's really wonderful to see the federal government making an expanded effort to support the arts and artists."

B-boyz bring streetscapes to stage

Tuesday, November 21, 2006
BY ROBERT JOHNSON
Star-Ledger Staff
DANCE

Hip-hop seems to be everywhere. A living art still practiced in the urban neighborhoods where it was born, it became slick enough for MTV long ago. Now also dignified and appearing on the concert stage, it persists as street-corner entertainment wherever a nickel stands to be earned.

On Sunday, for instance, a dance fan in transit could pass from the Park Performing Arts Center in Union City, where the professional B-boyz of Rennie Harris/Puremovement were the star attraction of "Hip-Hop & B*yond," presented by the Center for Modern Dance Education, to the New York City subway system, where entrepreneurs were performing on the uptown A.

Nothing quite beats the thrill of seeing two grown men locked together to form a wheel that's rolling down the aisle of a crowded subway car. These courageous if anonymous artists also launched themselves in midair in the space that quickly cleared near the center door. They balanced in tricky handstands as the old rolling stock (perhaps already in service in 1981, when "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" made its vinyl debut), rocked and swayed toward the next station.

On the other hand, the subway performance was short, with sight-lines blocked by other passengers, and the sound quality, though undeniably real, did not meet audiophile standards. It's worth spending a few bucks to see Rennie Harris and his virtuosos translate hip-hop for the stage, recreating an informal gathering of homies who take turns showing off in "P-Funk," making their bodies undulate as they dive to the floor, jolted by the rhythm or drawing out a smooth sliding step.

The theater also permits Harris, whose group is from Philadelphia, to make a social statement. In "March of the Antmen," a hip-hop requiem, gangstas packing invisible heat crawl on their bellies and stalk through No Man's Land, where a murder suddenly dyes billows of smoke the color of blood.

"Continuum" offers a parade of show-stopping solos. Sneakers swivel and the dancers' loose clothing flaps and ripples, registering the activity of wiry muscles underneath. Popping and locking, a man folds and rearranges his limbs, like a mannequin with well-oiled hinges. Another spins crazily on his shoulders, then comes to a stop with his legs crossed in a cheeky pose of relaxation. The head-spin is only the most flamboyant item in this company's repertoire of phenomenal daring.

On Sunday, Rennie Harris/Puremovement shared the stage with the vibrant Seventh Principle Performance Company of Newark, which performed the West African "Melange," giving viewers a chance to observe the marvelous continuity of African culture. The dazzling speed and rhythmic play of the West African dancers' hands and skittering feet carried over into the hip-hop portion of the program, as did a tendency to step outside the rhythm and comment on the performance with a knowing look. Even when an individual stood apart from the rapid stream of music, however, this troupe led by Candace Hundley Kamate seemed to shelter beneath a larger, global rhythm.

The Center for Modern Dance Education in Hackensack also featured the students of the CMDE Repertory Dancers and comic soloist Claire Porter. In her hysterical "Fund Raiser," Porter took the role of a demented development director, who, with rubbery limbs and lips moistened by her sales pitch, would stop at nothing in her "naked appeal" to extort contributions from a reluctant private sector.

The public sector, or at least this audience, was ecstatic.

Robert Johnson writes about dance for The Star-Ledger. He may be reached at rjohnson@starledger.com.