Mark your calendars for Thursday, June 7 and Friday, June 8! Now in its fourth year, the Hudson River Dance Festival has become one of our annual highlights, bringing dance companies of the highest caliber to the beautiful Chelsea Lawn Bowl—free for all to enjoy. This family-friendly festival provides a unique opportunity to experience powerful arrangements of music and movement against a distinctively vibrant backdrop: the Hudson River at sunset.
Sponsored and presented by the SHS foundation in association with The Joyce Theater, this year’s festival features a dynamic and diverse lineup of performers. From the Festival’s first ever tap act to the ballet performed by the world’s foremost all-male comic company, this year’s bill once again brings culturally relevant, evocative pieces by acclaimed, visionary performers.
Kicking off each night’s program, Emmy Award-winning tap dancer Jason Samuels Smith performs Most Like Lee—a dazzling tribute to jazz icon Lee Morgan—with acclaimed musician, bandleader, composer and arranger Igmar Thomas. With Smith tap dancing and Thomas on the trumpet, each improvisatory, collaborative performance brings new and thrilling energy to Morgan’s classics and to the Pier 63 stage.
A performance by the American Ballet Theater (ABT) Studio Company follows. This ensemble of 12 elite dancers ages 16–20—the highest level of ABT’s training ladder—performs Le Jeune, set to Equus by Grammy-winning composer Eric Whitacre. Choreographed by New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Lauren Lovette as part of an ABT initiative supporting the creation and staging of new works by female choreographers, Le Jeune is a high-energy, youthful piece befitting the season and beautifully danced by this talented company.
The Limón Dance Company (LDC) is renowned for dramatic expression and masterful technique, which is on full display in their performance of Corvidae. Choreographed by LDC Artistic Director Colin Connor and set to the first movement of a violin concerto by Phillip Glass, Corvidae is an homage to the corvid family of birds, which includes ravens and crows—seen throughout the ages as messengers from nature to humankind.
Bringing an iconic blend of technical precision, artistic brilliance and laugh out loud hilarity, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo have been recognized as the foremost all-male comic ballet company in the world. Performing classical ballet “en travesti,” or disguised as the opposite sex, these talented performers will perform a pas de deux from their signature Tarantella with wigs, lashes and hilarity.
Rounding out our lineup, The Chase Brock Experience, nick-named the “candy-bright company” by The New Yorker and celebrated for its “stylized showbiz mayhem” by The New York Times, will perform Splendor we only partially imagined. This piece was originally commissioned by Dancers responding to AIDS, and this vibrant, captivating choreography will be performed for the first time in an outdoor setting at Pier 63—providing a moving finale to an incredible evening.
We’re thrilled to bring such an acclaimed, diverse and powerful lineup to you for our 20th Anniversary season. The stage is set for two fantastic nights—we can’t wait to see you at the Hudson River Dance Festival!