Our New Year's message is a little longer as we grow a little more seasoned. Please help us continue...and share some of our history and philosophy.
-looking backward...looking inward...looking forward
I rarely examine our company's past and try to keep in the present or look forward- but we have reached our 35th birthday, so it bears some looking back. The 1st performance for us was at the 1st Dance Kaleidoscope at the Anson Ford Theater in 1979 under our company name. We performed my work The Tennis Dances, first shown at USC earlier that year. Then Alfred Desio, my late husband, created one of his thoughtful forward looking works for solo tap dancer and instant replay tap duet with himself at an International Tap Festival at UCLA later that summer. That fall at USC we combined our works at the 1st concert under both our names and under our non-profit title, Los Angeles Choreographers & Dancers. Multiple performances that season under the city's LA Street Scene and Garden Theater Festival and the first of 50 school performances that year under the LAUSD's Intergroup Cultural Awareness Program (ICAP) followed. It took two years to get our first public funding, but we were on our way! For more about our history with photos, please go to this part of our website.
-looking inward...
We wanted to create high-quality, innovative concert work, communicate to a diverse audience by infusing dance with the cultural influences found in LA, and to enlarge an educated dance audience in populations typically underexposed to the arts, especially youth. Between us, we created more than 100 new works. We decided on using Los Angeles in the title as we wanted to produce not only my modern and Alfred's tap works, including a number of those that blended both disciplines, but also wanted to offer others an opportunity to have their work produced. In our early New Works Dance Festivals we produced works for 26 choreographers using our dancers. When the company focus changed to concentrate on just our works, I was able to continue this with the Dance At Brand series, city of Glendale, presenting 5 companies each year for 4 years, and most recently with the TriArt Festival, where I begun as Dance Coordinator in 2008, the Artistic Director and Producer in 2012, each year curating a program of 19-20 dance companies. Our company also has co-produced two dance showcases for the Western Arts Alliance (WAA), each with up to 20 companies. I also realized that just creating the works was not enough...they had to resonate great quality, and that we needed to take our quality dance to presenters including cities and theaters, and also into schools, where we could impact young people. We are dedicated to the belief that art is a key to the development of an empowered and engaged individual. We understand the arts offer the students an anchor of personal expression, a source of motivation, and a model to deal with life. It helps students not only with their sequential studies, but also to understand the world better and find a place in it. Last year we worked with more than 25,000 students. Performances in festivals and museums both in Los Angeles and New York allowed 40,000 people to see us for free.
-looking forward
Our company wants to continue what we began, always hoping that each new work will be inspiring and of excellent quality, with our dancers. We want to celebrate our 35th year in a theater TBA this spring. We want to continue our school residencies that are acknowledged as highest quality educational experiences and to continue in a newer area this year with the REACH Demonstration Project (currently regranted through CHC from the Center for Disease Control), which is a health project through creating new afterschool programs that affect the physical health of people in the South LA area where we do so much of our work.
With your help we can continue and thrive with a tax-deductible donation this year. Please
Donate Now
Or send a check to our street address: 351 S. Virgil Ave, Los Angeles CA 90020. And thank you for your continued support.
Louise Reichlin, Director
PS- The original black & white "Louise Dancing" t-shirts with the "Zapped Taps" on the back are back in stock in S, M, L, and XL on both black and white shirts.
See how to get them on our "Make an individual donation" page.
