Our New Year's message is a little longer as we grow a little more seasoned. We had hoped to showcase again at APAP, but 3 of our 5 school residencies this month began this week and needed attention, so we opted for this. We hope you will get to know us better..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 The Tennis Dances 

The Tennis Dances/ Jazz at Lincoln Center

-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, at the TriArt Festival, where I begun as Dance Coordinator in 2008, becoming 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.

We will be at the conference at IPAY in Philadelphia this month, and hope to speak with you there. You can also visit our website and our youtube site to see our videos.

 Above...a recent photo from The Better To Bite You With, an innovative easy to present piece for families and young people. From the story adapted from "Little Red Riding Hood" above is Mr. Grey Wolf (whose teeth are falling out) and the Tooth Fairy. This interactive dance/multimedia work has the theme of teeth woven with narration and music ranging from Dixieland to vaudeville to Tchaikovsky and King Crimson. Reviews from recent performances include: