Ballet, tap dancing and theatrical magic April 24 at bergenPAC

The critics are raving about this show! "Compelling mystery and emotional depth." "A significant addition to NJB's repertoire." "Very sharp and up to date." "The dancers look terrific."

Recently voted New Jersey’s Favorite Dance Company, New Jersey Ballet returns to bergenPAC on Saturday, April 24, with an evening of new ballets introduced this season.

Top Hat Medley features the historic pairing of New Jersey Ballet's dancers with members of the New Jersey Tap Dance Ensemble in a jazzy, high energy ballroom piece. Top Hat Medley was co-choreographed by The Tap Ensemble director Deborah Mitchell and Broadway dancer/choreographer James Kinney, to excerpts from Top Hat, White Tie and Tails, I Could Have Danced All Night and Begin the Beguine.

Also on the program, Kinney's own piece, March, follows six couples through an everyday day in New York. This high-spirited jazz piece explores how people meet, come together and move apart and ends with a high-stepping walk in Central Park. One critic raved, “Very sharp and up to date.”

The third featured work, The Three Riddles of Turandot, is a neoclassical ballet that takes the audience back to Ancient China where the princess Turandot will not marry any man who cannot solve her three riddles. Created by celebrated Chinese-American choreographer Nai-Ni Chen – whose company is headquartered in nearby Fort Lee -- and set to Puccini’s famous score, the tale is deftly told in dance and pantomime. Critics applaud, “a ballet of compelling mystery and emotional depth” and “sumptuously theatrical.”

Performance tickets are $50, $40, $30, $20. 201-227-1030 or www.bergenpac.org.

Exciting dance performance to showcase at HLSCC

H. Lavity Stoutt Community College’s Performing Arts Series will feature the exciting Chinese dance group, Nai-Ni Chen, as part of its next concert to be held on Saturday, April 24 at the Paraquita Bay Auditorium.

The group’s performances fuse the dynamic freedom of American modern dance with the grace and splendour of Asian art, and its productions take the audience beyond cultural boundaries to where tradition meets innovation and freedom arises from discipline.

Nai-Ni-Chen performs “like endlessly proliferating forces of cosmic energy,” says the New York Times.

As choreographer and dancer herself, Nai-Ni Chen is an artist whose work defies categorisation, as she is continually working on new ideas from influences around the world.

Her mesmerizing and dramatic contemporary choreography has gained increasing recognition among domestic and international presenters and festivals.

Recently, the company was honoured by a distinctive grant award from both the President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities, and the Department of State to represent the United States in a seven-city tour of Mexico.

It also has the unique honor of having received more than 12 awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, and numerous Citations of Excellence and grants from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

In the First China International Dance Festival, the China Dance Association presented to the company its most prestigious honour for companies not based in China, the Golden Lotus Award.

To date, the company has mounted 20 national tours and seven tours abroad.

The performance at HLSCC will feature 11 members of the company. The group will also perform in a Student Outreach Show on Friday, April 23 at the College Auditorium from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Admission is by pre-registration only.

The College’s Performing Arts Series this season has featured a wider variety of artists, including gospel, opera, soca, reggae, classic, jazz and now dance performances.

Tickets for Saturday night’s dance show are $30 in advance, or $35 at the door, and are available at LIME, HLSCC Bookstore, Road Town Bakery, Umi Fashions and Sunny Caribbee. HLSCC faculty and staff tickets are $20, and College and secondary school students, $10. Primary school students admitted free.

LIME and FirstBank Virgin Islands are platinum sponsors of the College’s Performing Arts Series, while several other local companies have also supported financially.

For more information and registration for the outreach show, please call Coordinator of the Performing Arts Series, Linette Baa, 852-7223.

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