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Summer Dreams and Re-Imaginings at The Dance Enthusiast

By Christine Jowers/Follow @cmmjowers on Instagram
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Published on June 14, 2016
The Dance Enthusiast in a Word Cloud.

Looking Towards The Future

Dear Friends,

Happy Summer Season.

As usual, The Dance Enthusiast goes light in the summer to allow us all to recharge for the busy season ahead. While on break, we will continue to publish your LISTINGS and any AUDIENCE REVIEWS or POSTCARDS you send in. (If you are interested in sending a Postcard or getting info re this, contact info@dance-enthusiast.com.) We will also accept press releases (send to info@dance-enthusiast.com) for consideration for our FROM THE PRESS section and continue to engage on social media as well as send out our bi-monthly Dance Enthusiast Picks newsletter. (Sign up to receive here.) And, we are very excited to be planning an Enthusiastic Event! featuring Caribbean artists on November 16th at Gibney Dance Center 280 Broadway, The Agnes Varis Center for Performing Arts (more info to be announced soon): I hope you can come to learn, meet, and network with new audiences and artists.

This summer break into the fall will also be a time for our writers, board members, and friends to reconsider The Dance Enthusiast's mission and to imagine, re-imagine, and create a more sustainable future for our non-profit project. While the contributors to TDE and I feel appreciation and know there is significant value to what we do, we wonder how to balance the work, and dollars that go into The Dance Enthusiast, with the rewards it offers our contributors, our audiences, and the dance community. ( Take our Dance Enthusiast Community Survey to share your thoughts on The Dance Enthusiast's future).

Members of The Dance Enthusiast Writing Team at our Enthusiastic Event! celebrating collaboration and the connection of dance to visual arts- Fall 2015.  (L to R Nicole Dekle Collins, Melanie Greene, Christine Jowers, Trina Maninno, Robert Johnson, and Deirdre Towers with friends, Hip Hop's  LiteFeet Founder, Chrybaby Cozie ( kneeling front) and Ali Rosa Salas ( in green far right) Photo by Ben Gabbe 

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From our inception, the ethos of The Dance Enthusiast project has been that dance is for everybody and that our site would be a welcoming  place for all points of view. We provide a unique forum for writers, artists, and audiences to speak about performance, creative process and the value of the dancing life. Since 2008, our readership has grown 2,000% and we are happy to have audiences in major cities, with top participation from New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles to London. We have been fortunate to be recognized and funded by Dance/USA and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation for our Dance Up Close video series, and are pleased that the Mertz Gilmore Foundation and LMCC have funded our offline Enthusiastic Event! initiative. I am proud that we pay our writers, even if only an honorarium, and that we have worked with master writers and nurtured upcoming voices in the field. I am particularly heartened that The Dance Enthusiast reaches out to young audiences as well as savvy culture enthusiasts. Over 60% of our readers are 18-44 years old.

The Dance Enthusiast is committed to communication about our art form. Here is a word cloud showing what we do at The Dance Enthusiast 

It's been a great eight, almost nine years.

Over the summer we will brainstorm, take listening tours, speak with potential board members and collaborators, and invite you, our community, to share with us your interests. We have created a Dance Enthusiast Community Survey  and hope you will take a few minutes to answer our brief questions, as your responses will help shape our future. Answer as many questions as you'd like.  If you would prefer, email me at cjchiefeditor@dance-enthusiast.com with your  comments.

I believe in the dance community and the value of art, artists, history, culture, and education. It has been a pleasure and honor to create a positive, informative, supportive forum such as this. I hope it has been a helpful to some of you. I know my world has grown deeper and richer from being involved.

Thank you all. Here's to you and to The Dance Enthusiast of the future.

With deep affection,
Christine