HAZEL INCORPORATED

NEW YORK, New York, 10033-4710 United States

Mission Statement

A New York City-based performing and teaching dance company whose philosophy and mission centers around the belief that everyone can join the dance. Programming is designed to introduce the art of dance to as large a population as possible in direct, interactive and meaningful ways. The Company teaches all levels of students from beginners through professionals with the objectives of cultivating physical, artistic and critical skills. Learning to gain comfort viewing and speaking about dance is fundamental to the Company's programming. "A troupe I'd follow anywhere," writes The Village Voice. "Mr. Gwirtzman does know that in dance less can be more," writes The New York Times. The New Yorker refers to the artistic director as a "choreographer of high spirit and skill."

About This Cause

"Founded upon a philosophy that dance should celebrate human achievement through a combination of discipline and unbound optimism." The New York Sun The Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company, a New York-based nonprofit organization directed by choreographer, teacher, and dancer Daniel Gwirtzman has demonstrated a commitment to education since its inception in 1998. Celebrating its 21st Anniversary, over two decades of programming without pause, the Company has stayed true to its mission of cultivating the creation of innovative art and presenting this to the public in interactive, accessible, and meaningful ways. This is achieved through classes, workshops, lecture-demonstrations, residencies, performances, dance films, our websites, and instructional videos. Programs encourage audiences to be active participants, as part of the Company's effort to integrate communities into the dance-making and performing process. striving to teach people how dance can play a meaningful part of their physical and overall well-being. The Company holds regular seasons in NY, tours regionally and internationally, and participates in festivals. Since the beginning, DGDC has been transforming diverse populations of all abilities and ages into dancers. The Company has been contracted with the New York City Department of Education since 1999, teaching more than 15,000 students, including parents, teachers, administrators, and special education students within the City's public schools to learn and create dances, improvise, collaborate and perform, and conducting professional development workshops for NYC DOE dance educators. Known for its entertaining flair, stylistic diversity, musicality, innovation, and accessibility, Mr. Gwirtzman's choreography has received consistently high praise. "A troupe I'd follow anywhere," The Village Voice has written. The organization is always looking for opportunities to expand the scope of its programming, and to promote the creative work that the Company produces. Dynamic and multifaceted, the Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Compay has a rich twenty-one year history. Please visit the Company Trailer, a four-minute overview of the Company's programming. 2020: Seeing With Clear Vision What We Are Doing At Present: Coronavirus Update Thanks to leadership support from The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Company is creating an educational digital resource centered around a library of new videos and films. Geared toward a general viewership this multi-faceted project seeks to demystify concert dance by explaining ways to view dance and discussing how dances are made. Through performance and studio footage the resource intends to help teach people how to think and speak about dance. The film will present favorite dances from the Company’s repertory, provide health and wellness best practices, define dance’s concepts, and contextualize its histories. A History: Who We Are Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company is currently in the midst of its 21st season. Over these twenty plus years the Company has operated under the belief that everyone can dance. We have been diverse and inclusive since our inception. Inclusion is woven into the foundational fabric of our pedagogy, practice, and programming, and our commitment to diversity has been a throughline in our history. The diversity of our bodies, ethnically, racially, geographically, and physically, has long been noted. Dancers from underrepresented groups have always had prominence and parity, as has gender. 2020 marks a continuum of two decades of innovative dance production without pause. The Company, known for its playful virtuosity, accessibility and charisma, premiered a new work, Intersections, itself a celebration of diversity, February 2020. The 92nd Street Y’s Harkness Center for Dance presented this 20th Anniversary New York season, Intersections and Welcome to the World of Dance, to critical and public acclaim. The New York Times characterized these events as one of the “Eight Dance Performances to See in NYC This Weekend:” The Y’s series hosts Gwirtzman as he celebrates his company’s 20th anniversary with the premiere of “Intersections,” a work that pushes the boundaries of physicality as it explores the potential danger and beauty of intersections. On Sunday, the choreographer has designed an interactive family-friendly program for children ages 5 and up, “Welcome to the World of Dance,” which serves as an introduction to contemporary dance. Press for Intersections 20th Anniversary Season (February 2019) “Provocative, whimsical, and ethereal, the Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company defies expectations of postmodern dance and soars, unafraid to take risks and dazzle with unflinching honesty….At times, just the urgency and power conveyed in the dancers’ glances deserved applause...The company shoots energy through every limb and glance the entire evening, and Gwirtzman’s choreography shines through in every piece as an ultimate force of nature.” OnStageBlog.com December 2018: Dance Magazine visited DGDC in the studio, streaming 11 minutes of rehearsal live to Dance Magazine’s Facebook Page. Featuring Stacy Martorana and Daniel in Shifting three minutes in. September 2018: At the Rochester KeyBank Fringe Festival, critic Jack Garner singled out the Company’s production of Encore at Geva Theatre, the critical “cream of the crop.” Our Mission Our mission is to educate the public about the art of dance in interactive, accessible and relevant ways. We consider the scope of the arc of the art of dance, throughout history, over time and place, to be inherently inclusionary and diverse. The pedagogy and curricula range from different continents, bringing dance forms to the public stage for explanation and discussion. Our innovative programming is designed to transform audiences into active participants, striving to teach how dance can play a meaningful part of one’s physical and overall well-being and to gain comfort engaging in, viewing and communicating critically about dance. Invention, community, quality and charisma are core values. The New York Sun summarized the organization when writing: “Founded upon a philosophy that dance should celebrate human achievement through a combination of discipline and unbound optimism.” The artistic vision is to share the Company’s culture of rigorous humanity through direct experiences: interactive performances, community-building projects and forward-thinking applications of technology. We seek to bridge the divide separating dance from the mainstream culture, underscoring the primacy, purpose, and possibility of dance in contemporary life. We believe that dance’s power to shift people’s perceptions and identities, one person at a time, can create transformative ripples into society at large. What We Have Achieved The Company views its accomplishments in the areas of art-making, education, and community-building. A primary accomplishment for the organization is its continuous history of production, programming for two decades without pause. Our large and stylistically diverse repertory is noted for its universality, entertaining flair, musicality, and humor. Blending virtuosic precision with pedestrian ease, the dancers are renown for their charisma and technical brilliance. “A troupe I’d follow anywhere,” (The Village Voice), a “troupe of fabulous dancers” (Back Stage) that “can’t help but smile” (The New Yorker). Performance highlights include Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival, numerous projects with Dance NOW and Dancers Responding to AIDS, in Times Square, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and at The Kennedy Center. We’ve performed at Bryant Park multiple times; being featured in a show of our Greatest Hits in 2015 stands out as a high point. The Company has been invited to perform in the summer of 2020. Our Repertory DGDC has enjoyed years of collaborations with dancers, composers, designers, technicians and other artists. One piece we view as a defining accomplishment is Encore, an evening-length show, that premiered in 2007 at Joyce SoHo, was an official selection of the New York Musical Theater Festival in 2009, and continues to tour and get set on other companies and dance departments. The Joyce Theater presented it for its Family Matinee series during its 25th Anniversary season. Another defining work that is highly collaborative, for a cast of fourteen, is The Oracle, which premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s BAM Fisher as the culminating event of the Company’s 15th Anniversary Season in the spring of 2014. Touring the work to Atlanta the following year, it was reviewed as one of the best dance events of the year. Cynthia Bond-Perry wrote that the work “offered fresh perspective on modern dance’s formal values with sparkling sweep and joyful physicality. Dancers gave form to space with mathematical elegance and human warmth. Their outstretched limbs arced and criss-crossed as they leaned in and sprang off of one another, weaving ever-changing configurations in a vision that vibrated on a frequency of harmony and brilliance.” Our Films and Fellowships The Company has produced both pedagogical films and art films. Site-specific dance films have screened in local, regional, national, and international festivals, including twice in the American Dance Festival’s International Screendance Festival with No Trespassing and Terrain. The Company has been awarded residencies and commissions by the Joyce Theater Foundation (NYC), The Yard on Martha’s Vineyard, (six times), Raumars Artist-in-Residence Program (Finland), the Sacatar Foundation in Brazil (twice), the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in California (twice), CUNY Dance Initiative, Inception to Exhibition (NYC, several times), Ucross Foundation (Wyoming), The Studios of Key West (FL), La MaMa (NYC), the Queens Museum of Art, the Skafiotes Residency (Greece), Maison Dora Maar, (France), and the Aktuelle Architektur der Kultur (Spain). DGDC invites you to participate in the dance.

HAZEL INCORPORATED
720 W 181St St Apt 31
NEW YORK, New York 10033-4710
United States
Phone 212-543-1367
Unique Identifier 134102260