Battery Dance is now accepting applications for the 43rd Annual Battery Dance Festival in August 2024! The deadline to apply is December 31, 2023, 11:59pm EST. 

Battery Dance Festival, New York City’s longest-running free public dance festival, was established by Battery Dance as the Downtown Dance Festival in 1982. It draws in-person audiences of approximately 2,000 people each night from the large downtown population of workers, residents, families, tourists, senior citizens and dance fans from the greater NYC metropolitan area and beyond. The Festival will be livestreamed to our worldwide audiences, reaching thousands of international viewers each night.

Battery Dance Festival provides a unique opportunity for professional dancers and choreographers in any genre to present original works of high artistic merit in a free public forum against the backdrop of the Hudson River at sunset.

Important Information:

*Tentative Festival Dates: Aug 11-17, 2023 at Rockefeller Park, NYC

*Modest honorarium will be provided to festival participants. The Festival does not provide housing and/or transportation.

*Individual artists and collectives are welcome to apply. You do not need to be a formal organization to be considered.

*Duration of group works (2 or more dancers) should be between 10-20 minutes. Duration of solo works should be between 5-10 minutes. An excerpt of a longer work can be accepted. In selecting a work for consideration, please be mindful of the outdoor performance venue with minimal supplemental lighting and an audience generally not on risers. While there is side lighting, there is no overhead lighting. We cannot accommodate projections/video as part of your performance.  All performances must be family friendly.

*If a work exists only in-progress, please send a rehearsal video of the required length with sufficient supplemental information with which to be fairly considered. World Premiere performances and NYC debuts/premieres are welcomed and encouraged. If you are applying with a work-in-progress submission and are accepted into the Festival, you will be asked to provide a video of the completed work before final approval.

*EACH COMPANY/ARTIST CAN ONLY SUBMIT ONE (1) APPLICATION. Performers can appear in more than one (1) application.

*Companies that have performed in the two (2) consecutive prior Festivals (BOTH 2022 AND 2023) will NOT be eligible to participate this year (2024). They will regain their eligibility to apply for next year (2025).

*ARTISTS/COMPANIES FROM INDIA OR THE INDIAN DIASPORA: The all-Indian Dance Program (August 15 – India Independence Day) will be curated separately. Applications will not be accepted at this time.

*Young Voices in Dance (featuring choreographers from 15-22 years old) will have a separate application that will go live on Battery Dance website in early Spring 2024.

Learn more and apply: https://batterydance.org/apply/

Direct all questions to Festival Manager, Amy Santos: amy@batterydance.org