WHITE WAVE Dance presents the 21st Annual Virtual Dumbo Dance Festival, June 23-26, 2022. This four-day spectacular features sixty companies with over 350 artists from New York and around the world, showcasing color, chamber, and full-scale works. Tickets are $15 (except Gala) and can be purchased online at www.whitewavedance.org.

 

The festival begins with a virtual opening night celebration gala on June 23, 2022 at 7PM. The evening will be hosted by distinguished guests keynote speakers, including philanthropist and WHITE WAVE Patron Gerald Appelstein, SummerStage NYC Dance Curator Danni Gee, Jennifer Muller/The Works Artistic Director Jennifer Muller, former WHITE WAVE Board Member & Angel Ludo Scheffer, former WHITE WAVE Board Chair Thera Marshall, longtime WHITE WAVE supporter and selection panel member Pascal Rekoert, along with Company Board members and WHITE WAVE Artistic Director Young Soon Kim.

 

Speakers' remarks will intersperse the evening of six sensational contemporary dance troupes: Hyonok Kim Dance Arts, Buglisi Dance Theatre, Barkin/Selissen Project, and three of the most eclectic companies from South Korea: chagmu center|KIM / MEA JA, UBIN Dance|Na-Hyun Lee & Theatre Mucheon|Ara Kim, and WHITE WAVE Young Soon Kim Dance Company.

 

The festival continues on June 24 with performances at 7PM & 9PM; June 25 with performances at 2PM, 4PM, 6PM & 8PM; and on June 26 at 4PM & 6PM - with a grand finale at 8PM. There is also a family-friendly program on June 26, celebrating the next generation of dancers and their parents. WHITE WAVE's Kids Can Dance education program will provide a free Hip Hop and Modern Dance class on Zoom, 12PM-1PM, led by Company member. The class is followed by a fun and educational family-friendly dance program of seven companies, 1:30PM-3PM. Please visit www.whitewavedance.org for the full performance schedule.

 

WHITE WAVE scours the globe in search of today's most innovative dancemakers, both emerging and established, and virtually brings them together for one extended weekend, all the while paying extra attention to the new, emerging, and experimental. Dance lovers will experience a veritable cornucopia of the best of contemporary dance. 2022 VDDF attracts the very best by providing artists access to our global audiences to experience, first-hand, the incomparable vitality of the NY & around-the-world Dance scene.

 

"This is a festival about opportunities," said Young Soon Kim, Artistic Director and founder of White Wave Dance. "The DUMBO Dance Festival — now VIRTUAL — provides an opportunity for over 350 performing artists to showcase their work. Further, it offers New York and global audiences the chance to experience one of the most diverse displays of leading-edge choreography and excellence at an affordable price."

Ballaro Dance New York (NY), Alison Cook Beatty Dance (NY), Meg Kirchhoff (Buffalo, NY), 

Taylor Graham (NY), Flamencodanza Aylin Bayaz (Madrid, Spain), Kelly Guerrero (CT), 

Metanoia Dance (NY), Ramona Sekulovic (Berlin, Germany), Alisa Guiffrida ( Syracuse, NY), 

Choreography of Kathleen Hickey (IN), Anabella Lenzu/DanceDrama (NY), Lisa D. Long (CA),

Lauren Blair Smith Dance Company (CA), Theatre Mucheon (Seoul, Korea), Dmitri Peskov (UT)

EloyDanza (IA), A.L.A.H. (Texas), Hyonok Kim Dance Arts (NY), UBIN Dance (Seoul, Korea),

chagmu center/ KIM MEA JA (Seoul, Korea), Limón2 (NY), Cristina Ruberto( Salerano Canavese, Italy), Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre (NY), Amos Pinhasi (NY), JKing Dance Company(JKDC) (NY), East by North Dance (NY), Buglisi Dance Theatre (NY), Elise Knudson (NY), Barkin/Selissen Project (NY), Jody Oberfelder Projects (NY), Devin Richey (NY), CrossMove Lab (Plainview, NY), Laurie DeVito and Dancers (NY), Flexicurve (NY), Jenna Hanlon (Fairport, NY), David Appel (NY), Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre (NY), and WHITE WAVE Young Soon Kim Dance Company.

 

This year, WHITE WAVE Dance will select two outstanding companies to have the opportunity to perform at the 2023 New Dance Festival in Korea, and at the 2022 Detroit City Dance Festival. Both of these highly regarded festivals will provide companies with another fantastic opportunity for further exposure, promotion, and performances. All participating VDDF companies will be carefully considered and will be notified after the grand finale performance. 

 

About WHITE WAVE

Formed in 1988, WHITE WAVE Young Soon Kim Dance Company (WHITE WAVE) strives to inspire audiences through multi-dimensional dance productions reflecting themes and philosophies both modern and timeless. Our mission is to be a potent stimulus for change and expansion of the dance/arts world through the production of dance concerts, classes, residencies, and education. Artistic Director Young Soon Kim's vision is expansive, challenging the threshold of dance, music, theater and visual art, surging forward to create new possibilities. Ms. Kim creates works of vision and movement language in reverence and awe of novelty that challenge and broaden the boundaries of dance. We provide both emerging and established choreographers/companies with a NYC venue where they can congregate, create, rehearse and present new dance works through our festivals. 

www.whitewavedance.org.

 

Mission and a brief history of WHITE WAVE

Founded by Korean-born Young Soon Kim in 1988, the WHITE WAVE Young Soon Kim Dance Company is dedicated to inspiring audiences through multi-dimensional dance productions reflecting themes and philosophies both modern and timeless. We constantly strive to be a potent stimulus for progress and evolution within the dance/arts world. By producing dance concerts, festivals, and educational activities, WHITE WAVE Dance provides both nascent and seasoned choreographers/companies with an encouraging environment where they can create, collaborate, and present new works in the undisputed capital of world dance, New York City. WHITE WAVE created DDF in 2001 in response to the dance community's need for performance opportunities that would not only present, but also produce, the work of rising choreographers at minimal expense for the artist. The festival is now recognized as New York's most prestigious gathering of pioneering choreography, encouraging experimentation, creativity, and originality. To date, WHITE WAVE Dance has proudly presented over 3,000 choreographers/dance companies and over 22,500 performers to a total of more than 90,500 audience members.

 

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Young Soon Kim, Artistic Director of WHITE WAVE Dance, is a nationally and internationally acclaimed choreographer, whose work has been hailed for its exhilarating, visually stunning, and emotionally rich phrases and textures. In addition to her role as a performer and Artistic Director, Ms. Kim created a series of dance festivals soon after inaugurating the WHITE WAVE John Ryan Theater in DUMBO, Brooklyn, in 2001. She has since become one of the most recognized producers/curators in New York City. Ms. Kim has also served as a juror for New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in 2006 and for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in 2014. After the World première at the 2017 La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival, WHITE WAVE Dance's Canadian première of "iyouuswe" (read as I-You-Us-We-two) at the 2018 Vancouver International Dance Festival was a resounding success! WHITE WAVE presented "Eternal NOW" at our enormously successful 2019 tour to Korea and China. In Gwanju, Korea, we performed at a special event at the Asian Cultural Center, one of the most prestigious arts complexes in all of Asia. There we participated at the Opening Celebration of the 2019 FINA World Championship Masters' Games, a sporting event that rivals the Olympics. Following that, we flew to China to perform at the Ningbo Cultural Plaza, as part of a China-US Cultural Exchange program. Dazzled sold-out audiences greeted us at every performance! During the Summer/Fall 2021, Young Soon Kim, continually created "iyouuswe II, A Dance Film" and a stage version of the production. In October 2021 WHITE WAVE Dance presented three free performances of their newest production, iyouuswe II (I-You-Us-We-Two), on October 9 and 30, 2021 at DUMBO Archway, and two shows at the Home of WHITE WAVE Dance at 5pm as part of the City Artist Corps Grant Initiative. "iyouuswe II, A Dance Film" was selected as finalist for the 2022 Cannes International Film Festival, Paris International Short Festival, Vancouver Independent Film Festival and an OFFICIAL SELECTION at the 2021 London International Short Film Festival, Espoo Digi-Dance International Film Festival (Finland) and Experimental, Dance, Music Film Festival (Canada).

 

"There are people who simply have a lot of energy, and the Korean-born choreographer Young Soon Kim is clearly one of them." – Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times

 

WHITE WAVE's programs are supported, in part, by public funds from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Fund for the City of New York, The New York Community Trust's NYC COVID-19 Response and Impact Fund, Dance/NYC's Coronavirus Dance Relief Fund, Howard Gilman Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, JOHN RYAN COMPANY, and Individual Arts Supporters like you.