Access to Art, Inc.

4l7 E. Pacific Ave.

Cape May Court House, N.J. 08210

Press Release/for immediate release

From:  Barbara J. Beitel

Telephone: (609) 465-3963

TAKE A CLASS WITH PHILADANCO! DANCE COMPANY MEMBERS

April l5th with Access to Art in Atlantic & Cape May Counties

Somers Point/Cold Spring.  Shake a leg, dancers.   Dancing with the stars is a hot idea on television these days.  Access to Art has been offering dance classes with major companies for over a decade in both Cape May and Atlantic Counties in both ballet and modern dance. Two dance classes with Philadanco company members will be afforded area dance students on April l5th, one in Somers Point at Charter Tech High School on Rte. 9 from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m., and the other in Cape May County at the Joanne Reagan Studio from 8-9 p.m. on 1037 Seashore Rd., in Cold Spring. (Seashore Rd. parallels route 9).  Class and performance combo tickets are $40.  Individual class tickets are $25. per student.  Call Access to Art, Inc. at (609) 465-3963 to take a class.  It’s all part of a day  scheduled a month preceding the performance in which area school students will be treated to an hour lecture demonstration in the morning and early afternoon, both at the Middle Township PAC from l0-11 a.m. at at the Atlantic Cape Community College Walter Edge Theatre at 5100 Black Horse Pike in Mays Landing.  The lecture/demonstrations are designed to introduce students to the power and style of the famed Philadelphia Dance Company, i.e., Philadanco,  followed by opportunities to take a dance class yourself..

“We think that dance students need an opportunity to take a class, right here at home, with major dance company members, for the discipline, for the experience, and for the variety of styles that are offered today in companies whose profession is dance.’ Said

Barbara Beitel, Access to Art, Director.  “We want not just to entertain, but to educate.” she said, “and to develop audience for the discipline.”  Too often people say, “I’ve been to the circus, I’ve been to the ballet, I’ve been to the opera, I’ve been to a play.  I’ve done it all.  But it is a growing, evolving art, mingling forms and disciplines.  It needs an audience, and people have given Philadanco rave reviews on three continents.  It was chosen, this year, by the NEA, as a company of genius, an “American Master.”  It began in Philadelphia, with the company dancing on the back of recreation trucks in the inner city.  It’s evolved to a company that presents itself in Kennedy Center, and the Joyce Theatre in NY, in Travis, in W. Palm Beach, and across three continents.  It’s wonderful what talent, imagination and tenacity can create.  We invite you to come and see it, and to participate, to learn, to grow.”  Beitel said.  “Last year we had Carolyn Dorfman Company, expressing beautifully the dire condition of the Jewish community at Teresianbad, and the horrors of the Holocaust in dance. It is something her people and her family, holocaust survivors experienced.  And she incorporated that experience in dance and it was very powerful. Art can teach in subliminal ways that reach deep into the spirit, in ways that mere textbooks cannot.  This year we bring you the African American experience and the indomitable will of Joan Myers Brown who was turned down as a dancer because she was black.”  she said.  “Joan formed her own company, was awarded Dance Magazine’s award in 2006, and has sat on boards like the Rockefeller Foundation, bringing her company into international acclaim.  She made lemonade out of lemons.  It is a human story.   Dance can and does express the human condition, and being human, we would do well to see what it has to say, and how it says it.”  Beitel said.  “Dance comes in infinite varieties, with infinite stories, and sometimes just the joy of movement, something we all share.” she said.  “We invite you to come and share it with us.”

Access to Art, Inc., will present Philadanco Dance Company to the region on May l7th in performance at 7:30 p.m. offering area dance fans an opportunity to see the company

that has been generating fabulous reviews around the world, and has won this year’s “American Masters” National Endowment for the Arts/Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation award along with the Martha Graham Dance Company and “Sweet Honey in the Rock.”  The event will take place at the Middle Township Performing Arts Center on May l7th at 7:30 p.m., on l Penketheman Way, off Bayberry Rd., off exit l0E on the Garden State Parkway.  Tickets are $25. and $30. and are on sale now at the Middle Township PAC.

Call the PAC at (609) 463-l924.

Call (609) 465-3963 for information and ticket reservations and dance class reservations.

Dance classes are limited to 30 students, so reservations are necessary.

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