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For more information, please contact Lex Leifheit at 860-685-2806 or lleifheit@wesleyan.edu.

SO, WE KNOW YOU CAN DANCE! WESLEYAN, CITY OF MIDDLETOWN AND COMMUNITY GROUPS ANNOUNCE LINEUP FOR FREE, CITYWIDE FESTIVAL

August 9, 2005, Middletown CT—So, you think you can dance? Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts, in collaboration with the City of Middletown and community groups, is planning a citywide dance festival, Middletown Dances!, to be held on Saturday, September 10, from noon to 4pm, culminating in a community dance on Wesleyan’s Andrus Field from 4:30pm to 6:30pm. Featuring over forty free performances and workshops in eleven venues on and near Main Street (between Court and Green), Middletown Dances! will showcase all kinds of dance—hip hop, modern, ballet, tap, jazz, swing, African, even the electric slide—and invite visitors and families to join a group dance, learn some new steps or see some of Connecticut’s most talented performers.

Middletown Dances! is one of five innovation projects made possible by the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism’s State Arts Partnerships for Cultural Participation (START) Program, which is funded by The Wallace Foundation and intended to broaden, deepen and diversify participation in the arts.

“This project taps into all types of values relating to dance participation. Middletown Dances! will inspire our citizens and enliven our communities,” said Jennifer Aniskovich, Executive Director of the Commission, in a statement released by the CCT.

Free workshops between noon and 4pm include: instruction in ballet, contra, capoeira, country line, flamenco, hip hop, jazz, kung fu, lindy hop, merengue, Middle Eastern/belly, modern, Nia, salsa, swing, tap, West African and world dancing, and yoga. All ages and levels—from beginner on up—are welcome.

Performers, teachers and dance companies participating in Middletown Dances! include: 4-One Crew, Alisa’s House of Salsa, Asian Performing Arts, Alison Bogatay, CitiArts Youth Dance Ensemble, Company ‘N Tempo, Connecticut Ballet, The Dance Corner, LLC, Julie Deak, Footnotes Dance Theater, Full Force Dance Theatre, Fuller Movement Company, Greater Hartford Scottish Country Dancers, Ginga Brasileira Dance Co., Green Street Arts Center’s dance teaching artists, KDNY, Kitchen Ceili with David Kaynor, Sandra Kopell, Kpanlogo Dancers, Pamala Lewis, Mazowsze Polish Folk Dance, Gayle Melonson, Middletown High School Dance Team, Mara Morris, New Haven Ballet, Linalynn Natter, O’D n’tap, Samhati Classical Indian Dance Fusion, SaReel Project, Scapegoat Garden, Scottish Country Dancers, Stage Left Dance, Darla Stanley and Patricia Zubini-Weiss, Su’ad and the Desert Moon Dancers, Tat Wong Kung Fu Academy, U.S. Dance Club, Venus Rising Belly Dance Troupe, Leslie Unger, Vinnie’s Jump & Jive, Wesleyan University Dance Department, Wild Goose Nation and the Yale Undergraduate Bellydance Society.

The “Everybody” Dance!, from 4:30 to 6:30pm, will celebrate all forms of dance together at Wesleyan University’s Andrus Field. A live deejay will play pop, salsa, swing, country, hip hop and more alongside MC Marlee, from the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Also, pet lovers who bring their dog on a leash can learn the Dance Exchange’s “dog dance.”

Other special events include a “waiters dance,” choreographed by the Dance Exchange, and live street-side videography interpreting pedestrian movements as dance, to music deejayed by Arun Ranganathan. Throughout the day visitors are encouraged to check out Middletown’s many shops, galleries and restaurants, listed online at www.middletowndowntown.com or www.middlesexchamber.com. Wesleyan’s Davison Art Center (301 High St.) will be open from noon until 6pm exhibiting American Document: Barbara Morgan Dance Photographs, with more than forty photographs including images of Martha Graham and José Limón.

Middletown Dances! is sponsored by Citizens Bank and received additional support from Wesleyan University, the Mayor's Office of the City of Middletown, Middletown Commission on the Arts, Middlesex Mutual Assurance Company, Downtown Business District, Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce and Subway. Media sponsorship by the Middletown Press.

More information about Middletown Dances!, including more detailed schedule and location information, is available by visiting www.middletowndances.org or by calling the Wesleyan University Box Office at 860-685-3355.

*Performers and schedule are subject to change.