Broadway Meets Baroque in Washington Heights

BALAM Awarded Grant to Create New Spanish Baroque Program

 BALAM Dance Theatre has been awarded a grant from the Fund for Creative Communities.  The grant will provide the ensemble dance company with seed money to present an imaginative Spanish Baroque dance workshop series and a performance in Washington Heights, New York for the community to experience and engage with the arts. 

BALAM will create a workshop and new program, A Don Quixote for the Washington Heights Choir School, a non-denominational after school program.  Inspired by the classic novel, The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the children’s workshop series will run from September 18 through October 17 and be offered free-of-charge to the students attending the institution.       


Baroque Dance Lessons 


They will receive Baroque dance lessons complementing their current Baroque music lessons at Washington Heights Choir School and dance and act in a finale performance with BALAM's artists on October 18.  In the workshop, students will learn period fencing, perform the dances sarabande and bourree, and get acquainted with grotesque masks in the commedia dell'arte style. 

 Featured Guest Artists


The program will feature BALAM’s artists and guest artist Broadway actor and singer Mauricio Villalobos, as the bilingual English and Spanish narrator and Don Quixote figure, and Elias Guzman performing on the vihuela.  



Photo: Robin Gilbert in Folia.  Photo Credit: Eric Bandiero.
   
The performance will be presented on October 18 at 3:00 p.m. at Holyrood Episcopal Church -- Iglesia Santa Cruz, located at 715 West 179th Street, in New York City.  The unique program will be free and open to the public.  Donations are welcome and appreciated. 

"This award enables BALAM to introduce and serve children and families from the vibrant Washington Heights community to Baroque music and dance and our eclectic programming," said Carlos Fittante, artistic director, BALAM Dance Theatre.       

The program, A Don Quixote for Washington Heights Choir School, is made possible in part with public funds from the Fund for Creative Communities, supported by New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.