Spartanburg Methodist College is pleased to welcome Ballet Spartanburg’s DanSynergy VII to the campus on Tuesday, February 24. The 7 pm performance will be held in the Gibbs Auditorium and is part of the college’s Interdisciplinary Studies Program. Admission is free of charge and the public is welcome to attend.
The evening event will feature an eclectic fusion of dance styles featuring collaborations with regional and national artists and including unique and powerful contemporary dance. The program will start with a dance piece danced to music by African-English composer Samuel Coleridge Taylor and is based on the works of African-American writers W. E. B. Dubois and Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Also featured in the program is a dance work by Cuban Choreographer Nelson Reyes, based on the stories of Cubans trying to immigrate to America. Last in the program is a dance piece inspired by courageous stories of cancer survivors that explores their emotional journey of diagnosis to the triumph of hope and survival.
Ballet Spartanburg’s mission is to promote dance appreciation in Spartanburg County and surrounding areas by providing quality dance presentation, education, and outreach. Since 1966 Ballet Spartanburg has been enriching lives through the art of dance by presenting national and international dance companies. With an ever growing outreach program, Ballet Spartanburg offers lecture/demonstrations, in-school residencies, after school programs, in-school performances, an annual free performance of Peter & the Wolf, summer programs for at-risk youth at inner city housing projects and at the Boys and Girls Club of The Upstate, and performances at nursing homes, hospitals and community events.
Ballet Spartanburg, under the artistic direction of Carlos Agudelo, is recognized as a regional dance company with an exceptional commitment to education and outreach activities in the Upstate. Ballet Spartanburg has performed at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, at the Koger Center in Columbia, at the Peace Center in Greenville, and in Tryon and Forest City, North Carolina.
Ballet Spartanburg produces a four program season that includes The Nutcracker, a fall program, a spring program and a guest company. These productions showcase world class guest artists from such companies as: Ballet Austin, Houston Ballet and San Francisco Ballet, and American Ballet Theater, and New York City Ballet. In addition, Ballet Spartanburg performs in several festivals and galas each year including, Piccolo Spoletto in Charleston, SC and maintains an active Outreach Program for the community. In 1976, the Dance Center was established as the official school of Ballet Spartanburg. Today The Dance Center instructs over 400 students from Spartanburg, Greenville, Union, Gaffney, and Asheville, Tryon and Rutherfordton in North Carolina.