Dance takes center stage at Montclair festival

• The Dance on the Lawn festival in Montclair will take place on Sept. 9

Montclair has festivals for film, jazz, books, food and wine. So why not a celebration in town for dance.

Dance on the Lawn on Saturday, Sept. 9 will be back for its fourth year. Eleven dance companies and schools from New Jersey and New York will show off new works from 3 to 5 p.m. on the front lawn of St. Luke's Episcopal Church. Admission is free.

The participants in this year’s event are: FutureSTEP Tap Company, Sharron Miller's Academy for the Performing Arts, DanceWorks & Co., New Jersey Dance Theatre Ensemble, FreeSpace Dance, "Dance Therapy,” 10 Hairy Legs, Robert Mark Dance, Troy Powell, PROJECT 44 DANCE and Stephen Petronio Company. Lauren Connolly, Dance on the Lawn's 2017 "Emerging New Jersey Commissioned Choreographer,” will also perform.

Montclair resident Charmaine Warren, the founder of Dance on the Lawn, said she is eagerly anticipating the upcoming festival.

“The beauty of this is that we are bringing dance for free to a lovely audience, an audience that has been so supportive,” Warren said.

Warren, who grew up in Montclair, where she first learned dancing as a teenager, said her professional life as a dancer and teacher of dance in New York influenced her to start Dance on The Lawn in her hometown in 2014.

“My world has always been in New York, but I live here,” Warren said. “And I always wanted to bring dance here to Jersey; the things that I do for New York.”

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Keep on dancing

Warren said the performers apply for the opportunity in December, and finalists are chosen by late January.

She said the participants can perform within the two-hour time frame because dance schools do three- to five-minute pieces, professional companies do five- to eight-minute pieces, and the emerging choreographer does the longest piece.

Sharron Miller, whose school has performed a piece in the last three editions of the festival, commended Warren for being a “spitfire” getting the festival off the ground.
She also anticipates being part of an outlet for young dancers.

“It gives not only our town another dimension as far the arts are concerned, but it gives the young people of our town an opportunity to show what it is they can do,” Miller said. 

According to Miller, young people who are students at the school, will be in spotlight, performing their work called “I Rise.” She said the piece, choreographed by faculty member Adrienne Armstrong, will feature Michael Ellis, an incoming freshman at Montclair High School, in the lead, as well as five other student dancers.

“It’s about the racial experience.… It’s as if they are telling the story about how you overcome,” Miller said.

Donna Scro Samori, artistic director of local company FreeSpace Dance, which has taken part in the festival since its inception, appreciated that Warren created the festival.

She said her company will perform two excerpts from a longer piece, entitled “A Women’s Movement,” which will debut in its entirety in October at Bloomfield College. She pointed out that five of the dancers involved in the excerpts will be over 40-years-old.

“I am really excited about working with these more mature dancers for this [Dance on the Lawn] piece,” Samori said.

For more information about the festival, visit danceonthelawn.org.

Email: kaulessar@northjersey.com