Kanopy Dance Company 2 & Academy Showcase

media release: Watch the next generation of dancers and choreographers in Kanopy’s pre-professional training program, Kanopy 2, and the Kanopy Dance Academy (KDA) ignite the stage with new ideas, new expressions ---and even original choreography and costuming developed and built by the dancers themselves--- on Saturday, May 20, 2023, at 2 & 5PM at the Overture Center for the Arts in the Promenade Hall.

KDA, (located at 329 W. Mifflin Street around the corners from the Overture Center) and its 100+ dedicated students are integral to Kanopy’s cultural mission, and Kanopy is honored to shine a special light on their hard work, as well as their technical and creative progress. 

Nature themes including storms, water, and other natural elements… were a major inspiration for the young KDA dancers in creating their choreography. Students enrolled in KDA’s Bharatanatyam Classical Indian Dance, will perform a short selection from the genre in traditional costumes and jewelry.

The Next Generation of Dance is also a special opportunity for members of Kanopy’s pre-professional company, Kanopy 2 (along with some Kanopy Company members and KDA students), to perform iconic works by Kanopy’s co-artistic directors, Robert E. Cleary, and Lisa Thurrell, who have earned national acclaim for their dancing and their choreography.

These dancers have been introduced to an intense vocabulary of classic and modern forms and have studied with leading shapers of modern dance such as Pascal Rioult, Lloyd Knight, Samantha Geracht, Lone Kjar Larsen, and Luis Gabriel Zaragoza, 

Kanopy 2, offers a pre-professional training program open to exceptional students of dance by audition only. Serious dancers are introduced to an intense vocabulary of classic and modern forms and study with national luminaries shaping the future of modern contemporary dance. 

Numerous Kanopy 2 alumni have forged professional dance careers or earned success in other creative careers of their choosing. Among them are Maya Finman- Palmer, who will be starting her second season as a member of the world-renowned Alvin Ailey II Company in New York City, and Margaret Mighty Oak Brackey who is performing in her first season at the noted Sokolow Dance/Theatre Ensemble, in NYC, that is dedicated to performing the works of social activist and modern dance and theater legend, Anna Sokolow.

Tickets (reserved seating): $35

Groups: 4 or more $30

Ages 18 & under $20

Students $20