ELLEN SINOPOLI DANCE COMPANY (ESDC) is a 33 year old not-for-profit arts organization located in NYS’s Capital Region. Celebrating its 32nd season as resident company of The Egg, ESDC’s commitment to CREATE, COLLABORATE, EDUCATE and PARTNER remains in the forefront as it shares its work with diverse audiences through concerts, showcases, residencies, workshops, educational and community outreach. Artistic Director Ellen Sinopoli has created over 100 dances since forming the company and ESDC’s collaborations and artistic projects serve as a conduit to bring together talented artists (both regional and national) from varied genres that include visual artists, sculptors, architects, composers and musicians, poets and storytellers, videographers, photographers and physicists. Past commissions include new work for Albany Symphony Orchestra/Dogs of Desire, The Egg, Fenimore Art Museum, Olana Partnership, Saratoga County Arts Council, Schenectady Symphony Orchestra, Schenectady Museum and St Cecelia Orchestra.
As the resident company of The Egg Center for the Performing Arts in Albany, ESDC is part of its highly successful dance season that presents many NY based, national and international dance companies. ESDC’s performances at professional, regional, and college theatres as well as community centers, art galleries, public playgrounds, public schools, libraries, museums, historic sites and storefronts include venues in MA, NYC and throughout 17 NYS counties. Within the Capital Region, ESDC has performed at Albany’s The Egg, Massry Center for the Arts, NYS Museum, WAMC’s The Linda, Sage College’s Opalka Gallery and Albany Institute of History and Art. Additional locations include: Troy’s historic Gasholder Building, Arts Center of the Capital Region and Troy Savings Bank Music Hall; Schenectady’s Proctors and Schenectady Museum; Cambridge’s Hubbard Hall. ESDC has performed at many of the area’s institutes of higher education including UAlbany, College of St. Rose, FMCC, HVCC, RPI, Russell Sage, Skidmore, SUNY Cobleskill, and Union. Performances at galleries and museums include Albany Institute of Museum and Art, Chesterwood Museum, Hyde Museum, NYS Museum, Olana State Historic Site, Schenectady Museum and the Opalka Gallery. Also, ESDC has been invited to perform at gubernatorial inaugurations, art center and gallery openings, senior centers, fundraising events for area school districts and other not-for-profit organizations, First Night celebrations for Albany, Saratoga, and Chatham, Albany’s First Friday and Tulip Festival and Troy’s Troy Night Out events. NYC performances include Lincoln Center, Mulberry Street Theater, St. Mark’s Church and Ryan Theater for the DUMBO Festival and Riverside Theater. In MA, ESDC has appeared at Tanglewood and Jacobs Pillow Inside/Out.
Committed to bringing dance to underserved communities and populations through Arts-In-Education, ESDC offers performances and workshops in and around NYS’s Capital Region. Residencies, workshops and/or performances bring the excitement of exploring the creative process to children and young adults in both urban and rural schools. Our educational programs introduce and explore modern dance in a pure performing sense and utilize dance to teach curricula and enhance understanding in the connectedness of art and everyday life. ESDC has an ongoing partnership with Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) to expand their Classical Kids Program at the SPAC Little Theater that introduces middle school students to the world of classical ballet and other dance forms. We are also one of the contributing artists to their virtual Learning Library. By making these early connections with an art form, we create a respect for and understanding of the arts and its performing artists. This carries over into adult years and is passed down to future generations. Specially designed educational programming includes: Celtic Footprints, Choreophysics, Dance by Chance, From the mind of a single long vine, one hundred opening lives, If Books Could Dance!, Undercover Playground, and Science in Motion.
ESDC’s outreach programming continues to expand as we bring our work to community centers, day care centers, public playgrounds, libraries, art galleries and centers for special populations. For ESDC’s outreach partnership with the Center for Disability Services, ESDC taught creative movement workshops at the Smith Center (adult population) as part of the “Creative MOVEment” program, a one-of-a-kind collaborative community partnership with MOVE–Mobility Opportunities Via Experience. Our creative movement workshops for these populations are designed to introduce the joy of dance, movement for self expression and creativity into their everyday lives.
ESDC has received funding from New York State Council on the Arts for multi-year general operating support, individual artist projects, long term Arts-in-Education residencies and three long-term residencies at Kaatsbaan International Dance Center. It has also received funding from the Troy Redevelopment Fund, Bender Family Foundation, Melissa and Doug Hahn Charitable Trust/Capital Region Living Magazine, Charles R. Wood Foundation, Charles and Cornelia Hume Charitable Trust, Community Foundation for the Capital Region’s Robert C. Reilly Salary Fund, Howard and Bush Foundation, New York State Music Fund for the commission of an original composition for “Spill Out!,” Partners in Dance, Stewart’s Shops, Stuyvesant Plaza, Inc., as well as Local Initiative Funding from NYS Assemblymen Ron Canestrari and John McEneny. The company has also been supported by the Cities of Albany and Troy, Golub Foundation, Poets & Writers, Meet the Composer, and the Troy Savings Bank Charitable Foundation.
Our current Board of Directors includes:
President: Teresa Johnson
Vice-President: Hollis Dorman
Treasurer: Monique Sofen
Secretary: Sandra Rouse
Directors:
Joyce Chupka
Nancy Rosenblum
Ellen Sinopoli