Philadelphia Is Dancing!

The Philadelphia is Dancing! Wall Calendar is a fundraiser designed to benefit the New Stages for Dance Initiative while also providing a tool for other dance companies and organizations to raise money through retail sales. The beautiful full-color calendar celebrates and promotes awareness of Philadelphia dance to enthusiasts across the country and around the world.

Leadership Support for the New Stages for Dance Initiative is provided by MetLife Foundation.  The professional dance companies and artists, and the organizations and businesses featured in the calendar make a contribution to Dance/UP. When you buy a calendar, proceeds benefit the company/artist you buy it from.

The annual January-December calendar showcases an impressive and diverse group of artists and yet each year it features just a sampling of what Philadelphia has to offer. To date, the 5-county region includes nearly 100 producing dance companies and more than 2,000 individual artists. Philadelphia Is Dancing!

Formerly the Theater Rental Subsidy Program, New Stages for Dance is an innovative re-granting initiative that provides affordable access to quality venues so professional dance artists can produce successful, high-quality home seasons. Established in 2008, the initiative has distributed more than $90,000 to 17 companies.

The 2010 addition of a Technical Support component provides professional one-on-one coaching, free of charge, for participating artists and companies in areas such as budgeting, production timeline, insurance law, and contract negotiation.

Recently, MetLife Foundation has awarded our parent organization, Dance/USA, a grant to transform this program into a national model, with launches in San Francisco and Chicago anticipated in 2011. 

THE NEED

Producing dance companies and presenting organizations in Philadelphia have limited access to many wonderful theaters in the region because rental rates are often prohibitive for them. This leaves many venues that are well-suited for concert dance underused by the local dance community. As a result, this negatively impacts audience development, production values, and visibility for the art form in general. Without a dance-specific venue in Philadelphia, it is important that dance programmers have more affordable access to the many non-dance specific theaters throughout the region to accommodate the explosion of dance activity.

THE GOALS

• Provide affordable access to quality venues for dance producers and presenters;
• Enable dance companies to present home seasons;
• Build dance audiences by leveraging marketing support from host venues;
• Increase rental income for area venues.

LEARN MORE: visit Dance/USA Philadelphia

Founded in 2007, as a branch office of Dance/USA, the national service organization for professional dance,  Dance/USA Philadelphia provides advocacy, resources, services, and collaborative opportunities for the dance community in the greater Philadelphia area. Visit Dance/USA Philadelphia to learn more & to subscribe to the eNewsletter.

MISSION