DDT Rescues Dancers from a Closing Springfield Ballet Company
Image: Former SBC Dancer Marissa Escalante in DDT rehearsal
JUNE 1, 2023 – SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS
Springfield, Illinois’s budding ballet company Springfield Ballet Company closes due to financial challenges, Dissonance Dance Theatre hires Dancers
Contact:
Shawn Short, Director
202-540-8338
sshort@ngcfddt.org
Dissonance Dance Theatre (DDT) aids Springfield Ballet Company and its Artistic Director, Adam Sage – a supporter of Dissonance Dance Theatre. Due to financial management, surprised dancers reported to work – presented with locked doors and emails of no future work. Springfield Ballet Company (SBC) became a professional ballet company in 2022. DDT hires dancers for its 16th season.
SBC hired nine professional dancers from all over the United States, along with six leading dancers from the Philippines, where Artistic Director Adam Sage served as Associate Artistic Director for Ballet Philippines for four years (Wandtv, 2022). Dissonance Dance Theatre’s Founding Director, Shawn Short, is a colleague of SBC’s Adam Sage. Before Ballet Philippines, Sage co-founded Missouri Ballet Theatre (MBT). MBT nominated DDT’s Shawn Short for a Princess Grace Award in Choreography in 2014.
” I received an employment inquiry from a SBC dancer seeking an audition. They mentioned that the company was closing due to mismanagement of funds. When I realized Adam Sage was the Artistic Director, I quickly contacted him to find out what happened and how I could help.”
– Shawn Short, DDT Founding Director
“Adam was worried about the international dancers. Many were stranded and didn’t have prospective dance jobs since it was late in the audition season. Visa paperwork also provided a challenge for many of them”, Shawn Short said. To support SBC, Ngoma Center for Dance – Dissonance Dance Theatre’s parent organization – quickly organized funding and acquired 7 of SBC’s 15 dancers – including DDT’s first international dancers to join its ranks.
Image: DDT completing their company physical assessment with Performance Plus PT Staff
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Ngoma Center for Dance is the home of Dissonance Dance Theatre (founded in 2007) and its award-winning programs based in the Washington, DC area. DDT is named “one of the 11 small-but-mighty dance companies outside of LA and NYC” by Dance Spirit Magazine. Evoking emotional experiences in the audiences we touch, is the only East Coast, nationally recognized, Black-managed contemporary ballet company between NYC and ATL. For more information, visit www.ngcfddt.org