DOUG ELKINS DANCE COMPANY is interested in the creation of possibilities rather than the forming of actualities. For us as dancers and dance makers, all of our creativity — the play and joyfulness, the seriousness, passion and humor — lies in learning to start something we know that we cannot finish. It is our hope to reveal continuity where others have assumed an ending, to expose that wherever there is closure there is the possibility of a new beginning — and to challenge our own declaration of what is real.

The Company has toured throughout the United States, Canada, Japan, Brazil, Europe, and the United Kingdom. By mixing the traditional with the unexpected, expanding the vocabulary to include martial arts and club dance movements, it is the Company’s aim and hope to draw its viewers into re-examining assumptions about dance, musicality, and the creative process.

The seven-member troupe began its 1999—2000 season with a successful outdoor community performance in Huntington, Long Island. From there, the company traveled to Philadelphia for The Fringe Festival, and then to Cleveland for its Ohio debut. The company’s New York season helped to launch a new dance series at the uptown Symphony Space. The season continued with concert performances at Wesleyan University, Slippery Rock University, New York University, and an ambitious teaching effort in New York City public schools coordinated by the 92nd Street Y. The 2000-2001 season is already a success with the company’s return, for the third consecutive year, to SummerDance Santa Barbara.

Highlights of the last three seasons include: participation in Seattle’s prodigious Bumbershoot Festival; a return to the U.K. for London’s 2Oth anniversary Dance Umbrella (1998); extensive touring in Italy; the company’s debut at Jacob’s Pillow; a rousing, sold out performance at Festival Chateauvallon. The Company also performed twice in 1999 --at The New Victory Theater on Broadway and at Dance Theater Workshop.
The highlight of the company s tenth anniversary season, 1997-98, was a week long engagement at The Joyce Theater in June, followed by appearances on both coasts at SummerDance Santa Barbara and Bates Dance Festival. In both 1996 and 1997, Doug and dancers participated in important residencies at SUNY Brockport, under the auspices of Jacquie Davis and the New York State Task Force on Partnerships in Dance, a program supported by the New York State Council on the Arts.

The Company is grateful for the financial support and guidance it has received over the years. Support has come from The National Endowment for the Arts; The Pew Charitable Trusts; The Artists Fund of New York Foundation for the Arts; The Neva William Arts Foundation of the National Heritage Foundation; The Vapnek Family Foundation; The Greenwall Foundation; Dance Theater Workshop’s First Light and Public Imaginations programs; the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation; The Jerome Foundation; The Harkness Foundation for Dance; Philip Morris Companies lnc.; Dance Theater Workshop/National Performance Network; The Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts; The Sequoia Foundation; New England Foundation for the Arts; Capezio-BaIlet Makers; and The Fund for US Artists at International Festivals and Exhibitions/ Arts International.

Doug Elkins Dance Company is a 5O1 (c)(3) non-profit arts organization. Write to us at Doug Elkins Dance Company c/o Zia Artists 506 Fort Washington Avenue, 1H New York, New York 10033. voice/fax 212-928-6517 , email: dougelkinsdance@aol.com.