CFA Receives Engaging Dance Audience Award, Dance Series Funding

Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts received a $42,660 grant from Dance/USA, the national service organization for professional dance. The CFA is one of 20 member organizations across the country awarded funding for “Round Two of Engaging Dance Audiences,” the first national funding program for audience engagement practices focused specifically on the art form of dance.

The award will support two new CFA programs: the DanceLink Fellowship Program, in which Wesleyan students will intern with three professional dance companies during the summer, and then serve as ambassadors for the companies when they are presented on campus during the 2013–2014 Breaking Ground Dance Series; and Dine/Dance/Discover, a new event to take place before and after Breaking Ground Dance Series performances, incorporating dance workshops featuring movements from those performances, dinners facilitated by the DanceLink Fellows and Wesleyan faculty members, and post-show discussions.

Engaging Dance Audiences is administered by Dance/USA and made possible with generous funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The selected organizations were chosen from 57 applications through a rigorous review by a national peer panel. Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts is the only dance presenter in Connecticut to receive support from Dance/USA, as well as the National Endowment for the Arts dance program.