Gina Gibney Dance Inc

Ginagibneydance_normal

890 BROADWAY
NEW YORK, NY 10003-1211
Phone: (212) 677-8560
ginagibneydance.org
EIN: 13-3623815
Form 990

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(photo by Andrzej J. Olejniczak.)

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About Gina Gibney Dance Inc

Overview

An all female troupe of six versatile and talented dancers, who perform Gina Gibney's deeply personal choreography and demonstrate strength, power and creativity in their performance and community choices.

Gibney's unique approach to dance questions what it means to be human with all of the attendant pain, beauty and mystery and examines the complex nature of meaningful relationships, self knowledge and the socially committed life. Each year Gina Gibney Dance creates new works of choreography, mounts a New York season, and tours throughout the United States and abroad.

Our work in the community is based on the same visions as our artistic work. There is a strong structural framework and philosophy, yet the dancers are invited to drawn upon their own creativity, experience and insight. Similarly, the survivors who participate are not “taught to dance” -- rather they are encouraged to “look inside, speak through movement and work together.” In a word, they are creators and collaborators.

Mission

Gina Gibney Dance is committed to a unique dual mission: To create and perform contemporary choreography that draws upon the strengths and insights of women, and to enrich and reshape lives through programs that give voice to communities in need. A pioneering force in linking dance with social service, the company’s groundbreaking community initiatives use the transforming power of movement to assist survivors of violence to heal, find their voice and build new lives.

History

GINA GIBNEY DANCE was founded in 1991. In 1997, in response to Gina Gibney's growing concern that women in professional dance were losing artistic and financial ground, the company was reconceived as an all-female troupe. Since that time, Ms. Gibney and her company have developed a repertory of over six evening length works that explore the humanity and physicality of women. Over the years the company has performed in Connecticut, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Washington State and Washington, DC and in Toronto and Montreal, Canada and since 1992 has mounted 11 New York City seasons. Gina Gibney Dance reaches more than 5,000 people annually through performing. The company's work has been presented at The Duke on 42nd Street, Danspace Project, Works & Process at The Guggenheim Museum, Yale Repertory Theater, Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, Joe's Pub and DanceNOW NYC, Cleveland Public Theater, The Joyce Theater's Altogether Different Series, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Joyce SoHo, Symphony Space and elsewhere.

Program

In 2000 Gina Gibney Dance launched the Domestic Violence Project. The first of its kind, this project was conceived to unite survivors of domestic abuse, who often have grave issues of self determination and autonomy with professional dancers, who through years of training have learned to control their physical environment with freedom and confidence.

Many times over this groundbreaking program has demonstrated that movement, physical awareness and creativity can play a remarkable role in healing trauma. The success of this program - a partnership with Sanctuary for Families and Safe Horizon - provided the context for Gina Gibney Dance to develop other programs that meet the needs of under served populations.

Another new initiative, Moving the Community, will bring the healing power of movement to the HIV/AIDS community.

Also, specially designed for children in domestic violence shelters, MyMoves! is a program that will offer high-quality workshops to help children develop self-confidence and life skills such as creative problem solving, concentration, collaboration and communication.

Keep Moving, our youth-at-risk program, is underway again this year at Washington Irving High School. The aim of Keep Moving is to help underperforming and seriously at risk youth gain coping and life skills and to imagine a more positive future.

Impact

Our artistic work highlights women dancers as strong individuals, each with a unique and organic presence. Gibney’s process invites the dancers to fully excavate their own ideas and impulses in a bottom-up approach, which respects and empowers the dancers.

Annually, our community initiatives serve thousands of participants through three distinct programs: Domestic Violence Project, Keep Moving for youth-at-risk, and the company's new initiative for Moving the Community, an initiative for individuals affected by HIV/AIDS.

By tracking and evaluating our work since 2004, we have gathered compelling evidence of the success of our approach. Perhaps most encouraging is the finding that 93% of the workshop participants indicated that the workshops gave them confidence to try things that they were reluctant to do before.

Chief Executive

Gina Gibney

Chief Executive Profile

Gina Gibney is the Artistic Director of Gina Gibney Dance. Her choreography has been widely presented and commissioned in the United States and abroad at such venues as Danspace Project, The Duke on 42nd Street Theater, WORKS & PROCESS at the Guggenheim Museum, Yale Repertory Theater, Joyce SoHo, Central Park SummerStage, Symphony Space, The Joyce Theater's Altogether Different series, Joe's Pub and DanceNOW NYC, Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Cleveland Public Theatre, the New York platform of the Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine Saint-Denis, L'Agora de la Danse (Montréal), Maison de la Culture Frontenac (Montréal), Maison de la Culture Rosemont (Montréal), Gibraltor Point Center for the Arts (Toronto), and elsewhere. In response to her growing concern about the status of women in the professional dance world, she reorganized her company as an all-female ensemble in 1997. Since that time, she has created six evening length works: Coming from Quiet (1998), Objects No Longer Present (2000), Several Truths (2001), Time Remaining (2002), Thrown (2004) and unbounded (2005). In 2000 she launched the innovative Domestic Violence Project that offers dance and creative expression to women who are survivors of domestic abuse. She is the founder of Studio 5-2, an officer of Danspace Project's Board of Directors, and a recently elected trustee of Dance/USA. Gibney graduated with honors and received an MFA in Dance from Case Western Reserve University. Individuals who have influenced her work include Kathryn Karipides, Kelly Holt, Hanya Holm, Mark Morris, Jocelyn Lorenz, and the many gifted performers with whom she has worked.