The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

Steffi Nossen School of Dance

Steffi Nossen Dance Foundation Presents Fall Choreography Event

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An Immersive Dance Experience will take place at Bethany Arts Center on December 4th

Gierre Godley

The Steffi Nossen Dance Foundation will present an “immersive dance experience” at Bethany Arts Center in Ossining on Saturday, December 4th. The event features choreography by six diverse artists–from classical modern to swing dance with jazz accompaniment and the debut of a new wok by Hannah Garner, a Purchase Conservatory of Dance alumna, commissioned for performance by the Steffi Nossen Dance Company. Choreographers include Gierre Godley, Olivia Passarelli/Sophie Gray-Gaillard, Spencer Pond, Caterina Rago, and Steffi Nossen Artistic Director Jessica DiMauro Marks.

The audience will be guided through a variety of locations within the BAC to experience these live performances with opportunities to view art works in the galleries. The Board of Directors will host a reflective reception: an opportunity to talk with the artists and enjoy a seasonal treat and the BAC grounds.

Performances will take place every hour from 2 p.m.– 7 p.m. in groups of 25 people.  All COVID safety guidelines will be followed; masks are required.

Tickets at $50 for adults and $30 for students/seniors are available at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fall-showcase-an-immersive-dance-experience-tickets-201093856137

Or call us at 914-328-1900 for more information.

 

 

Sharing Dance: A Tribute to Kathleen Fitzgerald’s Extraordinary Career

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Kathleen Fitzgerald
Kathleen Fitzgerald

By Matt Smith

“Since my first class, I have loved dance, and I want to share that with everyone.”

While she presumably meant those words to be a wish for the future, by the looks of it, Kathleen Fitzgerald, speaker of the above, seems to already have the “sharing” covered. So much so that the Mount Kisco resident was named Gala Honoree during the Steffi Nossen School of Dance’s 79th Annual Benefit Week, held earlier this year, from March 31-April 2.

As is tradition, the yearly Gala serves to benefit the Steffi Nossen Dance Foundation, a not-for-profit dance advocacy and community outreach organization within the school, while at the same time honoring one of their own for his or her Outstanding Contributions to SNDF. As a special treat unique to Fitzgerald, this year’s event included a performance of a new work, danced by nine graduating seniors of SNDC and choreographed by Steffi Nossen Dance Foundation Artistic Director–and Annual Benefit producer–Jessica DiMauro, which served as a tribute to Fitzgerald’s life and career. “I’m flabbergasted,” she says of receiving the honor. “I’ve worked behind-the-scenes for so long now that I was just not expecting it. I’m uncharacteristically speechless.”

While she may not have been expecting it, the honor is certainly deserved–dancing’s clearly in her blood.

Fitzgerald began dance training at age eight, as a way to augment the “complete lack of coordination” that resulted from poor vision. Nonetheless, regardless of the reason, it was clear she was hooked from that very first day. “I got in the car after [the class] and said, ‘Mommy, I’m gonna be a dancer,’” she recalls. “That was really all I ever wanted to be.”

Her first foray into the professional dance world came at age fifteen, when she auditioned for “new state-supported performing arts school” North Carolina School of the Arts… as #13, no less, which Nossen herself always considered a–a telling sign of what was soon to come.

Kathleen Fitzgerald in Jiří Kylián’s “Ariadne”
Kathleen Fitzgerald in Jiří Kylián’s “Ariadne”

Subsequent to graduation, and prior to joining the Steffi Nossen family, Fitzgerald was a principal dancer and Company Ballet Mistress with Ballet Frankfurt, where she worked under choreographer William Forsythe. Preceding that, she was a soloist with Netherlands Dance Theater I, before Jiří Kylián took her on as Assistant Director of Netherlands Dance Theater II. “I can’t say enough about how great it was,” she says of those experiences. “We toured all over the world. We toured with live orchestra, with live singers and choirs and incredible lighting designers and costume makers…It was everything you could possibly want to experience.”

After following Ballet Frankfurt with work for Johann Kresnik’s radical dance theater group, Bremer Tanztheater, Fitzgerald moved to Mt. Kisco–for the sake of her daughter, Jessica Rose, who has special needs and requires intensive therapies. Thanks to some guidance from an local librarian, she found herself an all-too-perfect position at Steffi Nossen School of Dance, and she’s been with them for 16 years. Fitzgerald began first as a core curriculum teacher in 2000, then as School Director, a position which she held from 2004-2015. Today, she continues to lead the Ballet Program at SNSD, and serves as Production Manager for the Copland House concerts at Merestead. She has also been extensively involved with the outreach programs, one being the 13-year-old Wheels and Heels intensive dance program for disabled performers, one of the programs this very benefit helps to fund.

In accepting her honor, she acknowledges the work of the “fantastic” students at SNSD and takes note of “the incredible camaraderie of the Steffi Nossen faculty.” (“You don’t find that everywhere,” she adds, with a smile). “I feel that I’ve found a home at Steffi Nossen, an organization that stresses the importance of family, community, and mentoring. And I feel very lucky to have had this incredible performing career, and to have [done] such meaningful work within the arts.”

Steffi Nossen School of Dance is located at 216 Central Avenue in White Plains. Fitzgerald notes the company has several satellite locations throughout Westchester, including one in Chappaqua at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin. For more information, visit steffinossen.org.

Matt Smith is a writer and regular contributor to the Inside Press. For more information, please visit www.mattsmiththeatre.com.