City Parks Foundation proudly presents the 2014 season of SummerStage, Harlem’s largest free performing arts festival, bringing free performances to parks.

Using the power of dance to create community, Dances For a Variable Population (DVP), will present three performances of Solstice Steps on the days surrounding the 2014 summer solstice.

By Walter Rutledge This weekend its beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. We have dance in Midtown, theatre and a search for new talent in Harlem, and a literary happening on the Upper Westside. Here are a few of the many arts related events taking place around town and in our community.

By Walter Rutledge Last week we spent Thursday packing on the calories and then burning them off in the shop til you drop weekend madness. This first weekend of December has dance in Midtown and Brooklyn and musical theater and dance history in Harlem. Here are a few of the many arts event happening around…

By Walter Rutledge President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort”. Jeroboam Bozeman is living Roosevelt’s observation.

By Walter Rutledge [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2Vth0K49xI&w=420&h=315] The Faison Firehouse and Summerstage presented Harlem Dance Caravan on Friday, August 9 and Saturday, August 10 at Marcus Garvey Park’s Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in the village of Harlem.

By Walter Rutledge The Philadelphia Dance Company, better know by its acronym Philadanco, concluded their New York season at the Joyce Theater on Sunday October 7. During the six day run the company presented four ensemble works by four African American choreographers. The works, which spanned over forty years, offered an insightful and entertaining glimpse…

By Walter Rutledge The Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center began their 36 annual choreographic showcase on Sunday June 17. The three-day dance series, Souls of Our Feet: People of Color Dance Festival is being held at the Kumble Theater on the downtown Brooklyn campus of Long Island University.

By Walter Rutledge This weekend Opera returns to Harlem. Art also makes a big statement uptown. While a Harlem landmark has a birthday.

By Walter Rutledge After an extended weekend of Thanksgiving dinners and robust shopping this week promises to be an eventful prelude to the holiday season. Dance, Opera and Theater abound throughout the city with many outstanding productions taking place in Harlem.

The July 7th ArtCrawl Harlem fund raising performance of an excerpt from On The Block was a very special and rewarding evening. The excerpt entitled Intimate Strangers was the first sections choreographed for what would evolve into an eighty-minute one-act production. When Artistic Director Sheila Rohan and I embarked on the production for the Nanette…

By Walter Rutledge The Nanette Bearden Contemporary Dance Theatre will perform an excerpt of its full-length story ballet On The Block, on Thursday July 7, at 7pm in the Oberia Dempsey Center located at 127 West 127 Street in Harlem.

By Walter Rutledge Ailey II has evolved into a formidable force in the modern dance community. The company is presently experiencing unparallel success having recently completed a 49-city tour spanning both North America and Europe. The professional work ethic is a combination of a nurturing dance symposium, and boot camp.

By Walter Rutledge August 2, 2010 marked the eighty-sixth birthday of James Baldwin. For the second year in a row the Faison Firehouse Theater has chosen to step to the forefront and present Remembering Jimmy– a tribute to the late James Baldwin. Last year the celebration was a forum with colleagues and contemporaries, and family…