Overview

Under the direction of Artistic Director Ellen Sinopoli, the ELLEN SINOPOLI DANCE COMPANY (ESDC) has become one of the premier dance companies in Upstate NY.  The Company employs a steady roster of professional modern dancers to bring dance to traditional and non-traditional venues. ESDC dancers are a muse for Sinopoli’s creative process and are recognized for their consistent excellence and artistry, their movement imaginings, and deep professionalism. Ellen Sinopoli and her dancers have created over 100 new works with her many artistic collaborations and projects serving as a conduit to bring together talented artists (both regional and national) from varied genres that include visual artists, sculptors, architects, composers and musicians, poets and storytellers, videographers, photographers and physicists. 

 

The Company is a 33-year-old not-for-profit arts organization located in NYS’s Capital Region. ESDC’s commitment to CREATE, COLLABORATE, EDUCATE, and PARTNER remains in the forefront as it shares its work with diverse audiences through concerts, showcases, residencies, workshops, and educational and community outreach. Past commissions include new work for Bach Cello Suites Workshop, Chesterwood Museum, The Egg, Fenimore Art Museum, Hyde Collection, Olana Partnership, Opalka Gallery/Russell Sage College, Saratoga County Arts Council, Schenectady Symphony Orchestra, Schenectady Museum and St Cecelia Orchestra.

As the resident company of The Egg Center for the Performing Arts in Albany for 32 years, ESDC is part of its highly successful dance season that presents many NY-based, national, and international dance companies. ESDC’s performances at professional, regional, and college theaters, community centers, art galleries, public playgrounds, public schools, libraries, museums, historic sites, and storefronts include venues in MA, NYC, and throughout 17 NYS counties. Within the Capital Region, ESDC has performed at Albany’s The Egg, NYS Museum, WAMC’s The Linda, the Opalka Gallery, and Albany Institute of History and Art. ESDC was featured on WMHT’s AHA!: A House for Arts program in the Spring of 2020. Additional locations include Troy’s historic Gasholder Building, Arts Center of the Capital Region, and Troy Savings Bank Music Hall; Schenectady’s Proctors and Schenectady Museum; and Cambridge’s Hubbard Hall. ESDC has performed at many of the area’s institutes of higher education including College of St. Rose, FMCC, HVCC, Rensselaer, Russell Sage, Skidmore, SUNY Cobleskill, UAlbany, and Union. ESDC has been invited to perform at gubernatorial inaugurations, art center and gallery openings, senior centers, fundraising events for area school districts and other not-for-profit organizations, First Night celebrations for Albany, Saratoga, and Chatham, Albany’s First Friday and Tulip Festival, and Troy’s Troy Night Out events. NYC performances include Lincoln Center, Mulberry Street Theater, St. Mark’s Church and Ryan Theater for the DUMBO Festival and Riverside Theater. In MA, ESDC has appeared at the Chesterwood Museum, Tanglewood, and Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out.

Committed to bringing dance to underserved communities and populations through Arts-In-Education, ESDC offers performances and workshops in and around NYS’s Capital Region. Residencies, workshops, and/or performances bring the excitement of exploring the creative process to children and young adults in both urban and rural schools. Our educational programs introduce and explore modern dance in a pure performing sense and utilize dance to teach curricula and enhance understanding of the connectedness of art and everyday life. By making these early connections with an art form, we create a respect for and understanding of the arts and its performing artists. This carries over into adult years and is passed down to future generations. ESDC partners with SPAC for its Classical Kids educational programs for middle school students.  Specially designed educational programming includes Celtic Footprints, Choreophysics, Dance by Chance, If Books Could Dance!, Science In Motion, Undercover Playground, and From the Mind of a Single Long Vine, one hundred opening lives.    

ESDC’s outreach programming continues to expand as we bring our work to community centers, daycare centers, public playgrounds, libraries, art galleries, and centers for special populations. ESDC’s outreach partnerships have included organizations like the Center for Disability Services for which ESDC taught creative movement workshops at the Smith Center (adult population) and Langan School (ages pre-school – 21) as part of the “Creative Movement” program, a one-of-a-kind collaborative community partnership with MOVE–Mobility Opportunities Via Experience. Our creative movement workshops for these populations are designed to introduce the joy of dance, movement for self-expression, and creativity into their everyday lives.  

 

ESDC has received funding from the New York State Council on the Arts for multi-year general operating support, individual artist projects, long-term Arts-in-Education residencies, and three long-term residencies at Kaatsbaan International Dance Center. It has received support from Bender Family Foundation, Capital Region Living Magazine/Saratoga Living Magazine, Charles R. Wood Foundation, Charles and Cornelia Hume Charitable Trust, Capital District Physicians Health Plan, Community Foundation for the Capital Region’s Robert C. Reilly Salary Fund, Howard and Bush Foundation, the Mary Jane Dike Family, Meet the Composer, the Opalka Family, NYS DanceForce, NYS Music Fund for the commission of an original composition for “Spill Out!,” Partners in Dance, Poets & Writers, PriceChopper’s Golub Foundation, Stewart’s Shops/Dake Family, Ed Swyer/Stuyvesant Plaza, Inc., Troy Redevelopment Fund and the Troy Savings Bank Charitable Foundation. 

Our current Board of Directors includes:

President: Hollis Dorman
Vice-President: Joyce Chupka
Treasurer: Monique Sofen
Secretary: Sandra Rouse

Directors:
Teresa Johnson
Ellen Sinopoli