Battery Dance Festival returns to BPC’s Wagner Park

BY ALEX ELLEFSON

The Battery Dance Festival brings its eclectic, international roster of performers back to Wagner Park this month for a week of free evening shows along the waterfront.

The summer dance series, which runs from Aug. 14 to Aug. 20, takes place against a backdrop of the setting sun over New York Harbor. The Battery Dance Company’s annual event is now in its 35th year, and is the longest-running free public dance festival in the city, attracting top-tier acts from around the world.

“One unique aspect of this festival is the diverse dance styles. It’s a cross-section of overseas and local companies,” said Battery Dance Company founder and artistic director Jonathan Hollander. “The underlying philosophy is that people can come to see one specific company and get introduced to something new.”

This year’s program will include a performance of “The Durga Project,” a Battery Dance original that premiered earlier this year at the company’s 40th-anniversary celebration. Created in collaboration with classical Indian dancer Unnath H.R., the dance weaves together elements of modern dance with Indian folk styles. The performance will take place during the festival’s closing ceremony held at Pace University’s Schimmel Center at 6 p.m on Aug. 20.

“The collaboration created some really unique and unusual movements. It brings a new flavor to dance,” H.R. said of his work with Battery Dance.

While the closing ceremony ends on a high note, this year’s festival opens with a solemn tribute to one of Battery Dance Company’s brightest hopes: Iraqi dancer Adel Euro, who was among 292 people killed by a car bomb last month in Baghdad.

Battery Dance used Skype to train the 23-year-old dancer — whose inspirational story about aspiring to be a dancer in a deeply conservative country drew worldwide attention — and the company was planning to bring him to the United States to continue his training.

“We loved him so much, and we all shared a vision of him being here,” Hollander said. “Our hearts are really broken by the loss.”

To pay homage to Euro’s life, Battery Dance has brought three Iraqi dancers from Michigan for a special performance at the opening ceremony.

“I don’t think we pay as much attention to the individual loss of life when there’s a bombing in the Middle East — as opposed to Brussels or Paris or Nice,” said Hollander. “But these lives are precious and [Euro’s] death is seared into the mind of every American who heard his story.”

Close to 10,000 visitors have turned out for the festival in past years. It used to be held in parks, plazas and other public spaces Downtown, but moved to Wagner Park two years ago when the ravages of Superstorm Sandy made most of the area’s other venues unusable.

Hollander said the search for a new location to hold the festival turned into a blessing.

“It’s been a spectacular success,” he said. “People love coming at dusk and seeing the sky change while the dancers perform. It’s really extraordinary.”

This year’s festival features 38 different performances — and includes companies from Romania, Turkey, Austria, India and Belgium.

Jacqulyn Buglisi, artistic director for the Buglisi Dance Theater, is a longtime participant in the festival. She said she enjoys performing at the new waterfront location in Battery Park City — and always looks forward to the camaraderie among dancers at the festival.

“It’s a great opportunity for so many different companies to perform together. And to do it in such a raw setting, under the sky and in front of the ocean, I really like the edginess of it,” she said.