10 Hairy Legs to Partner with Fort Lee Elementary Schools

PO Box 4452

Highland Park, NJ 08904

10HL.org

@10HairyLegs

For Immediate Release: March 3, 2016

Contact: Elizabeth Shaff Sobo, Executive Director

bsobo@10hl.org/973.699.8191

10 HAIRY LEGS

“A local treasure with a national and international footprint.” – Pam Hersh, Highland Park Planet

Company to Partner with Fort Lee Elementary Schools

All 3rd Grade Students Will Complete the Dance to Learn Curriculum

Highland Park, New Jersey --- 10 Hairy Legs will provide the Dance to Learn program to all third grade students in the Fort Lee, NJ public schools in Spring 2016. The Geraldine R Dodge Foundation partners with Young Audiences, Dance New Jersey, professional dance companies and teachers to promote the Dance to Learn experience. 10 Hairy Legs was awarded a grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation to deliver the program in its first year free to the district.

Dance to Learn is a four-year interdisciplinary and inclusive dance curriculum with the goal to advance dance education in schools and community settings. It is a model of dance education that meets or exceeds the NJ Department of Education Core Curriculum Standards for Dance and the National Core Arts Standards in Dance.

The Dance To Learn curriculum is both arts-based and truly arts-integrated because it encourages students to explore, internalize and transform classroom learning and the elements of dance while developing their individual creative voices, offers opportunities for students to reflect, critique and connect personal experiences to their learning of dance and in their classrooms, is adaptive to any dance style, genre, or culture, provides an inroad to kinesthetic learning and connects to language arts, mathematics, science and social studies, physical education and music curriculums and offers formative and summative assessment and documentation tools to help measure the effectiveness of student learning and facilitator impact.

10 Hairy Legs Executive Director Elizabeth Shaff Sobo noted, “We are thrilled to be providing the excitement of dance to Fort Lee students and to work with the exceptional elementary school Principals Rosemary Giacomelli, Jay Berman, Pat Anastasio, Mananela Martin and their staff members. Education is an important component of our work and we have a great passion for it as an organization.”

All third grade students will receive 10 classes taught by 10 Hairy Legs Teaching Artist Shawn Brush, who received extensive training in the curriculum in Fall 2015. The residency concludes with a free performance by the professional company that will take place in the Fort Lee High School auditorium in early June.

About 10 Hairy Legs

10 Hairy Legs, founded by Randy James in 2012, is a dance company – comprised entirely of men – performing James’ work as well as existing and newly commissioned works. 10 HL does not reflect a specific point of view about the male experience, but rather celebrates and explores the tremendous technical and emotional range of the male dancer. Randy James, at the forefront of this generation's choreographers, educators and arts advocates, is the driving force of 10 Hairy Legs, serving as its Artistic Director. James was awarded his third Choreographic Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts in 2014. In 2015 10 Hairy Legs launched 10 HL Projects, which includes women for specific productions outside of the all male company. The first of these is a new full-length work based upon C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, choreographed by James that had its World Premiere at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in January 2016.

“…since its formation in 2012, its rapid growth has been astonishing…The diversity of this programming is a treat for audiences…this company has also become a welcome source of choreographic commissions.” – Robert Johnson, 2014

Our Artistic Collaborators are choreographers Julie Bour, Seàn Curran, David Dorfman, Dan Froot, Doug Elkins, Heidi Latsky, Cleo Mack, Tiffany Mills, Luke Murphy, David Parker, Stephen Petronio, Claire Porter, Niv Sheinfeld and Oren Laor, Doug Varone, Manuel Vignoulle, Christopher Williams and Megan Williams; musicians Tigger Benford, Sarah Biber, Jane Chung, Lachlan Glen, Kyle Olson, Robert Maggio, Michael Wall, Dorian Wallace and Peter Whitehead; and designers Abraham Cruz, Oana Botez, Cindy Capraro, Benjamin Heller, John Lasiter, Mary Kokie McNaugher, Dennis O’Leary-Gullo, Lauren Parrish, Amanda Ringger, Amanda Shafran, Ken Tabatchnik and Olivier Theyskens. In addition to their work with 10 Hairy Legs, our company members are currently featured artists with The Bang Group, Stephen Petronio Company, Doug Elkins Choreography, Etc., Tiffany Mills Company and Zvi Dance, among others.

Education is an important component of our work. We provide a wide range of programs suitable for all ages, whether for the aspiring professional, novice beginner or artist citizen, focusing on the many facets of maleness as expressed through dance in New Jersey and at tour locations.

Since our founding, we have served more than 30,000 patrons, students, artists and educators with our programs of performance and education throughout the NY/NJ region, in New York City at New York Live Arts, The 92nd Street Y, The Brooklyn Dance Festival, Modern Dance at Bryant Park, Dixon Place, Gibney Dance, Joe’s Pub, The West End Theatre as part of the Soaking Wet Festival, on Fire Island for the Dancers Responding to Aids Benefit Week End, Dance at Socrates, in Philadelphia as part of the Koresh Come Together Festival, on tour in The Cayman Islands and New England and broadcast nationally and internationally on NJTV’s State of the Arts, The Meredith Vieira Show and Nick Cannon’s Red Nose Dancathon.

Leadership funding for the company has been provided by The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, New Music USA’s Live Music for Dance Program, The Frank & Lydia Bergen Foundation, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, The O'Donnell-Green Music & Dance Foundation, Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission, with assistance provided by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Dept. of State, The Hyde & Watson Foundation and the Rita & Philip Levy New

Works Fund.

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