The Jamestown Dance Festival, spearheaded by Sukanya Burman Dance, marks its inaugural year in Chautauqua County with a weekend full of dance performances, workshops, film screenings, and panel discussions from September 6th to 8th, 2024. Set in Jamestown, NY, JDF is aimed at showcasing global dance genres through unique collaborations with dancers, artists, and musicians, the festival strives for pay equity in the arts and seeks to make dance accessible and affordable, thus fostering a robust artistic community. With a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, 60% of the featured artists are artists of color, embracing a range of cultural dance forms and contributing to gender and geographic diversity.
2024 LINE-UP TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON
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Mission
We passionately strive to introduce and elevate global dance genres to new audiences through unique collaborations with dancers, artists and musicians. We believe in pay equity in the arts by supporting dancers both locally and nationally, bringing accessible and affordable dance experiences through inexpensive community classes and performances and lastly creating capacity for other artists who do not have access to presenting opportunities, all who make our community artistically robust. With that goal in mind we are initiating the Jamestown Dance Festival, an annual program under Sukanya Burman Dance that will be hosted for its very first inaugural year in Chautauqua County for weekend long activities in dance performances, community workshops, dance film screening and panel discussions. Featuring four professional dance companies of distinct genres of dance (Kathak, Tap, Flamenco, Bharatanatyam and Contemporary) from different parts of New York State.
Vision
The Jamestown Dance Festival envisions reshaping our community's cultural engagement by nurturing a profound sense of cultural awareness and belonging, highlighting the importance of multicultural values and heritage. We aim to celebrate and shed light on the rich diversity of global dance traditions and the stories they tell. By creating an inclusive space that brings together diverse artists and audiences, our goal is to foster dialogue, understanding, and lasting connections, making the festival a standard-bearer for cultural inclusivity and the appreciation of global heritage.
Diversity & Inclusion
Through intentional curation of the program we have centered our festival around deep commitment to equity and access. 60% of the artists featured are artists of color, practicing distinct cultural dance forms, also bringing in gender diversity and geographic diversity to the roster. The communities of color (especially Latinx, Black and Asian) in Chautauqua County, remain culturally and artistically isolated. Through this festival we aim to bring opportunities for meaningful self-expression and civic dialogue for artists and audiences from these communities; individuals who rarely encounter meaningful reflections of their own culture in popular media and performing arts.