The Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, fondly known as DCDC, is celebrating its 55th anniversary with a new season textured with explosive movements. It's returning to the Victoria Theatre as a resident company at Dayton Live.
The season begins in October with In Good Company, a collaboration with DCDC's Denver sister dance company. Next is the gospel spiritual In the Spirit of...Grace. Then, experience In Modern Moves, which explores the cumulative power of ‘We the People’. Wrapping up the season is In Freedomby D2, DCDC's pre-professional company.
Newly appointed executive director Phyllis Brzozowska describes this year's company as stunning, riveting and one that delivers.
DCDC Executive Director Phyllis Brzozowska: The current company of dancers is the strongest they've ever had. These dancers are absolutely phenomenal, and it's some of the best dance I've seen ever, anywhere — even in New York City and Chicago.
Our dances are stories, particularly the dances that DCDC does, some very historical, some metaphorical, some just celebrating beauty, joy and expression. And we all need to move.
There's a saying that, ‘Through movement we find health.’ I mean, our bodies were built to move. The dancers, they train like Olympic athletes and they have to be at the pinnacle of good health to be able to do the things they do with the stamina and grace.
And it's inspiring to be able to see what the human body is capable of, not only physically, but in terms of what it can express. So it brings inspiration, it brings joy, it brings beauty. There's so much that that can be conveyed in one concert or one performance.
Mobley: What are some goals or maybe new initiatives you want to inject into DCDC?
Brzozowska: One of the things that's really important is new works. The creative endeavors for the future and planning further in advance of what those would be, is important to me. COVID, as you know, did a number on all the performing arts. Thus, we want to sell out the Victoria Theater.
We want to sell out all these concerts. So we're going to be really pushing our marketing and our visibility. The other thing that COVID really hurt us with is our touring. DCDC has typically toured all over the country and even all over the world. That completely dried up because of COVID.
Now need to reemerge as a company that other cities really want to present. So to reinvest in touring and get our touring back up. And then there's some other things like, you know, we'd like to have the dancers on contract.
Our dancers don't currently have health insurance. We want to change that.
It's always been a challenge to be able to attract staff members who have the skills and experience that can really support the company's growth. And so we're going to be looking at staff development as well as board development.
So some basic organizational stabilization and creating operational excellence in the company to support the artistic excellence.
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