A new festival will bring elite-level ballet, modern and jazz forms of dance to West Palm Beach in hopes of supporting new talent and reaching wider audiences.
Unlike traditional dance festivals centered on stage performances, the inaugural Banyan Dance Festival combines performances with mentorship and skill training programs from award-winning dancers across the country.
It's all in the name of expanding access to dance in Palm Beach County, said festival co-founder Ericka Squire, an accomplished choreographer and arts advocate who also founded the local non-profit Natural Movers Foundation, which supports young, underserved Black and Brown ballet students who often experience less exposure due to high training costs.
“We are going to be a space where folks can come and feel the same essence of ‘I want to train, I want to be an artist and expand and grow,’ Squire told WLRN. “Those things we are going to have packed within Banyan.”
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Banyan Dance Festival in downtown West Palm Beach, scheduled for August 3-8, is modeled by prestigious dance institutions.
Squire, an adjunct professor dance at the private Palm Beach Atlantic University, said “ Palm Beach County is ripe for a festival that feels like Jacob's Pillow.”
Jacob's Pillow, located in the Berkshire Hills of Becket, Massachusetts, is a historic 220-acre international dance center and home to America's longest-running dance festival.
Her pitch worked. Banyan Dance Festival was made possible in part through the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County's Bright Ideas Sponsorship.
It cost roughly $65k to produce the festival for people looking for a "prestigious dance experience," Squire said.
“ Dance is how people express how they experience or perceive the world around them or their circumstances," said co-founder of the festival Branndi Lewis, founder of Grounded West Palm Beach, a dance education and mentorship program.
"It's [dance] a way to portray metaphors in a physical sense," Lewis told WLRN.
The festival will feature 20 different events throughout the week, including four dancer-focused programs such as the Young Artist Program, an intensive apprentice program; two community engagement activations, rehearsal observations, artist talkbacks, a gala and a concert.
Lewis is a former dance teacher at the Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach — she has earned national acclaim, including a prestigious 2023 Jacob's Pillow Choreography Fellowship.
She told WLRN while the festival is influenced by Jacob's Pillow, there are some key differences.
"We're doing things like a silent disco and African classes or whatnot that are open to the public as well," she said.
"So more like social dancing will be involved where you it's not a just structured dance classes."
That's a way to get the wider West Palm community involved. And for dancers who want to experience elite training, they're covered, too: the festival features four choreographers producing new works: Banyan Resident Choreographers Sean Aaron Carmon (Dance Company) and Babatunji Johnson (Dance Ensemble), inaugural Choreography Fellow Betty García Díaz, and Guest Faculty Artist Loni Landon, a graduate of The Juilliard School who will create a solo for dance participants.
Intensives also include award-winning dancers Lauren Carey and Eileen Hebron.
"For us, when I look at the Banyan Dance Festival, it really makes me think of ubuntu, which means 'I am- because we are,' Squire said.
"This festival wouldn't be happening if Branndi and I were not standing on the shoulders of someone else who gave us this opportunity to be able to see why it's a need."
IF YOU GO:
What: Banyan Dance Festival
When: August 3rd-8th through the 8th.
Where: Locations include Palm Beach Atlantic University, Ballet Florida, City Hall, and the Nora District.
For more information, see here.
