Training + Performing

TRAINING + PERFORMing

In daily, intensive sessions Mondays through Fridays 10 AM to 5 PM, the company explores dance-making processes including improvisation, composition, various styles of dance technique and training, as well as musicality. Our summer season starts at the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn and continues at the Fieldston School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.  

2025 Season Training Locations

June 30-July 8

Mark Morris Dance Center

3 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn 11217

July 9 -July 29

The Fieldston School

3901 Fieldston Road, Bronx NY 10471

July 30 - August 7 

Citywide Performance Tour

In the Guest Repertory Project, students learn the work of a master choreographer, beginning each morning with a dance class, followed by repertory work, culminating in a piece that will be performed on tour. The 2025 Repertory Project is A.I.M by Kyle Abraham. Past repertory projects have included the work of Ronald K. Brown/ EVIDENCE, A Dance Company, Donald McKayle, José Limón, Alvin Ailey, Merce Cunningham, Sean Curran, Mark Morris, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane, Jane Comfort, Robert Battle, Pam Tanowitz, John Heginbotham, Ballet Hispánico, Larry Keigwin and others. 

Members of the company are encouraged to choreographer their own dances, based on themes that are meaningful to them. Each selected choreographer will lead their own rehearsals, collaborate with a professional composer and costume designer as they develop their piece for the performance tour.

In our Choreographer + Composer Project, company members who propose an original work will be paired with a professional composer, to collaborate on the work from start to finish. 

Guest Workshops focusing on partnering and more are offered throughout the summer, as well as a YDC alumni panel.

The company performs their own original choreography, as well as a work by the guest repertory artist, at various sites during our City-Wide Performance Tour. These performances are often followed by interactive dance-making workshops involving the entire enthusiastic audience, led by the company, with musician William Catanzaro, exploring the elements of dance through improvisation and on-the-spot choreography. 

YDC has been aired on Channel 13, and on NY1, has performed with professional companies as part of the Dancenow/NYC Festival, and at prime NYC venues such as Dance Theater Workshop, Ailey Citigroup Theater, Symphony Space, the 92nd St. Y, Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, the Joyce SoHo, Chelsea Piers, Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts, City Center Studio 5, Hostos Arts and Culture Center, Brooklyn Museum, the Lovinger Theater at Lehman College, Pace University’s Schimmel Center, Abrons Arts Center, BAAD, Jamaica Performing Arts Center, Fordham University at Lincoln Center, the World Trade Center, the Arts at University Settlement, Harlem School of the Arts, Chelsea Art Museum, The Queens Museum, RIOULT Dance Center, among many others throughout the city boroughs.

Outdoor performances have included Washington Square Park, Socrates Sculpture Park, Snug Harbor, Dancing in the Streets, Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, the Downtown Dance Festival in Battery Park and a pace-setting performance on Chelsea’s High Line.

Out of town, YDC has been presented twice by the Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival in Lee, Massachusetts, by The Yard in Martha’s Vineyard, and three times by Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. The company had the honor to perform in Washington, DC as part of the International Conference 2000, “Dancing in the Millenium,” held by the National Dance Educators Organization at the Kennedy Center