About ECDC
Our Mission
Elm City Dance Collective is a New Haven based organization that values an experiential and collaborative approach to dance creation, education and performance. ECDC works to challenge ideas about movement and reinvent the performance experience.
Creative Directors
Board of Directors
- *
Community
To read more about the artists we connect with visit the link below for individual webpages
*
The Story of ECDC
Elm City Dance Collective (ECDC) began in 2008 as a conversation between four dance artists in the New Haven area. Kellie Ann Lynch, Lindsey Bauer, Jennifer Brubacher and Emilia VandenBroek envisioned an organization that would offer classes in a variety of movement forms, as well as choreographic and performance opportunities for local dance artists. In addition, the founders discussed a shared commitment to building community and connection through art. They chose the name Elm City Dance Collective to honor the significance of community and place, as New Haven was dubbed the “Elm City” after a number of majestic elm trees were planted there during a public tree planting program.
The mission, vision, and goals of ECDC took shape over the Summer of 2008. It was important to the founding members that ECDC not subscribe to a singular model such as a dance company, dance studio, community center, or school. Instead, ECDC was organized as a collective – a group that could integrate aspects of a variety of organizational models, so as to engage and create as broad a community as possible. Immediately after establishing itself, ECDC began rehearsing, creating, and connecting with community members through classes and improvisation jams at the Center for the Arts at Christ Church (CACC) in downtown New Haven.
To date, ECDC has produced four dance works: Bauer’s “cityscape”; Lynch’s “SNAP”; “h o u s e”, a collaboration between a variety of contributing artists and chef Melissa Kane of CRAVE; and “Aquatic Dances / the BLUE Project”, a year-long collaboration between ECDC, the New Haven Symphony, and the Mystic Aquarium, with choreography by Lynch and Bauer in collaboration with the dancers. Each of these works explores different themes and artistic ideas, and all of them have pushed ECDC’s growth and exploration of movement performance. “cityscape” examined the structure of the visual within a city. The dancers were void of caricature but their movements explored gesture as well as the presence of angles, building design and skyline. “SNAP” dove into the rarefied, hyper-stylized world of high fashion, offering a twisted perspective on the glamorous couture world of runway shows. “h o u s e” was an evening of food, dance and movement installations in three different homes in Fair Haven. Artists of ECDC, New Haven, and New York collaborated with the New Haven community to create an original, inventive performance event. Lastly, Aquatic Dances / the BLUE Project drew its inspiration from aquatic life. The BLUE Project page on this website offers details on the cast, the creative process, and the collaboration between the NHSO and the Mystic Aquarium.
As an organization, ECDC is committed to collaborating with artists and organizations in the New Haven area, providing performance opportunities to local dancers, contributing to the presence of dance as an accessible public art, and offering artistic development opportunities such as classes and improvisational jams. The organization welcomes partnerships, collaborations and new projects.
Elm City Dance Collective is a nonstock corporation in Connecticut and is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization under federal law.
