West Windsor resident Steven Campanella was barely walking the last time Teamwork Dance performed, but he will be on both feet when the curtain goes up on the performance that will resurrect the company after a 20-year hiatus.##M:[more]##
“An Evening of Dance” will have one performance, on Friday, June 23, at Rider University. It is the first appearance of Teamwork Dance in over 20 years. Stephen Campanella was barely born the last time the troupe performed, but he was hand-picked to be a part of its return.
Mary Pat Robertson, director of the Princeton Ballet School, asked Campanella to be a member of the company after working with him in class at PBS.
When Teamwork Dance first performed, Robertson found a paucity of male dancers in the area. Instead of working with professionals, or even trained or experienced dancers, she found actor-athletes and molded them into modern dance performers. Campanella has considerably more of a background than his predecessors. He has danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet, San Francisco American Ballet Theater, and most recently, with a French company while taking a year abroad.
He is a junior at Rutgers, studying History and French. If he gets his way, he may not need to use those degrees. Says Campanella: “I would like to dance professionally, with a company.”
Campanella has been performing on area stages since the age of four. He received an outstanding award from the Princeton Ballet. He recalls his favorite performances. “The Nutcracker is always memorable. I enjoyed getting the opportunity to dance in a number of school shows. Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake were the best.”
Campanella, who graduated from WW-P South in 2004, has continued to dance though the school offered no outlet for his art. Instead of school plays, he danced with the American Repertory Ballet, and appears well on his way to a professional career in dance.
An Evening of Dance, Teamwork Dance, Yvonne Theater, Rider University, 609-896-5303. www.rider.edu. Mary Pat Robertson directs new choreography by herself, Mary Barton, Janell Byrne, and Helena Froehlich. Additional dancers are Mary Barton, Douglas Martin, Emily Byrne, Eoin Gaj, Jennifer Gladney, Jennifer Santos-Kraft, and Casey Thorne. $25. Friday, June 23, 8 p.m.
