In 1954, the Limón Dance Company was one of the first American dance troupes to be sent on a government-sponsored tour, to South America, under a new cultural diplomacy directive from President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Now the company will once again assume the role of cultural ambassador. On Tuesday, the Limón company was announced as one of three companies selected for the fifth iteration of DanceMotion USA, an initiative of the State Department, produced in partnership with the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Joining the Limón company are Dance Heginbotham and Bodytraffic, a Los Angeles troupe.
Bodytraffic, which was founded in 2007, will travel to Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories; Dance Heginbotham, founded in 2011 by John Heginbotham, a veteran of the Mark Morris Dance Company, heads to Indonesia, Laos and the Philippines, while the Limón company will visit South Africa, Madagascar and Zambia.
The companies will each tour for a month (from fall 2015 to spring 2016), participating in cultural exchanges with local dancers and dance companies, facilitating educational engagement opportunities, and performing in a variety of venues. While the news tends to highlight government-to-government tensions, DanceMotion USA is meant to promote positive citizen-to-citizen interactions around common cultural values. The heart of the program is “dancers working one-on-one with young people, creating a shared experience together,” Joseph V. Melillo, the Brooklyn Academy’s executive producer, said in an interview.
The State Department determines the geographic regions for each DanceMotion USA tour, then Mr. Melillo recommends appropriate artists in what he described as a “matchmaking process.” To date, DanceMotion USA has sent dance ambassadors to 48 countries. In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, this year’s program will focus on disability awareness abroad.