Red Hook Star Revue 
by Josie Rubio
Cora Dance Prepares to Hold Spring Fundraiser After Studio Move and Expansion
The best times for Cora Dance to expand seem to come at the worst times in terms of financing. In 2008, the professional dance company planted roots in Red Hook by leasing a studio space in a warehouse on Richards Street — shortly after losing expected funding. And promised funds were again taken back very recently, shortly after the organization’s late March move to larger space in the same building, after outgrowing the smaller studio, home to its pay-what-you-can dance classes that serve more than 100 children and adults in the area.
As Cora Dance director and founder Shannon Hummel plans the group’s 14th annual fundraiser, however, she remains as undaunted as she was a few years ago, when she trusted her gut feeling to initially make Red Hook Cora’s home. The Spring Swing benefit bash and silent auction will be held on the rooftop of Rocky Sullivan’s, 34 Van Dyke Street, on May 7 at 7pm. Tickets are $100 or pay-what-you-can, with a $20 minimum. Those who pay full price can attend a VIP champagne swing lesson at 6:30pm, to prepare to dance to swing band Primitivo, which will provide French dance hall music throughout the evening. All guests will be treated to a performance of Cora Dance students in the 9 to 13-year-old age group, choreographed and led by Sarah Burke. Cora dancers Kelly Bartnik, Calia Marshall and Xan Burley will also give the audience a sneak preview of a section of “Prey”, which the company is performing in the fall. Food will be provided by local favorite The Good Fork, as well as from Knife for Hire, the catering company of Chef Daniel Eardley, formerly of Chesnut in Carroll Gardens.
The cabaret space and courtyard of Rocky Sullivan’s will host the silent auction items, including antiques, a weekend stay at a bed and breakfast in Virginia, and massage, yoga and pilates packages. Attendees can even bid on the services of a master builder who will custom-build a chicken coop for your home and provide two laying hens. “It’s a broad spectrum,” Hummel says. “There’s a large array of things to suit every pocketbook.”
This year’s even honors Sarah Coffey, longtime donor and supporter of Cora, and founding company member Donna Costello.
Spring Swing kicks of Cora’s $100,000 Capital Campaign to pay for the new rented space, renovations and added staff, Hummel says. “The funds raised go to support the new expansion, which is basically rooting ourselves in a more adequate home that houses of pay-what-you-can programs in the community, and our performance works as well,” she says. The new studio is about 700 square feet and includes a lofted space for storage. Recently, volunteers — including dancers, parents of students and artists in the community — chipped in to lay the floors and pick up supplies. The separate office across the hall has its own bathroom, so young students no longer have to be escorted down the hall. Hummel peeks into a window at the end of the hall and notes, “This is where we were. That little room back there was five feet by six feet and that was the office for all four of us.” Because there wasn’t room for everyone in the office, Hummel says she would often work remotely by IM or email. Hummel, who also teaches nursery school through fourth grade students at Poly Prep Country Day School’s Lower School, estimates that in the years Cora Dance has been in Red Hook, they’ve worked with about 350 to 400 students.
Hummel founded Cora Dance as a professional contemporary dance company in 1997. “The idea of Cora was to establish a company where you’re not just creating choreography, but you’re creating an environment where people feel comfortable taking risks,” she says. “And my work tends to be very intimate and emotional, and people have to feel comfortable with one another in order to really deeply engage as performers. So there has to be a fair amount of though put into not just what we’re making bu how we’re making it together.”
Over the years, the group had residencies at Marlboro College in Vermont, Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX) and in Virginia, and Hummel had a rent-stabilized apartment in Carroll Gardens where she had an office. Cora
was in between residencies when Hummel moved from her old apartment to a new, smaller apartment in Red Hook. Then the economy soured. “The company’s funding was suddenly frozen,” says Hummel. As Cora pondered its future, Hummel received a call from someone looking to share a Red Hook dance studio. “When this space opened up, it was the worst possible time, but you can’t always pick the timing for when things are going to happen,” Hummel says. She had to make a quick decision, as she weighed the benefits of having a space of Cora’s own. “There was no five-year strategic plan,” she says. “It was like, ‘We have to sign this lease in a week and start classes right away.’ I just had a gut feeling. And luckily most people trusted my gut feeling.” She talked to people in the area’s low-income housing and noticed a lack of dance classes in the neighborhood; though some dance classes were offered, families had to travel to Brooklyn Heights of Fort Greene to get to them. “It seemed like a perfect opportunity to put something here where people actually wanted what we were able to do, but there was no one here to do it,” she says. “And it also seemed like a good opportunity to intersect, what I was really discovering to be two very divided parts of the neighborhood. So we just kind of went for it. And we’re still in the process of kind of going for it.”
Making performing arts accessible to everyone is personal to Hummel, who is from the Appalachian area of Virginia. “I’m from a very isolated, poor, rural community,” she says. “I would not be doing what I was doing if there had not been a professional dancer who came into my community from somewhere else who sayd, ‘Well, I just want to give this to you. This is what I do and I want you to have it.’”
A former ballet dancer had moved to the area where Hummel grew up to work with emotionally disturbed children at the nearby state mental hospital, and she set up a ballet training program and Hummel’s elementary school. Hummel went on the become the dancer’s teaching apprentice at 17. “I feel like she, more than anyone else, influenced how I teach, not just, ‘You can teach a great plié, you can teach a great class,’ but she was really teaching children how to be members of a community.”
The Red Hook community will have a chance to see the professional dance company aspect of Cora in the fall, when the company presents “Prey”. Though dates for the five to 10 performances have not been set, Cora has changed the venue from sites throughout the neighborhood to an 800-seat amphitheater owned by Visitation Church, near the corner of Verona and Richards Streets. The lyceum has been boarded up for the past 15 years, but the church is trying to raise money to restore the building. Hummel notes that the Department of Buildings has certified the structure is safe and sound enough to hold an audience for the “Prey” performances. “We’re going to take this already dark work that we planned to show around Halloween and put it inside this building to help bring attention to what this church wants to do and hopefully get some people who might not know about it interested in supporting them as well as supporting us.”
