Over a dozen dancers took the stage at the fifth annual Gold Coast Dance Festival on Saturday, Aug. 2, at Morgan Memorial Park in Glen Cove.
Performers from multiple dance schools and studios took turns performing in front of hundreds of people. Dance styles changed throughout the evening as the festival’s executive producer, Nicole Loizides Albruzzese, said it offers a little bit of everything so that everyone leaves saying there’s something for them.
In total, 15 acts took the stage, beginning at 6 p.m. and going until sundown.
The performance marked the 51st anniversary of New York Dance Theatre and shows off dance as an art form and cultural celebration, according to Albruzzese.
“Culture is food, music and dance, and dance so often gets overlooked in our day-to-day life,” she said about the importance of the event.
Albruzzese, who has been a dancer her whole life, said the event began after the COVID-19 pandemic to get the community together after everything was shut down.
“I knew I had to do something, and seeing that my husband and I are in the production world, the easiest and most impactful thing that we could have done was bring dancers to our hometown and produce an event that was open to the public, and lo and behold, 400 people showed up,” she said about the start of the dance festival.
Other annual events put on by the dance theater include “The Nutcracker” at Hofstra’s John Cranford Adams Playhouse, the Spring Soirée and Summer Park Performances.
