About Dancing Crane
Celebrating a history of tradition and art from the country of Georgia, here in the heart of Brooklyn
Our History
We were formed in 1996, gave our first full concert in 1997 and incorporated in 1999. Our Georgian Dance Ensemble and our Musical Ensemble were formed during this period with professional artists from Georgia and have presented hundreds of concerts of Georgian dance and music, as well as workshops, classes and lecture demonstration. We established our Georgian Theater of New York in 2008 as the only professional Georgian repertory company in New York.
Our emphasis has consistently been to create a home in New York for living Georgian traditions.
During the past several years, we have put more emphasis on education and the development of innovative programs that encompass several disciplines.
For instance, we write our own plays. We opened our first studio in Brooklyn in 2009, and in 2011 we moved to a larger space, where our Georgian School-Studio of the Arts has a growing program of children’s classes and performance in Georgian dance, music, theater, language and culture. This has brought us into much closer contact with Georgian families.
Our Classes & Ensembles
Our children’s dance classes and choreographic ensembles “Legends,” “Iberia” and “Lyre” have currently over 60 children between the ages of 4 and 7. The instructor/choreographers of “Legends” are Ilia Svianaidze and Tamar Tsivilashvili,
both professional dancers from Georgia. Our music classes have 24 children who take classes in voice, guitar, piano, violin and fold instruments, with instructors Tengiz Shautidze and Eka CHichua.
We are Georgian Performance Arts Specialists
Our Georgian Cultural Center in Brooklyn serves as a school, as the home of our performing ensembles and as a venue for many special events, performances, art exhibits and cultural programs.
Our Mission
As an organization, we are motivated by a commitment to improve the quality of life for our society. We aim to do this through the medium of Georgian traditional performance arts. Our broad vision integrates these arts with the developing cultural life of contemporary Georgian society in New York. We aim to be a bridge between Georgian traditions and American cultural life.
Our mission has evolved to provide an environment to combine professional level performance in Georgian traditional arts with an all around education for children through the study and practice of these arts and to provide opportunities for the growing Georgian immigrant community, to establish healthy roots within the New York City and American society.
