At SLG Dance Company, dancers perform to raise awareness, funds for charitable causes

A stunning display screen of upbeat hip-hop and jazz dance routines retained the viewers entertained Friday night at North Fork Neighborhood Theatre in Mattituck. In amongst numbers created to entertain have been a mix of routines portraying major subject areas like domestic violence, faculty bullying and getting rid of a loved a person.

The dwell charity overall performance, titled “Dancers Towards Violence,” was the perform of a rather new dance team referred to as SLG Dance Firm. Launched by Samantha Graviano of Ridge, the business is an outlet for dancers of all ages to not only accomplish, but do so for a increased goal. Its motto is “Dancers building a difference.”

In this circumstance, money raised from the function went to L.I. Against Domestic Violence, an group established in 1976 that offers an array of expert services for victims and survivors of abuse on Prolonged Island.

Ms. Graviano said Friday’s occasion lifted a very little over $1,000, which was added to much more than $1,000 presently raised during a digital functionality by means of Fb in February.

8 women performed as component of SLG Dance Company together with other dancers from the Riverhead-based mostly In which the Strains Overlap Dance Business.

“The exhibit went actually well and I was so happy of them,” Ms. Graviano said.

Ms. Graviano, 23, started off SLG Dance Business in June 2019. Dancing has often been in her blood, she stated. She commenced dancing at age 2 and ongoing by college and now teaches at studios. The concept for a dance enterprise started out with discussions with buddies she grew up with and many others in the dance community. 

 Photos by Jeremy Garretson

“We sort of established this secure area for us to all dance,” she mentioned.

The dance firm at present has 29 users, ranging in age from 10 to 41. The youngest dancers also execute with other studios for a a lot more aggressive atmosphere. SLG Dance Company gives a extra comfortable, low-tension ambiance for dancers to have enjoyable whilst also increasing recognition for critical triggers.

Most of the dancers are involving 22 and about 30 many years previous. They convey different degrees of encounter, including some who are self-taught and other folks who were when element of countrywide winner plans.

“They all dance fantastically collectively,” Ms. Graviano explained.

Ms. Graviano teaches at Studio East Dance Heart in Westhampton, which is wherever SLG Dance Corporation users rehearse. 

“They’re great to give us the house for nearly anything we may perhaps need,” she claimed.

She said forming the dance enterprise was hardly ever about turning a revenue and she understood from the commence she needed it to be about assisting important triggers. Volunteer function has been a crucial component of her daily life. She has worked as a rape disaster counselor for the past 3 many years with the Victims Information and facts Bureau of Suffolk. She started off off during faculty as a volunteer in the child treatment application, encouraging to enjoy young ones though their guardian or guardian was in counseling. After about a year, she was approached about starting the rape counseling system.

She said that expertise helped spark her fascinated in combining her passions of dance and volunteer function.

The highway to Friday’s functionality truly began substantially previously. The company’s very first charity effectiveness experienced been canceled owing the pandemic. That led to the digital general performance in February, which was held in acknowledgment of Teenager Relationship Violence Awareness Month. 

Ms. Graviano explained she didn’t expect a reside overall performance to materialize after that. The theater was reopening subsequent the pandemic and a person her dancers, Jenna Spates, who also happens to choreograph for NFCT, helped make the connection.

The objective, she claimed, is to do a yearly efficiency in August. That presents the dancers time to start preparing all around May perhaps, when some of the associates are residence from university. Friday’s show, having said that, arrived with each other in about a few weeks.

“This was an remarkable prospect,” Ms. Graviano stated.

She added that the NFCT is the form of community-oriented house that was ideal for this style of exhibit.

“I just kept indicating to them over there it was type of a blessing in disguise that nothing at all was actually operating out,” she explained.

She credited Erin Amendola, owner of Studio East, and Blair Robinson, founder of In which the Traces Overlap, for their mentorship and steering in forming a dance business and earning Friday’s clearly show a fact.

Searching ahead, Ms. Graviano mentioned the target is to support a diverse group each 12 months.

“Hopefully at some point we’ll be ready to open up our personal place,” she mentioned. “A great deal of persons are genuinely sparking interest, which is wonderful.”

Any dancers intrigued in signing up for the enterprise can visit its internet site: slgdancecompany.com.