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The Colorado Dance Festival began as a dance film series under the
aegis of the Boulder (Colo.) Dance Alliance in 1978. Marda Kirn
was its founder and artistic director for many years.
By 1980 the film series became
the independent Boulder Dance Festival, a week of classes and performances
funded by grants and donations, and using facilities at the University
of Colorado. Renamed the Colorado Dance Festival soon after, the
enterprise gained a national reputation for presenting new, young
performers and companies. During subsequent seasons the festival
expanded to a full month of workshops, classes, and performances
in a variety of venues.
The Colorado Dance Festival
was a pioneer in spearheading the American tap dance revival. A
legendary 1986 presentation at the Casino Cabaret in Denver’s
Five Points (the city’s traditional hub of African-American
identity and culture) called “The Great Tap Reunion”
presented dancers Eddie Brown, Charles “Honi” Coles,
Steven Condos, Jimmy Slyde, and Gregory Hines. A later festival
offered some of the younger greats of the genre including a very
young Savion Glover. The International Tap Association grew out
of this impetus and continues to publish a magazine devoted to tap
dance aficionados.
A performance in 1988 of Robert
Davidson’s “Meister Eckhart” introduced audiences
to the potential of “aerial dance,” that is, the use
of low-flying trapeze technique as a legitimate facet of dance.
In the wake of September 11,
2001, the festival was unable to finance further seasons and folded.
The Carson-Brierly Dance Library received all the festival’s
office files in the spring of 2002 including its photography archive.
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