(JERSEY CITY, NJ) -- Nimbus leads Jersey City and statewide audiences back to live performance with the first annual, star-studded, outdoor Nimbus Arts Festival, presented on the Harborside Campus on Saturday, May 22, 2021 at 7:00pm. The event features a lineup of nationally-renowned and locally-loved performing artists including Nimbus Dance, Jersey City’s hometown dance company, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, co-presentations with Segunda Quimbamba Puerto Rican Folkloric Center, Riverview Jazz Festival and Hudson West Folk Festival, the Festival offers world-class arts in a laid-back and socially-distanced atmosphere, complete with food trucks, drink refreshments by CoolVines, and artisan vendors.
The event begins at 7:00pm with food, drinks, and arts vendors.
Performances start at 8:00pm including Nimbus Dance’s first live performance in over a year!! Jersey City's renowned contemporary dance company brings its remarkable dancers and innovative repertory to the outdoor stage. Performance features PEOPLE PLACE DISRUPTION, a new work collectively created by Nimbus company dancers in collaboration with 10 Jersey City visual artists - in response to the past year. Also featured: Principal Dancer Sarah Lane of American Ballet Theater in Empty Place, choreographed by Nimbus Artistic Director, Samuel Pott.
Nimbus Arts Festival takes place at 326 Warren Street in Jersey City, New Jersey. Tickets are available for purchase online. Proceeds benefit the Nimbus Scholarship Fund, making access to the dance and arts available to all Jersey City youth. The event's lead sponsor is Mack-Cali.
The event kicks off a summer long Arts Festival with monthly outdoor performances. Seven fully produced performances will take place over five dates throughout the summer in Downtown Jersey City.
Founded in 2005 by Samuel Pott and based in Jersey City, Nimbus has been at the forefront of excellence in the arts, civic engagement, and equitable impact, interweaving Company, School, and Presentations. Nimbus performs on tour nationally and throughout the greater New Jersey/New York region, impacting 16,000 people annually. Community engagement initiatives serve over 7,000 children annually through in-school, movement-based programs. The company tours nationally to notable venues including: New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Iowa Dance Festival and the Alvin Ailey Citigroup Theater. Artistic collaborations include work with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and esteemed artists including Pedro Giraudo, Latin Grammy winner, Aaron Parks, Blue Note Jazz Artist, Tim Eriksen, Grammy nominee, composer Qasim Naqvi, video artists Laia Cabrera and Isabelle Duverger, among others. Nimbus presents and produces the annual Acadia Dance Festival at the Criterion Theater in Bar Harbor, Maine. On September 12, 2020, Nimbus opened the Nimbus Arts Center, a 14,900 square foot center with theater, gallery, and studio spaces that is one of the largest investments in the arts in Jersey City history. Aligning with Nimbus’ mission to wield the arts as a medium for broad impact to our diverse community, the new Center will serve as a resource for meaningful engagement with arts for people of all ages, backgrounds and financial means. Serving artists and the arts, the Nimbus Arts Center will present and support work that represents and speaks to the extraordinary cultural, racial and religious diversity present in Jersey City.
Nimbus’ commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, recognized by entities such as the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, DanceNYC/Ford Foundation’s Dance Advancement Fund and Cultural Access Network, is reflected throughout the organization: in educational/outreach programming, artistic content, and the makeup of Nimbus’ staff, company dancers, teachers, and board of directors. Indeed, Nimbus’ staff, dance company and board are comprised of a majority of individuals who self-identify as People of Color. In testimony to Nimbus’ remarkable success in drawing together and serving diverse constituents in an atmosphere of respect and inclusiveness, Critic Juan Michael Porter II wrote in Broadway World that Nimbus’ 2016 New York season “contained the most diverse audience I have ever encountered.” Jersey City has recently been named the most diverse municipality in the United States in terms of language, nationality, and religious, cultural and racial background; Nimbus is both proud of our track record of service to our diverse community, and also deeply humble and cognizant of the need for cultural consciousness and fluency, and inclusivity and equity. For Nimbus, we are our community – both innately connected through our immersive programming, and also embodied through the diversity of the people of our organization which mirrors that of our community.
