I am absolutely honored to share here that my creative life has taken an exciting new direction — and one with a distinction for which I am incredibly grateful.  The Apollo Fridays Dance Company has selected me to train and perform with its “Gray Gardenias” modern dance tour for a period of one year between July 1, 2024 and July 1, 2025.

For those of you outside the theater community, the “gray” movement in today’s modern dance world refers to older performers (generally over age 50) who want to “rejuvenate the culture in a way that incorporates older dancers, to show that dance is an avenue of expression for all ages.”  (And those of you who’ve known me since my Mary Washington College days know that I minored in dance there under the apt tutelage of Professor Nina Meyers.)

Apollo Fridays’ national “Gray Gardenias” tour begins in just three short months.  (Although the tour is nationwide, my segment of the program will take me only throughout the mid-Atlantic states.  I am thrilled that I will appear on the stages of both The Kennedy Center and The Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.!)  I will be traveling to Washington no fewer than three times per week for training, so you will be seeing a lot less of me on social media.

I am incredibly grateful to both both Apollo Fridays Executive Director Victor Drazen and Casting Director Stephen Saunders for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Remember, guys, DANCE LIKE NOBODY IS WATCHING.  Except … in my case, people WILL be watching, I guess.  Wow.

Photo credit: By Eli Katz – Photoshoot of JDT Company show The Return of the Unicorn, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=120909482

“I am not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The important question is whether they are in a position to do anything about it. My affections, being concentrated over a few people, are not spread all over Hell in a vile attempt to placate sulky, worthless shits.”

— William S. Burroughs

Source: Addison Stansifer on Facebook

Photo credit: Christiaan Tonnis, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons