07/09/2024
The DuDance team had such a blast dancing at the Manhattan Dance Championships! Videos to come 🙂
Thank you to Gary McDonald and Diana Mcdonald for organizing such a wonderful competition and giving us the space and welcome that nourish and enhance our students’ lives. The smiles and joy you created yesterday by providing us with this opportunity is truly special; and we are all grateful for it. And thank you to Cathi Cobelli Nyemchek for always being a guiding light before all our performances and understanding what we sometimes have to go through just to get on stage.
Thank you to all our teachers! Leyla Shapiro for being there every single Saturday morning; laughing, dancing, teaching, playing and living it up with our beautiful dancers and students. Anvelyn Pi for being there to teach anytime I am away and being willing to adapt her teaching for all our dancers with special needs; whether they are children or adults. Tal Livsh*tz for being there when we realized we had a last minute addition to our dancer roster and literally learning the routines in under 5 minutes like a true professional 😂 And thank you to all our past professional dancers who performed with us Dan Malov (Lena missed you and was almost crying when I told her you couldn’t make it, but Tal gave her the space fo shine and be herself); Enxhi Fundo; Pasha Stepanchuk (and also a special thank you for supporting me spiritually, mentally and morally with my life goals and ambitions…you are the best brother 😘); Ilana Keselman and to all our other past/current teachers/performers.
A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO Tony Dovolani for donating his MDC judging paycheck to DuDance and our mission of spreading joy through dance as soon as he saw our dancers performing. Your support means more than you can ever imagine. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. We are all truly grateful and your support will allow us to create even more smiles like these 🙂 (We have never solicited or asked for donations but if we want to grow faster and make an even bigger impact, that’s gonna have to change…if you would like to donate to DuDance, our 501c3 registered non-profit, please reach out to me! We teach hundreds of students on a weekly basis and your support will help us grow and create even more smiles and impact!)
Thank you to all our partner schools and organizations that were represented this past weekend: Brooklyn Autism Center, POW, Power Of We, OHEL and Imagine Academy.
Thank you to all our students who performed this past weekend! Moishe, Matthew, Jonah, and Lena…you are true superstars. The smiles you created in the ballroom for all the audience members was a truly remarkable feat to witness. I am SOOOOO proud of you all. You make my life so much better.
And finally, and most importantly, I want to thank the parents of all our dancers for being such amazing care takers of these wonderful dancers. Having a child with special needs is one of the hardest things to navigate in life but your unconditional love and support gives these children a chance to lead happy and fulfilled lives. You are all amazing humans and I truly commend you for being so strong, resilient, patient, and loving. You have all taught me more than you can imagine.
