3:00 pm | $12/$10 members/$6 children | 2 hr 10 min
Government authorities have condemned their music and dance! Sound familiar?
Think Germany, 1939. “Swing Kids,” the beloved 1993 film starring Christian Bale and Robert Sean Leonard (in their teen heart-throb years), Barbara Hershey and Kenneth Branagh will be screened at Rosendale Theatre. Wonderful dance sequences and popular music from the late 30’s make this tragic film all the more poignant. To crown the film, our own Ulster County swing kids from The Vanaver Caravan SummerDance on Tour! will command the Rosendale Theatre stage with a rousing swing dance themed performance.
Directed by Thomas Carter, “Swing Kids” commemorates the youthful rebellion against Nazi oppression by the Swingjugend (Swing Youth). Eventually, in Germany and countries annexed by Nazi Germany, listening and dancing to “decadent Negro-Jewish” music was criminalized. Protesting Swing Youth were arrested and sentenced to concentration camp internment.
The Vanaver Caravan’s SummerDance on Tour!, in its 26th year, is a unique 3-week dance intensive for dancers, ages 9 through teens. With distinguished faculty the SummerDance on Tour! exposes students to a wide variety of dance forms and styles that will expand their perceptions and vocabulary in the world of dance while piquing performance skills.
Says Livia Vanaver, “Swing Kids” is a perfect movie for our time. Swing dancing is just HAPPY DANCING. It also teaches people to be sensitive to one another and really learn to listen to one another both in leading and following.”
Dance Film Sundays, a series which started in June 2010 under the auspices of the Rosendale Theatre Collective, are held on the 2nd Sunday of every month at Rosendale Theatre.