Kaatsbaan International Dance Center, the Hudson Valley's "cultural park for dance," was founded in 1990 to afford professional dancers the space and time they couldn't afford in Manhattan, and often sees former students return again as renowned professionals. "Alexandre Hammoudi was a promising Extreme Ballet student 10 years ago; she's now an American Ballet Theatre soloist and returned last year to dance in the Kaatsbaan 25th Anniversary Gala," says Gregory Cary, one of the four founding dancers of the Tivoli center. "Contemporary choreographer Jacqulyn Buglisi boasts that her entire repertory was created at Kaatsbaan, including Suspended Women, which is now a permanent part of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's repertory." And there's plenty more where that came from. "The rate of program expansion has been overwhelming," says Cary. In the past year, the theater hosted 18 dance companies, and 200 dance artists attended the residency program; the Extreme Ballet program enrolls 120 teens every summer, and the Kaatsbaan Academy teaches 80 students from the local community.
