"Jazz Dance with Class"

Dancin’ Unlimited – Today

Dancin’ Unlimited is a non-profit, professional jazz dance company whose mission is to promote, produce, and perform quality jazz dance. Its company is composed of seasoned performers, all with extensive classical dance training and performance experience. Dancin’ Unlimited provides its dancers with the opportunity to continue to gain more professional dance performance experience while still maintaining the highest standards for artistic achievement.

Dancin’ Unlimited’s repertoire ranges from classical jazz dance to hip-hop, and from the Big Band era to Broadway jazz dance. With an eclectic jazz dance program, the company performs in many venues for Corporate Events, Conventions, Trade Shows, Fairs, Festivals, Schools, and special events. Dancin' Unlimited creates new and exciting programs each year with an emphasis on artistic excellence in dance, broad variety and professionalism. 

Dancin’ Unlimited proudly produces and performs in an annual Jazz and Tap Dance Festival as part of its commitment of bringing the art of dance to the community. The festival is a showcase of regional dance companies and celebrates the vitality and breadth of jazz and tap dance. It also represents the aspirations of the dance companies and their dancers in the way they are continually challenging themselves, experimenting, and creating new ways of performing their art. In 2010 the Jazz and Tap Dance Festival will celebrate its twenty-fourth season.

Dancin’ Unlimited – Back in time

Dancin’ Unlimited was originally the “Dance Theater Company of Northern Virginia,” and organized in 1972 by Robert Thoma. Mr. Thoma had a goal to “assemble and train a company of young people who would specialize in jazz dancing.” Drawing upon his background in Broadway, musical comedy, and using contemporary music and ideas, he choreographed works that emphasized theatrical jazz dance. With the company’s acceptance into the Northeast Regional Ballet Association in 1974, they became the only all-jazz dance company in the region. 

Marilyn York became the Artistic Director in 1976. The company was known, during the early 1980's, as the Virginia Jazz Theatre. They grew into a stable and cohesive performing unit through membership of professional adult dancers who had settled in the area and wished to continue performing. They focused on theatrical jazz dance concerts, with emphasis on technical excellence. In addition to bringing quality jazz dance to the Washington DC metropolitan area, the company also became a training ground for the serious jazz dancer, including the older high school and college dancers, aiming toward musical theatre and concert jazz performance.  

In 1982, Ms. York changed the name to Dancin’ Unlimited, the first company in the area to produce all-jazz dance theatrical productions and cabaret-style shows. As a result, the “Jazz and Tap Dance Festival” was born in 1985, in Northern Virginia. Each year the best local companies participate in a weekend of jazz and tap dance at it’s finest. The Jazz and Tap Dance Festival, with the help of grants from The Arts Council of Fairfax County, has also hosted guest companies from across the United States. This event is now an annually anticipated community treasure. 

Marilyn York’s involvement in dance includes over 30 years of experience in all aspects of her field:  performing, teaching, directing and choreography. She studied with the Washington School of Ballet, Capital Ballet Company, and was a dance major at Butler University. She studied jazz with Wally Saunders, Nilo Toledo, Bob Thoma, Luigi and Gus Giordano – and has developed her own unique style.  She has performance experience with numerous Washington DC area theatres, dance companies, night clubs and festivals. She currently teaches jazz dance at the Metropolitan Fine Arts Center in Fairfax Station and Alexandria, the Center for Ballet Arts in Fairfax City, and at the Potomac Dance Center in Maryland. Ms. York is the inspiration behind, and the producer of the annual Jazz and Tap Dance Festival, coordinating the talents of several ensembles in the area into a fun and lively evening of superb jazz and tap dance entertainment.

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