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Plight of Millennials Takes Center Stage at Queens-Based Dance Troupe

By Katie Honan | April 17, 2014 9:44am
 In-Sight Dance Company will perform its third ballet focused on issues facing millennials.
In-Sight Dance Company will perform its third ballet focused on issues facing millennials.
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Arkady Sandoval

ELMHURST — A local dance company that sets out to engage the many neighborhoods in Queens is celebrating its fifth anniversary with a performance that focuses on the growing pains faced by millennials.

In-Sight Dance Company was founded five years ago by a group of alumni from St. John's University in Jamaica Estates, according to Executive Director Leeanne G-Bowley.

They were proud of the borough, and wanted to showcase that.

"Our mission was to raise the profile of dance in Queens because it's so diverse and so awesome," she said.

What's followed is a list of performances across the borough, including a three-part ballet that focuses on challenges faced by "millennials" — those born between the early 1980s and the early 1990s.

The third in the series, "Pleading Against Prophecy," focuses on growing up and will show for one night only on April 25 at the Jamaica Performing Arts Center.

"There's so much bad press about millennials," she said.

"I want to create stories that represent us and speak to what we're really about."

In addition to their ballet series, In-Sight hosts an annual festival and ran an after-school program in Astoria for three years, she said.

G-Bowley, 31, who lives in Elmhurst and works at The Foundation Center teaching nonprofits how to raise funds, said the mission of In-Sight is to engage the community.

And they never want to create art that's out-of-touch.

"I try to make the work something where people don't leave saying, 'I don't know what that was' or is intimidated by it," she said.

The main challenge has been finding space to perform and practice.

G-Bowley said they travel to studios around the borough to rehearse. But they were lucky to land a year-long residency at the Jamaica Performing Arts Center, at 153rd Street and Jamaica Avenue, this year.

"One of the things they give us is space and the show is so much better because of it," G-Bowley said.

Pleading Against Prophecy will be shown Friday, April 25 at 8 p.m. Advance tickets for the show are available here, and cost $10. Tickets purchased the day of the performance cost $15.