About Freespace Dance

Mission Statement Artistic Director Dancers

Freespace Dance is a contemporary modern dance company renowned for creating emotionally driven work in their athletic signature style. Comprised of eight exceptionally strong performers, this vibrant company uses controlled abandonment in pushing the limits of inventive partnering. Bodies fly through the air as Freespace Dance wows audiences worldwide.

The company’s 2009 season at The Ailey Citigroup Theater featured Donna Scro’s newest masterpiece Butt Rock, a high-energy tribute to rock music that defines exhilaration. The concert also included a mesmerizing aerial solo “The Grid” by guest choreographer Brian Sanders of JUNK from Philadelphia. With this success, Freespace Dance garnered a new level of recognition and critical acclaim. Robert Johnson from the Star Ledger describes Freespace Dance as destined to attract a wider public and Donna Scro as a dancemaker that seizes an audience’s attention and pulls viewers into her space with works that can be gentle or physically aggressive, but are always profoundly sexy.

Highlights of the company’s past New York City season included a completely sold out run at Dance Theater Workshop with rave reviews, featuring outstanding performances by the company dancers, Artistic Director Donna Scro, and Guest Artist Gaspard Louis of Pilobolus Dance Theatre. Additional New York City engagements also include two seasons at Danspace Project at St. Marks Church and two seasons at Joyce SoHo, and regular performances at NYC festivals such as Dancenow Festival, Downtown Dance Festival, Dancers Responding to AIDS: The Remember Project, International Dance Festival, DNA’s Raw Material, DUMBO Dance Festival, and Cool New York Festival.

National touring includes performances at Jacob’s Pillow, San Diego State University, SUNY Purchase, Wells College, Southern Utah State University, The American College Dance Festival University of Maine, The Kaplan Theater in Houston, Texas, Dance Saves the Day at the Kasser Theater and annual seasons at Montclair State University. Freespace Dance has also been presented at the Oskar Schindler Center for the Performing Arts for the past three summers with a return engagement in Summer 2009.

Freespace Dance has been a guest company for Soulphonic Soundscape by Daniel Bernard Roumain featuring DBR & The Mission, choreographers for Playhouse Disney’s “Choo Choo Soul” video, and featured on Professor Predicts series for mtv U.

The company’s 2009/2010 season features performances at Newark Museum Centennial Celebration, Rutgers University, Raritan Valley Community College, The Garden State Dance Festival, Cumberland County Community College, Grounds for Sculpture, and The Oskar Schindler Center for the Performing Arts; and NYC appearances include Fridays at Noon 92nd Street Y, Dance Tracks, Wave Rising Series, DUMBO Dance Festival, and Dance Conversations at the Flea. Additionally, the company will be doing extensive West Coast touring including several engagements in San Diego and is currently collaborating with West Coast artist, Peter Kalivas, Director of The PGK Project (A Contemporary Dance Company).


In addition to their performing credits, the company is highly involved in dance education. They are on the New Jersey Young Audience Roster, the New Jersey Arts Council for the Morris Area and The Montclair Arts Council. Freespace Dance performs their assembly program “Dance Inspirations” and teaches residencies for various public and private schools throughout the state of New Jersey.

The company also hosts a popular annual three week Summer Festival for high school and college dancers teaching classes in modern, jazz, pilates, yoga, ballet, and repertory. Their yearlong dance program for children, teens, and adults currently has fifty plus enrolled students. Due to high demand and increased activities, Donna Scro has officially opened her own yoga/dance studio - Grace Yoga and Dance.

Freespace Dance has received grants from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, New Jersey State Council On The Arts, The New Jersey Cultural Trust and The American Music Center. Artistic Director, Donna Scro is the recipient of a 2008 Fellowship from New Jersey State Council on the Arts, for excellence in choreography.
Freespace Dance is currently on the Main Roster of Jodi Kaplan & Associates / BookingDance.