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About Us
Please contact us for information about September 2010 PB&J
Dance Company Auditions.
The Peanut Butter & Jelly Dance Company was founded in 1980
to present performances and programs by adult professional
dancer/teachers for elementary and pre -school-age audiences,
to sponsor concerts directed to the public, and to teach classes
for children and teachers.
The PB&J Dance Company has performed all over the state. They
have presented assembly programs, workshops and residencies
to over 70,000 children in 300 sites around Massachusetts
since 1980. In 1997, the company presented their work at the
'dance and the Child international' conference in Finland,
where they were well received by young dancers and teachers
from around the world. The SMALL FEETS dance company has presented
an annual concert and 30 programs in schools since 1987.
PB&J is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that is supported in part
by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. We
have also received grants from the Brookline Council for the
Arts and Humanities. We are also a City of Boston approved
contractor. We can also be found at
matchbook.org. Who's Who In the Company
Jim Banta, a twelfth season member
of PB&J, has danced locally Ballet Theatre of Boston,
Impulse Dance Company, Boston Liturgical Dance Ensemble, and
most recently with Marjorie Morgan, Margot Parsons, and In
Vivo Productions, Cambridge Chamber Ballet, Annikai Dance
Company, and Ballet Arts Winchester.
Paul Kafka-Gibbons has danced with
PB&J since a lively audition in 1997, when he and Jim were
taken into the company. Paul also dances with Joe Burgio in
an improvisational duo, É/Emu, and with the Dadallamas, a
multimedia performance group. He and fellow Peanut, Lynn
Frederickson are Lynn and Paul, A Contemporary Dance
Surprise. Paul also writes novels and book reviews. His work
can be found and downloaded for free at
www.kafka-gibbons.net.
Lynn Frederiksen is West Indian,
from St. Croix, USVI. She attended college in Massachusetts,
obtaining a BA in Biology and an MA in Environmental Studies
from Clark University. She worked for the Mass. Dept. of
Water Resources, but dance kept nagging her, so she
abandoned the rivers for an MFA from Smith College, and
embarked on a life in the arts. She artistically
collaborates with her husband, John Minigan, playwright and
teacher at Weston High School. She also researches how dance
illuminates the role of bipedalism in the evolution of human
learning and presents this research at national conferences.
She is also working on an encyclopedia of Chinese Dance with
colleague Shih-Ming Li Chang, which she just presented at
the NDEO National Conference. This is her third season with
PB&J.
Jeanne Traxler, Director, was an
original founder of the PB&J Dance Company in Cincinnati,
Ohio in 1976 and in Massachusetts in 1980. She teaches PB&J
Dance Classes for Kids and co-directs the SMALL FEETS dance
company. Jeanne is also involved in dance and the Child
international, an organization whose mission is to increase
and develop opportunities for young people to experience
dance as creators, performers, and spectators throughout the
world. She was the USA Chapter National Treasurer and has
taught for daCi at the international meeting in Finland in
1997 and at two National Dance Education Organization (NDEO)
conferences. She is also a founding member and on the
organizing committee of the Children’s Dance Festival, an
annual day of dance workshops and performances for and by
children. Jeanne has taught workshops for all of the Dance
Across the City days, the Dance for World Community
Festival, and at the Wang Theater’s Artropolis program. She
has also choreographed six elementary school musicals in
Brookline, for one of which, she collaborated on lyrics for
the original music. Her choreographic work has received
grants from the Massachusetts and Brookline Arts Council.
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