Carolyn Dorfman
Artistic Director & Choreographer
“Dance has the extraordinary power to speak. As we listen, we discover the commonalties of the human experience and thus our relationship to one another. Dance and the ensemble become a powerful visual metaphor for life and community. The trust, commitment, and connectedness of the ensemble teach us about our potential to not merely co-exist, but how we can support and thrive with those around us. The on-stage balance of the individual and the ensemble, the individual movement or spectacular moment to the whole, tells us of the delicate balance that we must strike in our own lives. When we achieve this, the results are astoundingly beautiful.”           …Carolyn Dorfman

Known as a creator of provocative dances that reflect her concerns about the human condition, Dorfman is interested in creating “worlds” into which the audience can enter. CDDC’s high energy and technically demanding repertory uses movement as metaphor to take audiences on what one reviewer described as “intellectual and emotional journeys.”
She has created stunning pieces that are a tribute to family and legacy as well as humanity in its entirety. They are about a spirit and passion for life, people and truth, survival and renewal. Since founding her Company in 1982, she has created more than 60 works for her 11 member ensemble which appears at major theaters, dance festivals, universities and schools regionally, nationally and internationally and is lauded for its exceptional arts education and community programming. The Company, described by critics as “ingenious” (The Star-Ledger) and “emotionally resonant” (The New York Times), presents new and repertory works by Ms. Dorfman and regularly commissions original scores and artistic collaborations.

A Michigan native, Dorfman received her BFA in Dance with certification to teach K-12 from the University of Michigan and her MFA from New York University Tisch School for the Arts. She has been designated a Distinguished Artist and granted five Choreography Fellowships by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts (NJSCA), in additional to other choreography honors. In 2004 she received the Jewish Women in the Arts Award for Dance from the Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit and the Janice Charach Epstein Gallery. A master teacher, she is a guest artist/choreographer at major universities in the U.S. and has served on the guest faculty at the Limón Institute in New York. She and CDDC are Affiliate Artists of The Yard in Chilmark, MA, where Ms. Dorfman currently serves on the Board of Trustees. She is a Principal Affiliate in Arts Education for the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, is on the Artist Committee of the AllStars Project NY/NJ, and is Artist-In-Residence and program mentor for the Academy for Performing Arts at Union County Vocational & Technical Schools. Ms. Dorfman is a former Assistant Professor of Dance (Centenary College/N J).

CDDC is supported in part by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner of the NEA; the American Music Center Live Music for Dance Program; EJ Grassman; Karma Foundation; Harkness Foundation for Dance; the Hyde and Watson Foundation; Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation; The Center for Ambulatory Surgery; the Union County Section, the National Council of Jewish Women; TD Bank and Magyar Bank, among other generous foundations, corporations, and individual donors committed to CDDC’s artistry and programming.