BAAD! celebrates borough through provocative dance

All this month, the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!) is putting on a dance festival called “The Boogie Down Dance Series.” The shows will be at BAAD!’s performance space at 2474 Westchester Ave.

BAAD co-founder and executive director Charles Rice-Gonzalez, 50, said his group has a couple of goals.

“One is to create space in the Bronx for contemporary dance,” he said. “Another thing is to create and foster a Bronx dance community. So we very often look for dancers who are from the Bronx… We’re trying to brand the Bronx as a place for dance.”

BAAD!’s general manager Manuel Rivera, 35, said the group also pulls people from outside the borough if their work resonates.

“We also bring people you might not always find in the Bronx, that collaborate with Bronx artists as well,” he explained.

“We call it the ‘Boogie Down’ because that’s what the nickname of the Bronx is,” Mr. Rice-Gonzalez said. “But it’s kind of like a ghetto nickname for us, so sometimes it also has that kind of flavor, a homegrown flavor to it.”

Mr. Rice-Gonzalez said the Boogie Down Dance Series is in its 14th year.

“In general, I think our audience has come to expect something a little edgier,” he said of the series.

“A dancer came up to me [last weekend] and said, ‘I love coming to BAAD! because I don’t get to see this in other places,’” Mr. Rice-Gonzalez recounted. “He was saying the level of quality, but also the level of experimentation and the interesting kind of work.”

Mr. Rice-Gonzalez said BAAD! fills an important need in the Bronx.

“I think this is important because if you think of the Bronx as a well-rounded community, as a community that has all of the healthy components, one of the healthy components is art,” he said. “And BAAD! in particular is presenting art that is speaking to specific communities of women, people of color and LGBT people, and braiding those people together. But it’s really carving a space for art, for professional art.”