We were lucky to catch up with Alison Cook-Beatty recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Alison thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

My entire life has been a risk. I am a risk taker. I am an artist. Pursuing a career in arts is risky. There’s nothing to fall back on. There’s no financial support. Is it an unknown or significant? But I took the risk. My father told me to do what I love, and I could never go wrong. I felt lucky that my parents supported me and made that choice. But I knew that I needed to support myself and get a job. I took the risk, and I’m glad I did. Every audition was a risk; you have to put yourself on the line, and there’s a lot of rejection. There aren’t a lot of jobs, but I landed one after I left Paul Taylor Dunes company. I felt like jumping off a tall building with no safety net. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had no health insurance, dental, or financial stability again, but I took the risk. I again had to audition and figure out what I would do. I just kept saying yes. I took more minor risks, which led to more significant risks, and I formed a nonprofit organization that I’ve been running for the last 11 years. My mother has always said yes, take the risk, you will figure it out, have faith, unwavering faith, and take the risk. During COVID-19, when the pandemic hit, we all had to figure out a different way to navigate our lives. I could’ve shut down the nonprofit, taking a hiatus. Still, I took the risk to keep working through the pandemic and figure out a way to pay my dancers because I said yes, and I took that rest; we were acknowledged with support from the city and the state and recognized on ABC News and all different programs throughout the city. That pushed us forward while we saw our other friends close down and lose their studios around us. Saying yes and taking risks even if I don’t know if it will work for me propels me forward with Momentum. If you reach for the moon and miss, you will land on a star. Whatever that’s saying is, I genuinely believe it’s true. You have to be a risk taker, a visionary; you have to have a thought to propel you to a vision, and you have to take action and take that risk, or you’re always going to be in the same place.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Alison Cook Beatty Dance is a 501(c)(3) non-profit dance company based in New York City. Founded in 2012, the company is a classically-based modern dance company exploring the universal human condition through expansive and emotionally-driven movement grounded in American modern dance while exploring new approaches to finding unique creative expression. The healing and transformational power of the arts inspire the company to work with diverse groups within the community and collaborate with other artists across multiple disciplines. Alison Cook Beatty Dance has performed throughout New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, California, Vermont, and Washington D.C., and continues its rehearsal, performance, and community outreach events for 2023. The company has performed at New York Live Arts, The Ailey Citigroup Theater, DUMBO Dance Festival, Dixon Place, Joe’s Pub, Jazz at Lincoln Center, GREENSPACE, the Salvatore Capezio Theater at Peridance, the 92nd Street Y, NYU Frederick Loewe Theater, The Riverside Theatre, Hudson Guild Theatre, The Making Moves Dance Festival, The Martha Graham Studio Theater, Pascal Rioult Dance Center, Abrons Arts Center, Playhouse Theater, The 14th Street Y, Battery Dance Festival, Hunter College, Dance Parade, Baruch Performing Arts Cente, Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, City Center Studios, GK Arts Center, Manhattan Movement & Arts Center, Ballet Hispanico, WEST HAMPTONS BEACH PROJECT, Arts On Site, White Plains Performing Arts Center, Florence Gould Hall, Duffy Theater at Mark Morris Dance Center, Goddard Riverside’s Bernie Wohl Center, and more in the New York City area.
In addition to the company’s New York-based performances, it has toured and performed at The National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C., San Jose State University in CA, and the Harvard Arts First Festival, Built On Stilts in Marthas Vineyard, Salam Arts Festival, MAGMA Arts, and Windhover Performing Arts Center in Massachusetts as well ad AS220 in Rhode Island. The Company has performed and taught in Vermont at the Putney School, St. Johnsbury Academy, and the Southern Vermont Dance Festival. In Connecticut, they have performed in Altar’d Spaces at Arts & Ideas Festival, The Hartford, CT Dance Festival, The Stamford, CT Dance Festival, the Palace Theater, the Hartt School, the Milford Fine Arts Center in Connecticut, as well as the Fairfield County Dance Festival performing in New Canaan, Bridgeport, Darien, Westport, Fairfield, and Milford. They recently have been presented by The Dragon’s Egg and Ted Thomas Ortiz Dance Company and supported by The New England Foundation for The Arts in a touring grant for New England 2023. The Company’s first performance was in New Jersey at MishMash2012, and they also performed at Nimbus Studio Theater and the International Dance Festival, KoDaFe in NYC 2022 in New Jersey.
Community outreach is at the core of the company’s mission. Alison Cook Beatty Dance has brought its energetic and creative performance approach through lectures/demonstrations to the Mary Manning Walsh Home for six consecutive years. The company shares how dance is created, rehearsed, and refined- all with full audience participation. Collaborations with local musicians who share this passion for outreach have helped make these events memorable for the residents. The Company has also performed and taught classes at The New Jewish Home, The Southern VT Dance Festival, The JCC of Staten Island, the Milford Fine Arts Center in CT, and I.S 10 Horace Greeley School in part of its way to give back to the community and share a dance with all.
The Company is proud of its work during the Pandemic, and three features on ABC News Channel 7 for the continued work throughout COVID-19. Notibilly for Ms. Cook-Beatty’s pieces “Central Park Field #4” and “Winter Wonderland,” as well as speaking out about mental health and raising awareness on Suicide Prevention and her work “One More Day,”; all featured on ABC News Channel 7. The Company was honored to receive multiple grant awards from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Department of Cultural Affairs, and others.
Alison Cook-Beatty attended the Boston Conservatory of Music at Berklee, earning a BFA in Dance with high honors. She was the selected recipient of the Ruth Sandholm Ambrose Scholarship Award and the Jan Veen Scholarship. She moved to New York City and danced with the Paul Taylor Dance Company and Taylor 2, among other dance companies. In 2012, Ms. Cook-Beatty founded ALISON COOK BEATTY DANCE, a classically based modern dance company based in New York City, whose mission is to create and share accessible and emotionally engaging dance for all. Companies including Ballet Next, Carolina Ballet Theatre, The Joffrey Ballet School, The Boston Conservatory of Music at Berklee, Steffi Nossen School of Dance, Columbia Ballet Collaborative, New York University, The Ailey School, NYSSSA, Infinity Dance Theater, Marymount Manhattan College have commissioned her. She was awarded the 2013 sjDANCEco Award for Artistic Merit. Under her direction, the Company has grown into an artistically reputable and productive 501(c)(3) nonprofit dance company with local impact and international esteem. The company has performed throughout the United States, has been featured on ABC News for its prolific and creative efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic, and was awarded grant support from Dance/NYC’s Coronavirus Dance Relief Fund, the New York Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Council of The Arts, and was a recipient of the NEST Grant Award for NEFA Arts. The Company just celebrated its tenth anniversary.

Artistic Vision For Alison Cook Beatty Dance, the purpose of art is to connect human beings more deeply to themselves and to one another. The Company remains proudly oriented by traditional techniques of modern American dance, which serve as a shared language between modern dancers worldwide. At the same time, the Company values artistic risk and the exquisitely unexpected. Alison Cook Beatty Dance finds true grace in emotionally honest work and challenges both dancers and audiences through mutual vulnerability.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

for a performing artist, I think society can best support artists by going to see live art. This goes to not just performing artist, but all art. Since the pandemic, there has been considerable drop down and people going out to theaters going to museums going to see live performances. The best thing a person can do is to buy a ticket and go support local artists, shop and local businesses go to our craft show go to a performance in your town buy a Broadway ticket go to your high school play go listen to an orchestra go to a museum by five tickets and bring your friends if you have the means donate if you can’t go to the theater try to support in other ways. You can volunteer there’s so many ways to volunteer. You can become a board member you can become advisory board member you can contribute not just financially but in so many ways. Try to bring Arts into the educational school, sectors support arts in schools and education. bring more teaching artists into public schools. Right to your legislators and congressmen to support the art. Help ARTISTS with Grant writing so ARTISTS can go out into communities and create projects within your local communities with children and seniors and your community businesses to bring more art in the community and work with people in your towns. The government doesn’t have a lot of funding for the art so if you have the means to donate to an art organization, please do so because that money will continue to give to so many others. consider joining our board at Alison Cook Beatty Dance. We would love to have your input and help.!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

apart from navigating through the pandemic and continuing to work straight through COVID-19, and finding different ways of creating filming, performing and sharing dance with others, that showed a lot of resilience on our part. This past year we celebrated our 10 year anniversary and on the night of our 10 year anniversary performance, our board chair Gerald Appelstein was giving a speech, and he suddenly had a heart attack on stage in front of an entire full house of people and nearly lost his life. Jerry had been one of mine and the companies biggest cheerleaders, and to see this happen on such a celebratory milestone for the company was traumatic to say the least. Jerry is OK and had and his been recovering this whole past year, but obviously had to step down from his board position. Another man Robert sutherland took over his intern of board chair and he had a stroke this past year and had to step down from his duties as for chair. Robert is also recovering and doing well. we have had so much support from our community in the Dance field and our family and friends this past year personally it has been hard for me because both Robert and Jerry were my advisers and people I could go to when I needed advice about the company. And I thought of them as my friends. not having them around as much has been a loss for many different ways. Navigating through this right after the pandemic has been tremendously challenging in many different ways. Having the resilience of getting through COVID-19 the pandemic, and then having all of these health problems happen on our board has been tremendously challenging to say the least. stop into this decade of running this nonprofit organization as a female entrepreneur, choreographer and artistic director it takes a lot of grit, perseverance, and resilience to do so much administrative work and artistic work, and wear so many hats at the same time. What gets me through it the love of Dance sharing Dance , seeing the dancers light up when they’re on stage seeing the children and the people that we interact with happy and sharing the arts with people who need it. The world needs Art especially right now with so many crazy things happening in the world. In time of war, hate crimes racial injustice right now we need to come together through the art which breaks down barriers and brings people together and even through these very very difficult Challen times I just keep putting 1 foot in front of the other. I don’t look at the entire mountain in front of me, and I do one thing at a time, and I enjoy myself while I’m creating and doing the work because it’s a blessing and a gift to be able to do what I do.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.alisoncookbeattydance.org
• Instagram: alisoncookbeattydance
• Facebook: Alison Cook Beatty Dance
• Linkedin: Alison Cook Beatty Dance
• Twitter: acbdance
• Youtube: Alison CookBeatty Dance

Image Credits
Paul B Goode, Russ Haydn, Uncle Danny,, and Nico Malvaldi Photography