Our Mission
“My goal teaching and creating dance is to connect people to their bodies. Fostering positive social change, the studio is a headquarter to gather artists and audiences to achieve this mission.”
-Silvana Cardell, Artistic Director
Cardell Dance Theater
About
Founded in 2009 Cardell Dance Theater, is a professional ensemble that gathers artists to create innovative and provocative dance performances. Relocated in the Philadelphia Art Museum neighborhood, the company expanded its reach opening its own studio Cardell Dance Studio, which serves as an artistic and cultural resource to enhance and engage local, regional and international communities. The beautiful recycled industrial building located on 1713 Melon Street was designed as a place where performance, education, and community engagement meet.
Cardell Dance Studio offers recreational and professional classes and workshops taught by movement artists and dance innovators. Cultivating creativity, confidence, and artistic skill, the studio is dedicated to the creation and implementation of affordable cultural programs. The main goal is to create a welcoming environment engaging people to implement change and well-being, starting from the most fundamental place: our bodies.
Goals
- To engage audiences in our artistic practice.
- To serve the Art Museum Area community offering dance classes for all ages providing dance classes in Technique, Creative Movement, Social Dance, Improvisation, and Somatic.
- To design dance programs for professional dancers to train, create, discuss, and produce dance performances.
- To provide affordable rental space for artistic practice.
About Silvana Cardell
Silvana Cardell (she/her/hers) is a bicultural choreographer, scholar and educator based in Philadelphia. She is the Artistic Director at Cardell Dance Theater and the Director of the Dance Program at Georgian Court University, New Jersey since 2009. Prior to working at GCU, she worked as faculty for the School of Dance at The University of the Arts.
Ms. Cardell holds a BFA in Dance from the University of the Arts and an MFA in Choreography from Temple University. She danced for the Adriana Coll Dance Company (1983-1986) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Cardell served as the Director of Armar Danza Teatro (1992-1996) in Buenos Aires. For the next several years she directed her own dance company S. Cardell Danza and EDA Escuela de Danza del Abasto, sponsored by Secretaria de Cultura de la Nacion. Cardell received the most prestigious choreography award in Latin America from Fundacion Antorchas. Cardell was a founding member of CoCoA-Datei, a nonprofit organization devoted to developing dance in Argentina. She and her husband, architect Pablo Meninato, created the Sala Ana Itelman, a performance space that showcased mainstream and avant-grade national and international artists, sponsored by Instituto Nacional del Teatro and Secretaria de Cultura de la Nacion. She later became a dancer, choreographer, and artistic co-director at Group Motion Dance Company (2005-2007) in Philadelphia. She founded Cardell Dance Theater in 2002 in Philadelphia.
Ms. Cardell has been invited to teach at major dance and theater festivals throughout Latin America, and her choreography has been awarded, sponsored, and commissioned internationally by several organizations, including Antorchas Foundation, Instituto Nacional de Teatro, Secretaria de Cultura de la Ciudad, Red Latinoamericana de Productores de Danza y Teatro, Teatro Gral San Martin, Presidente Alvear, and Teatro de las Provincias. In the United States, her work has been presented by Group Motion, the American Dance College Festival, University of the Arts, Swarthmore College, Harold Prince Theater at the Annenberg Center of the Performing Arts, Georgian Court University, Mt. Vernon Dance Space, Falls Bridge, New Festival’s Dance House, New Festival, and Christ Church Neighborhood House.
Learn more about Silvana at cardelldancetheater.com