About us
Who we are
BODYTRAFFIC uses the creative spirit of its Los Angeles home as a backdrop for delivering performances that inspire audiences around the globe to simply love dance. Since its founding in 2007 by Artistic Director Tina Finkelman Berkett, the company has held fast to its mission of championing contemporary dance, educating audiences, and inciting positive change. Its goal is simple: get the world moving.
Movement, conceptual and physical, is humankind’s only common language, and as a 21st-century dance company, BODYTRAFFIC is honored to share the responsibility of making dance accessible to everyone, regardless of their circumstances, within the national and international cultural ecosystem.
A forward-thinking company, BODYTRAFFIC is not one driven by a single choreographic voice. It aims to endorse established and new voices and be a home for an eclectic range of styles and perspectives that tell vital stories. By commissioning renowned choreographers, including Kyle Abraham, Ohad Naharin, Hofesh Shechter, Victor Quijada, Arthur Pita, Fernando Magadan, and Micaela Taylor, it cultivates opportunities for artists to fully embody their creative practice and conceive new, contemporary pieces. Connecting individuals of vastly different life experiences through dance, BODYTRAFFIC has toured the world and continues to deepen its investment in its home city of Los Angeles.
In 2015, the company entered the international scene when the Obama administration selected BODYTRAFFIC as its cultural ambassadors to Israel and Jordan through DanceMotion USA, a program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the US State Department. This opportunity expanded and deepened the company’s commitment to cross-cultural exchange while simultaneously honing BODYTRAFFIC artists’ abilities to create safe spaces for creativity and cultural exchange worldwide. Mirroring the global reputation of its home Los Angeles, BODYTRAFFIC also served as cultural ambassadors to South Korea (2016), Algeria (2017-2018), and Indonesia (2018). During the 2017-2018 season, BODYTRAFFIC celebrated its 10th anniversary with an extensive tour, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, for the CONTEXT Diana Vishneva Festival and The Hague for The Holland Dance Festival.
BODYTRAFFIC inspires and uplifts its community and beyond through its education and outreach programs. Focusing on supporting the whole dancer, it provides programs ranging from youth-focused intensive training and master classes to professional development for established artists that encourage their growth by nurturing their unique identities. Every year, it mentors more than 500 students from diverse backgrounds.
Challenge, passion, empathy, inclusion, and growth are at the heart of everything BODYTRAFFIC does. It seeks to elevate dance beyond an art form to a mode of exploration and celebration of ideas and spirit through movement. Because, after all, without movement, nothing changes.
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