Home

About Cardell Dance Theater

Cardell Dance Theater is a professional ensemble that gathers artists to create innovative and provocative dance performances. 

The company was founded as S. Cardell Danza in 1992 in Buenos Aires, based at Sala Ana Itelman and performing in major dance festivals sponsored by Red Latinoamericana de Productores de Danza, Fundacion Antorchas, Instituto Nacional del Teatro and Secretaria de Cultura de la Nacion, among others.  Relocated to Philadelphia in 2009 and renamed as Cardell Dance Theater, the company presented work at the H. Prince Theater, the Annenberg Center of the Performing Arts, The Painted Bride, The Wilma Theater, Christ Church Neighborhood Theater, The Arts Bank, the CEC Theater,  Georgian Court University, Swarthmore College, Mt Vernon Dance Space, Falls Bridge -Philly PARD, New Dance House, New Festival, SDHS at The University of the Arts, The Ice Box at the Crane Building, and at La MaMa in New York City.

Supported by a NEFA – National Dance Project touring grant, Cardell Dance Theater is touring, starting at Black Mountain Museum in North Carolina, then continuing on to the Ferst Center in Atlanta, and the Dance Complex in Massachusetts and at EDANCO, the Dominican Republic, supported by The Mid Atlantic Foundation.

Recently the company received The Philadelphia Cultural Fund, amultiyear grant.

Studio

About Cardell Dance Studio

Cardell Dance Theater announces the opening of Cardell Dance Studio in the heart of the  Art Museum Area. The Studio will serve as the company’s home and dance studio offering classes, workshops for professional dancers as well as classes for the community.

The Studio will serve as the company’s new home — and as a place where performance, education, and community engagement meet.

Professional—as well as recreational—classes and workshops  will be taught by movement artists and dance innovators, including by company members with a weekly master class by choreographer Silvana Cardell, the artistic director of Cardell Dance Theater.

Cardell Dance Studio allows Artistic Director Silvana Cardell a creative space to experiment and create new work with her dancers and fine-tune technique.  

“These past years after touring intensively with CDT, it has become my priority to open a studio to create a home for my artistic practice. This space will allow me to settle in one place, to create, explore and interact with audiences that can test my work from sketches to final creations. As a choreographer, whose work is extremely physical, rigorous and socially engaged, I not only need to further develop my practice training dancers in my particular approach to movement, but I also need to promote civic engagement through dance and significance themes that can create positive social change, having a headquarter to gather artists and audiences is essential to my mission.”

-Silvana Cardell


 For Greater Philadelphia’s dance community, a range of professional dance classes in Technique, Creative Movement, Improvisation, Urban and World Dances will be offered. Also on offer will be dance and movement classes for the Art Museum Area community of all ages, including for youth and seniors. Additionally, Cardell Dance Studio will provide affordable rental space for artistic practice, showings, and events. 
 
This beautifully renovated industrial building features full facade windows facing Fairmont Avenue and the rear windows facing Melon Street, 2000 square footage on wood floors, full kitchen, and restroom/changing rooms. The Studio is four blocks from the Broad Street Subway and close proximity to Center City, and just a 10–15 minute drive from most of Northwest Philadelphia.

Director

About Silvana Cardell

Silvana Cardell is an award-winning choreographer living and working in Philadelphia, since 2002.  Cardell is a choreographer, dancer, educator. She directs both Cardell Dance Theater and is the director of the dance program at Georgian Court University. Prior to joining GCU, she served on the faculty at the School of Dance at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Ms. Cardell holds a B.F.A. in Dance from the University of the Arts and an M.F.A. in Choreography from Temple University, both in Philadelphia. A dancer with 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. In addition to being a founding member of CoCoA-Datei, a nonprofit organization devoted to developing dance in Argentina, she also directed her own dance company and dance school. 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 began 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.