JERSEY CITY – The Kennedy Dancers have announced in celebration of their 40th Anniversary Season the company will present a fundraising gala, “The Jersey City Follies,” on Thursday, May 11, at the historic Landmark Loew’s Jersey Theater on Journal Square, Jersey City.
The Jersey City Follies will be an evening of fun and music celebrating vaudeville and burlesque style entertainment. Performing guests will be a wide array of public officials, including freeholders, assembly and senate members, and various Hudson County and municipal officials.
The chairman of the “Jersey City Follies” is Eugene McKnight.
The performers will present music, dance, and theater acts. Mayor Hague’s Barbershop Quartet will feature County Executive Tom DeGise, former Jersey City Mayor Jeremiah Healy, and Hudson County Freeholder William O’Dea.
Former Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini returns to the stage as the world famous burlesque dancer of the 1950’s “Hope Diamond, Gem of the Exotics.”
State Senator Sandra Cunningham, Hudson County Register Diane Coleman, Assemblywoman Angela McKnight, and Jersey City Councilwoman Joyce Watterman will all perform in a scene from “The Dreamgirls.”
Also performing will be Kennedy Professional Repertory Company members Bong Dizon, Junie Kenworthy, Shannon Grant, Eli Cano, Gigi Dragone Horan, Aaron Atkins, Laurel Z. Forsyth and Diane Dragone.
All funds from the “Gala” will go to support the Kennedy Dancer’s many outreach and cultural programs and includes matching funds from a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Grant.
Since 1977 the Kennedy Dancers, a nonprofit dance company has served the New Jersey community with dance classes, professional performances, free programs for senior citizens and adults with disabilities, and scholarships for teens to train as professional dancers.
Advance tickets are $65. Tickets at the door the night of the show is $75. The performances will be videotaped for Verizon and aired in June 2017 reaching all of New Jersey and other Verizon systems in 22 states.
For more information, contact Bong Dizon, administrator, and Diane Dragone, executive /artistic director, at (201) 659-2190 or at Kennedydancers@aol.com. Visit the company website at www.KENNEDYDANCERS.org.
