Migrate Back to Teaneck Creek
Join Teaneck Creek staff and trustees as we celebrate the first steps of reopening. The Conservancy is delighted to welcome past and potential partners to engage with us in an afternoon tour of our habitat restoration and gardens with networking over dinner. We'll be gradually opening up areas of the park starting this October and are eager for you and your organization to be a part of the process. Come celebrate, dream, and plan with our team!
Please RSVP by October 13th.
Our goal is to have a robust calendar of collaborations for our spring reopening and we want you to be apart of our moment! Bring business cards, promotional materials, and be ready to expand your networks and ours. Please arrive on time to get the whole experience.
When: Thursday, October 20, 2022
3:30 PM – 6:00 PM EDT
Where: 20 Puffin Way, Teaneck, NJ
Outdoors, rain or shine.
Why: To celebrate the completion of our restoration!
Attire: Dress casually & comfortably! Light dinner fare to be served.
COVID POLICY : Proof of vaccination and ID required
N95 or equivalent masks required indoors (for bathroom use)
Made possible by a grant from Bergen County Arts
Musical Performances
Nikki Manx Dance Project
The company advocates for environmental sustainability and social justice through an artistic lens. NMDP strives to enliven the passion surrounding important subject matter since 2008. Rooted in cause-driven work, NMDP engages the community in many ways throughout the year including all ages, abilities, and backgrounds with special events, residencies, and programming. Incorporating the use of a unique gestural vocabulary, live text, originally composed music, projected media, and theatrical movement driven by social justice creates an invigorating experience for those who witness and participate in the company’s work. In accordance with this deep meaning, Artistic Director Nicole Mahncke makes every effort to inspire progressive solutions to the questions that her work suggests through cultural and community engagement. With a company consisting of performers and teaching artists, the company hosts educational residencies and professional development throughout the year. With teaching artists in many schools, studios and residencies throughout New Jersey, NMDP most notably partnered with Arts Horizons in 2018 for a year of cultural dance residencies taught throughout senior homes in NJ with NMDP teaching artists. The company has performed at charitable events, galleries, group homes, and site-specific venues. Nikki Manx Dance Project is a firm believer that the arts can connect the thread of society, and strengthen the voice of the people. When we see things that cannot be expressed in words, or through moving bodies in dance, we are taken to a new and inspiring place for change. The mission of Nikki Manx Dance Project is to increase artistic experiences that incorporate social change.
Violet Hartman began her dance training at the age of fourteen at Nunnbetter Dance Theatre in Bergen County New Jersey under the direction of Leath Nunn. In 2015 she was accepted to the DeSales University Dance Program where she trained in ballet, modern and contemporary dance with faculty Tim Cowart, Trinette Singleton, and Julia Mayo. While at DeSales, Violet performed in works by Er Dong Hu, Julia Mayo, and Emily Schoen. Violet has performed and taught ballroom and Latin styles for Arthur Murray Dance, as well as completed two teaching rotations with Juntos Dance Collective as a global teacher, leading virtual workshops bilingually in Guatemala as well as San Francisco. She has studied at the Paul Taylor Summer Intensive in 2017 and 2018, and most recently the 2022 Winter Intensive. Violet is now a New Jersey/ New York City based freelance artist and current company member of Nikki Manx Dance Project, she is also a faculty member of Heart in Motion Dance in Ridgewood New Jersey.
Nicole Mahncke (Nikki Manx) is a dance educator, choreographer, performer, arts advocate, community outreach organizer, and social justice activist. Nikki received her BFA in dance from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University in 2006. Nikki is the Artistic Director of both Nikki Manx Dance Project and HeART in Motion, a Dance/Yoga/Pilates studio for toddlers-older adults in Ridgewood, NJ. As a dance educator, Nikki has shared her knowledge, knowhow and passion with thousands of aspiring young dancers from NJ’s largest dance studios to public schools. Nikki taught all ages and forms of dance throughout New Jersey for the past 15 years, where she is a state certified dance educator for grades K-12 with the New Jersey Board of Education. Current and former teaching assignments include Richard E. Byrd School, Glen Rock MSHS, Ramapo High School, Bergen Community College in the Continuing Education Department/Summer Programs, and as a Teaching Artist for Bergen PAC, where she most recently choreographed “Legally Blonde” and “Mamma Mia” for high school students at Dwight Morrow High School. Nikki has created professional development workshops for performing arts teachers in Newark charter schools and travels to senior homes with cultural dance programming. Nikki has also worked on special projects as a Dance Facilitator incorporating mixed abilities, most notably through the Arts Access program at Matheny Medical Center.
Learn more on the Nikki Manx Dance Project website.
John T. LaBarbera
John T. La Barbera, film score composer, producer, guitar and stringed instrument virtuoso and concert artist, has won several awards and commissions from The Jerome Foundation, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The Martin Gruss Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, Meet the Composer, UMass-Dartmouth, and ASCAP.
His film scores include: Children of Fate (Academy Award Nomination 1992); The Old Guitarist starring Dominic Chianese; The Bounty Hunter; Sacco and Vanzetti ; Sister Italy; Pane Amaro; What's up Scarlet; Neapolitan Heart ; Finding The Mother Lode: Italian Immigrants in California; La Festa and Tarantella .
His silent film scores include Assunta Spina, (1915, Naples), ‘A Santa Notte (1922, Naples), Chaplin’s The Immigrant (1917) and The Adventurer (1917), The Black Hand (1906), The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) and The Adventures of Lieutenant Petrosino, (1912), Regeneration (1915)
In Theater, his expertise as composer, arranger and musical director was valuable in the off- Broadway productions of Souls of Naples, (Theater for a New Audience) starring John Turturro and the stage adaptation of Sicilian playwright Luigi Pirandello's short stories in Kaos, (New York Theater Workshop) directed by Marta Clarke. Folk Opera, Stabat Mater-Donna di Paradiso, was commissioned and performed at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
He has appeared on recording and performance projects with many great artists including folk singer Judy Collins, actor Dominic Chianese (Uncle Junior- Sopranos), Hollywood film soundtracks, Walt Disney Productions, TV and Radio jingles, Broadway actress and star of The Lion King, South African vocalist Tsiddi Le Loka and the famed Italian American - Neapolitan singer, Jimmy Roselli.
As a producer he has recently produced I’m a Typical New Yorker for actor Dominic Chianese and worked for several labels including: Shanachie records, Meadowlark, Rounder Records, Lyrichord Disks, Ellipsis Arts, and Bribie Records.
He appears in the film When in Rome (Touchstone Films) as the wedding scene mandolinist/band leader and in the Bounty Hunter (Sony-Columbia) as the cocktail guitarist performing his own composition Cavatina Blue.
He is the author of the first and foremost book published in the U.S. on the Italian mandolin called Traditional Southern Italian Mandolin and Fiddle Tunes and Italian Folk Music For Mandolin, with Mel Bay Publications.
Since 1973 he has performed in concert halls around the world with classical music, jazz and traditional world music (as composer, solo guitarist and chamber music), throughout Europe, South America, Canada and the US and is the co-founder of I Giullari di Piazza, Inc., traditional southern Italian folk music and theater company in New York City since 1979 and artist in residence at The Cathedral of St. John The Divine.
He is an adjunct faculty professor of music at Bergen Community College and conducts workshop in Italy. His music can be found on: Bandcamp, DistroKid, YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud, CD Baby and his own website. www.johntlabarbera.com
After RSVPing, please submit your vaccine verification to our portal or submit the card in an email to info@teaneckcreek.org with the subject "Vaccination Cards for Migrate Back".
Please RSVP by October 13th.
Tentative Schedule:
3:30-4:00 Welcome
4-5:15 Tours & Food & Networking to classical guitar
5:15-6pm Dance Performance & Concluding Remarks
Questions to kefarley@teaneckcreek.org