Dancers Connect With City’s Upswing

Rivertowns Dispatch Cover Story on MorDance

February 28 2025
8:41 PM
4 min read

The Hudson River Museum’s exhibition “No Bodies: Clothing as Disruptor” culminated last month with the deinstallation of a sculpture shaped like a dress — and made of salt.

For about 10 minutes on Jan. 26, dozens of visitors watched three dancers disturb Giannina Dwin’s delicate design with their hands as the late-afternoon sun filled the museum’s cantilevered glass overlook, which has panoramic views of the Hudson River and the Palisades.

That performance, titled “Salt Dress,” was conceived by Morgan McEwen of Hastings, the founder and director of the nonprofit MorDance. McEwen met Dwin during the opening reception for the exhibition in September 2024, and felt a connection between the fleeting nature of their respective art forms.

“Salt Dress” coincided with the one-year anniversary of MorDance’s relocation from Manhattan to southwest Yonkers, where there has been a cultural and economic resurgence in recent decades due to the addition of housing and parks, as well as businesses such as film and TV studios.

“When you’re looking at the revitalization efforts that are going on in downtown Yonkers, driving people into the city to help support the local economy is huge for Yonkers right now,” McEwen told the Dispatch, adding that MorDance draws most of its audiences from outside of Yonkers.

Since its move, MorDance has been hosting free open rehearsals and paid performances in a sixth-floor studio with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Yonkers waterfront. The company also offers workshops at schools, as well as classes for children and adults, some with scholarships.

“A large part of the mission of the organization is making dance accessible to everyone,” McEwen said. “There’s a lot of children in this community that I feel could greatly benefit from access to the arts.”

The company of eight part-time dancers and one apprentice ranges in age from their 20s to their 30s. McEwen selects the dancers through auditions and choreographs all of their performances.

“I love having a company of diverse dancers,” she said, referring to their spectrum of expression and experience.

Through choreography, McEwen casts a spotlight on contemporary issues, such as the impact of plastic ingested by seabirds. Several of her dances reflect the challenges faced by women. McEwen encountered such obstacles before she retired from her career as a full-time dancer in 2019.

That career began in 2004, at age 17, when McEwen became an apprentice with the Richmond Ballet in Virginia. Later that year, she joined BalletMet in Ohio. In 2008, she moved to New York without a job and ended up as a dancer with the Metropolitan Opera, where she stayed until 2019. In 2014, she founded MorDance because she wanted to choreograph, which was not possible at the Met.

“I remember standing on stage at the Met Opera, at one point, feeling like I was just holding up a costume,” she recalled.

McEwen points out that men serve as the artistic directors for most of the 50 largest ballet companies in the United States, and most of the dances performed by those companies were choreographed by men.

“I love when people interpret my work as being feminist retellings or feminist stances on things because, I think, historically we have not had that in ballet,” she said, citing a dance she choreographed about Romeo and Juliet. “We’re still telling stories of Sleeping Beauty, and women need to be saved on stage all the time. I think it’s nice to give a different light to some of these traditional stories that give women stronger voices and more power.”

For Women’s History Month, MorDance’s calendar includes two events that will celebrate women.

On March 7, the company will perform “Echoes of Silence” during Free First Fridays at the Hudson River Museum, from 5-8 p.m. The ballet, which will unfold throughout the galleries, honors female singer-songwriters from the 1960s and ’70s.

On March 10, the company will host “In Her Hands: Women Driving Change” at its Yonkers studio from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Described as a “celebration of women, philanthropy, and progress,” the event will include a panel discussion, a networking reception, and a performance of “Eroded Silhouettes,” which McEwen choreographed in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overrule Roe v. Wade in 2022.

“That event is going to be talking about how philanthropic giving impacts social change,” she said, “how it impacts policy change, and how philanthropic dollars really drive and push our communities forward, and how art has the capacity to help with that, too. We really believe in art as a tool for advocacy.”

McEwen and her husband, Michael, moved from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Hastings in 2018, inspired by a walk on the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail from Yonkers to Irvington. In June 2020, their family of four (including two dogs) grew to five with the birth of their daughter, Josephine.

While McEwen and her family put down roots in Hastings, her company will soon move to avoid an increase in rent. To renovate the new studio, also in Yonkers, MorDance needs to raise $120,000. For more information, visit www.mordance.org. Despite the temporary disruption, McEwen noted that the company has attracted an “incredible community” during its first year in Yonkers.

“We have a space,” she said, “and we have an opportunity, and we have a platform to really unite and bring community together.”

Published in: Hastings-on-Hudson
Author
Tim Lamorte

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