Safe Harbour is thrilled to announce that the guest speaker for the Night Without A Tux Gala is Steven Melendez. Steven is the Artistic Director of the New York City Ballet Theatre. Early in his life, he experienced homelessness. Based on that experience, he now works with youths experiencing homelessness to interest them in ballet. His efforts are chronicled in the documentary “LIFT: A Journey from Homelessness to the Ballet Stage”.
Filmed over ten years, LIFT shines a spotlight on the invisible story of homelessness in America through the eyes of a group of young homeless and home-insecure ballet dancers in New York City. After performing all over the world, ballet dancer Steven Melendez returns to the Bronx shelter where he grew up to give back to his community, offering a New York Theatre Ballet workshop to children. His traumatic reaction to the shelter from his childhood sends him on an unexpected journey with three kids to reckon with a past he had escaped from through ballet. As young dance students, Victor, Yolanssie, and Sharia face the same chasm of home insecurity that long separated Steven from his audience and makes the arts inaccessible to so many kids who share his background. The children that he mentors offer him insight into turning a hidden trauma into dance, and together they make an aristocratic art form into an expression all their own.
You may view the trailer for LIFT by clicking HERE
This event is SOLD OUT.