It’s a promising time for the arts in Sedona.

The Sedona International Film Festival is back to full strength after three lean years. Sedona Ballet made its return to the stage this spring hosting the country’s top dance company. The Verde Valley Sinfonietta has just hired a new artistic director eager to collaborate with other local arts organizations.

The city of Sedona has purchased the Sedona Cultural Park and a number of Sedonans have been calling for its restoration as a performance venue with a broad range of facilities, including the city’s long-awaited art museum.

On top of everything else happening in the arts, Danielle McNeal recently founded the Sedona Dance Project, which offered its first show to a sold-out house on Saturday, May 13, at the Sedona Posse Grounds Hub at Posse Grounds Park.

McNeal began her dance training in New York City, where she studied at the Alvin Ailey School of Dance, before receiving her bachelor’s degree in dance from Arizona State University. She worked with Desert Dance Theatre of Phoenix for over 20 years and also taught in Show Low for 14 years before relocating to Sedona.

The Sedona Dance Project began when McNeal was asked to choreograph for the VortiFest music festival last September.

“It was really refreshing to see this different kind of movement,” McNeal said of working with the VortiFest performers, only four of whom [out of 22] had any professional dance training. “I suggested we do something that incorporates more of the people of Sedona.”

First and foremost, McNeal wants to offer an opportunity for Sedonans to enjoy high-quality dance performances created by people who are enthusiasts rather than professionals. She is also seeking to mingle audiences and performers interested in all forms of dance, from ballet to modern to ecstatic.

“It really opened my mind,” McNeal said of her experiences working with amateur dancers. “It helped me to see that what I’m doing is affecting people’s lives … there’s some therapy going on.”

McNeal estimated that at least half of the performers at SDP’s May 13 showcase had never performed on stage before.

Out of the Shadows

The concert’s first piece, “Out of the Shadows,” choreographed by McNeal, began with five dancers inside a shadowbox, who split off one at a time from a single silhouette to explore the boundaries of their space. Four of them managed to make it out of the box and frolic in their freedom — until they were drawn back into the box to vanish entirely.

Next, Jessica Phillips of the Sedona Dance Academy made an appearance in a glowing cloud of smoke in a piece appropriately titled “Black Widow.” Lithe, sinuous and feline, she blended arrogance and apprehension with just the right hint of eroticism in her portrayal of a femme fatale contemplating her lifestyle.

Phillips was succeeded by Step Raptis and Lisa R. Chow with the night’s most unusual and unexpected bit of choreography, one of Raptis’ own works, “Step Boom Bop.” Raptis, a former dancer with the National Ballet of Canada, is better known for his exploration of a style he calls “junk funk,” which mixes percussion, dance and recycled objects. “Step Boom Bop” featured Raptis and Chow, who is the artistic director of Desert Dance Theatre, showing off their rhythm skills with a pair of sticks and a blue plastic drum apiece. They drummed, danced and occasionally paused to joke about their backs.

It was an effective reminder that a little percussion and some movement are two very simple ways to facilitate social bonding.

“Birthed/Unbirthed,” another of McNeal’s choreographic contributions, was performed by Phillips, Sorelle Cunliffe and Keelan Mercer, who enacted the roles of the Fates, weaving the air with their gestures. Musician Damiyr Shuford was originally scheduled to close out the first act with a routine of his own set to his composition “Human,” but was unable to perform.

McNeal made her first appearance after the intermission in “Muse of Light,” in which she partnered Keveda Aud, Laura Eller and Anisa Joffe as acolytes to Sabina Malinalli’s priestess in a candlelit dance before an altar of flowers. Two solo numbers followed. SDA student Sofia Wolf performed a brief classical ballet piece created for her by Phillips, and Cunliffe delivered “Let Her In,” a sample of her own choreography that combined athleticism with emotional ambiguity.

McNeal’s “Thread That Binds Souls” began with just a single dancer, gray-haired, yearning for youth in her movements. Two younger women joined her, performing for her and reverencing her. The dance of the ages became a dance of motherhood. Two more dancers, younger still, joined them, and finally two more, who by this time were little girls — other SDA students — and the dance of motherhood became a dance of the generations.

McNeal attributed the style of the dance, with its Indian-influenced visual and musical themes, in part to the inspiration of Isidora Duncan.

Ignacio Jara of Desert Dance Theatre then took the stage for a performance of his own solo “Dorotea 39,” which had some great moves and certainly was successful at externalizing an internal tangle of thoughts. The Afro-Caribbean-themed “Dance with Me” closed out the show with an upbeat feel that intensified when the whole cast returned to the stage for a Bollywoodstyle ensemble finale, even pulling in some members of the audience.

Resident Company

McNeal’s goal is for SDP to become Sedona’s resident dance company, both putting on works locally and traveling to other venues. She is currently looking at the possibility of Tempe and Vegas shows in the future. SDP also assisted Sedona Ballet with the setup for their March program featuring American Ballet Theatre. The two organizations are tentatively planning a collaborative project for 2025.

“The vision is that this is a professional company,” McNeal explained. Apprentices who participate in two shows with the company will then have the option to become paid performers. Instead of building a permanent corps of dancers, which poses difficulties due to how often people move in and out of Sedona, SDP will cast each project individually.

Recruitment for the company so far has been informal, with McNeal reaching out to people whose moves she has noticed at social dances or in classes. At the May 13 performance, she urged interested members of the audience to send her audition videos if they’re curious about joining SDP. “I’ll make you look beautiful on stage,” McNeal promised.

SDP is still waiting for its 501(c)(3) status to be approved, after which it will be able to apply for grants. Desert Dance Theatre, McNeal’s former company, is currently serving as the project’s fiscal sponsor.

“We can operate easily off a budget of $20,000 to $30,000 a year,” McNeal said. “When people donate to us, it’s going to the art instead of all this overhead.” SDP has been fortunate in finding rehearsal space, often a challenge for dance companies, as two local studios have donated blocks of time to the project. However, they still require donations to pay dancers and cover costumes, music and venue rentals.

SDP is tentatively planning their next performance, a two-day event, for early November; the dates have yet to be finalized.

“I want to make this a platform for dancers in Sedona so they can be seen,” McNeal said