The mission of Prometheus Dance is to create original high quality choreography and dance performance in collaboration with composers and designers; to promote a love for dance throughout the community with dedication and commitment; to continue to create works which inspire audiences and raise human issues vital to the community as they serve as a social awakening mechanism.
Prometheus Dance, co-directed by Diane Arvanites and Tommy Neblett, is one of Massachusetts’ most outstanding and established modern dance companies, contributing quality dance performance, arts education and cultural service to the community since 1987. Named “One of the Year’s Ten Best in Dance“ four times by all of Boston’s newspapers, the company performs globally and extensively. The repertory of Prometheus Dance is long lived and has reached diverse audiences in New England, Europe and South America. Prometheus Dance has been produced in New York City by the Joyce SoHo, New York University, Downtown Baca, La Mama, at Lincoln Center’s Out-of-Doors Festival and in Avery Fisher Hall with the Brooklyn Philharmonic; in Boston by the Celebrity Series, Opera Boston, Dance Umbrella, Crash Arts, First Night, the Boston Center for the Arts, Emerson Stage, and The Boston Conservatory Main Stage; and in Connecticut by the New England Artists’ Trust Congress and the International Festival of Arts And Ideas. Recent residencies and festivals include Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, The Yard, Outside the Box Festival, The Riverside Dance Festival, and Bates Dance Festival.
In addition to its evening concert series, Prometheus Dance hosts a professional development program for artists which offers master classes, and immersive workshops for members of the dance community. Artist collaborators come from distinct companies in the US and Europe such as the Cullberg Ballet, William Forsythe, Cedar Lake, Lar Lubovitch, Zoe/Juniper, Batsheva, Hubbard Street, Pilobolus, Limon, Alvin Ailey and Itinerrances. The workshops are a laboratory for researching process, developing movement, and expressing through dialogue an insight on the way we think about movement potential and dance.
Prometheus Dance presents mini-performances and workshops designed specifically for outreach audiences. The company performs Opposites, its acclaimed K-5 in-school performance throughout the public education systems and has created a new children’s performance project with composer John Kusiak and the Solar Wind Ensemble entitled The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship. We are currently working on an education project dealing with literacy through movement in young students.
Our second company, The Elders Ensemble is a performing group made up of post-professional dancers ages 60-92. The Elders perform at senior centers, healthcare facilities and community events, as well as with the main company in special choreographic projects. In April 2006, The Elders Ensemble received a Gold Star Award from the Massachusetts Cultural Council for outstanding and inventive arts programming.

Prometheus Dance is company in Residence at Walnut Hill School for the Arts in Natick.