
I am deeply honored to announce that as of September 1, 2022, I have begun my new role as the executive director of the Stephen Petronio Company. It is with great pride that I return to the company in this leadership position after having danced the work of Stephen Petronio for 17 years.
After earning a degree in engineering from Dartmouth College in 1994, I focused my attention on my love for and commitment to dance and was extremely fortunate to eventually find a home in the ever-evolving and expanding Stephen Petronio Company. From 1999 until 2016, not only did I discover on a daily basis in the studio and on stages around the world just exactly what dance could be, but I found a group of dancers that embodied the lesson my first dance teachers always taught me; that dance at its very best is about ensemble.
During my 17-year tenure with the company as a dancer, I also served as the rehearsal director and assistant to the artistic director. In 2007, my body of work with Stephen Petronio was recognized with a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award. As grateful as I am to have been given such a prestigious honor, I have always believed that the award was not only an acknowledgment of what I had accomplished, but more importantly what we as a company had achieved. Yes, 17 years is a long time, but it truly is only a fraction of the nearly 40-year history of the Stephen Petronio Company and the many extraordinary artists that formed its foundation and continue to create its future.
I hold in my heart and body such profound respect for the artists that danced in the company before me, for those that danced with me and for those that are dancing there now. These are the artists that energized me and continue to encourage me to be a better version of myself than the one I was yesterday. We all knew that attaining true perfection in Stephen Petronio’s work would never really be possible due to the demanding complexity of the choreography. However, as a supportive family of dancers we always invigorated each other to keep pursuing excellence at all times and to face each new challenge without reservations or fear. Achieving perfection was never the goal. Expanding the boundaries of what any of us thought possible was the real pursuit and knowing that to discover a world without limits, we needed to find that together and then share it without hesitation and with love. It is my sincere hope that my time as a dancer in the company embodied that commitment to collaboration, hard work and generosity and I intend to continue to embrace those unshakable beliefs of the Stephen Petronio Company as the new executive director.
On behalf of the team at the Stephen Petronio Company and the Petronio Residency Center, I wish you health, peace and prosperity. I so very much look forward to working with you in the future so that together we can continue the journey to uncover new and expansive ways to encourage this world to be stronger in all capacities. The challenges are great, but so are the possibilities.
Sincerely,
Gino Grenek
Read more about Gino here