Colorado Dance Festival ends long run. (News).

Cutting-edge experimental dance; pioneering tap celebrations; classes in a dizzying array of forms and styles; cross-cultural collaborative performances; community outreach for seniors, at-risk youth, and the homeless: All these services and more have been provided since 1982 by the acclaimed Colorado Dance Festival. After operating on lean budgets with a tiny staff as national and local funding fluctuated, CDF announced in September 2001 that it was closing its doors after nineteen years.

"It's been a couple of years' struggle," said CDF's final executive director, Katie MacDiarmid. "There's still a trickle-down effect of the drastic cuts in the National Endowment for the Arts over a decade ago."

But it seems the downturn in the economy, along with guideline changes in corporate and foundation giving, struck the most lethal blow. In its last year of operation, the festival received $18,550 more in state and federal funding than its officials had budgeted for--but, when it came to foundations, corporations, and other private donors, they got $87,400 less than expected. In addition, class and performance income fell by $17,195. In total, funds raised for the 2000-2001 season were $103,000 less than the budget the CDF had at its peak.

"We hired an experienced fund-raiser, and she had no luck," said CDF founder Marda Kirn. "The economic climate has been so difficult, with layoffs and reorganizations. And that was before September 11."

"New York is, where many dance-funding sources have their base. They need to have other priorities now, and we totally support them in that," Kirn says. "But with all these factors coming together, it didn't seem we'd be able to recoup this time."

Long considered one of the top five national dance festivals, Colorado Dance Festival has been a fixture in Boulder and an enduring influence on the state and nation since its beginnings in 1982. But in recent years CDF has struggled to stay afloat.

Colorado ought to be an artist's dream come true, with an exploding population with higher-than-average education and disposable-income levels. But the state also ranks forty-sixth out of the fifty states in per capita spending on the arts. While the national rate is $1.56 per person annually, Colorado spends $0.44.

In 1998, the sinking federal dance dollar and other funding woes finally caught up with two other Colorado dance organizations; Dance Aspen and the Glenwood Springs Dance Festival shut down that year. Since then, Boulder's Space for Dance theater and the popular studio Dance West also have closed.

At its peak, CDF operated on a $500,000 budget and served ten thousand people per season. It offered a stronger educational component than many dance festivals, with greater diversity of faculty, and classes in modern dance and repertoire, composition, swing, hip-hop, contact improvisation, and dances of Asia, Latin America, and the African diaspora. CDF's five tap festivals helped to feed the tap renaissance across the United States, Kirn said.

From its early days, CDF's performance series focused on emerging and experimental dance artists; many of them went on to national recognition, including Doug Varone and Dancers, David Rousseve/ REALITY, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and her Urban Bush Women, Rennie Harris PureMovement, and Eiko & Koma.

"CDF was very important in the early days of my career," said innovative dancer/choreographer Dana Reitz, who presented three seasons at CDF. "It was one of the few places around the country that believed in and accepted contemporary work. And it was nice to be able to perform in the U.S.; in those days, most of us had to perform in Europe to be understood."

CDF's demise will be felt across the country. Douglas Sonntag, director of dance at the National Endowment for the Arts, said, "CDF has been an invaluable service for dancers. This is a great loss for the people of Colorado and the national dance field."