Don’t panic! The LehrerDance website is back up again.

The group has revamped its site, making more content available more easily and changing the look. Check it out when you get a chance, and watch some of the cool videos they’ve uploaded.

LehrerDance is a top-notch group, performing at events like Elmwood Avenue Festival of the Arts, Erie Festival of Dance, Motion Dance Convention, Buffalo Dance Festival, Jazz Dance World Congress, and Impulse Dance Festival. It was founded by Jon Lehrer, who originally took up dance at age 19 – on a dare. He didn’t expect to fall in love with dance and make a career out of it.

Lehrer has choreographed for high-ranking groups like:
• Thodos Dance Chicago
• Instruments of Movement
• Momenta Dance Theatre
• Louisiana Dance Theatre
• Le Jazz Groupe from Monterrey, Mexico
• Kannon Dance of St. Petersburg, Russia

Now founder and artistic director of his own group, he’s made it LehrerDance’s mission “to foster the creation of new works by Jon Lehrer in order to present a style of movement that is organic, artistic and comprehensible, and to bring an understanding of life and the human condition to audiences around the world though innovative choreography.”

But why the sudden web overhaul? According to Nate Benson, the marketing and media expert for the group, he and Lehrer had already been discussing it for a brief time before the decision was made.

“We knew that it was going to be a down time,” Benson said, noting there would be a large gap between the May 23 LehrerDance Summer Intensive Performance and the July 21 M&T Bank Summer Series. So why not fix the site up a bit before it’s time to promote their home season?

They took the site down, Benson admits, “to create a little bit of hype for it…. We threw our video promo up and the link to email Jon,” and that was that. Less than a week later, the new site made its debut.

Don’t go looking for the webmaster, though – everything is done by LehrerDance. “We’ve been doing [the web design] since we started in 2007,” Benson said. “We want to be very clear about the look” and give LehrerDance a distinct, unique feel, something extra to set it apart from the others.

Make sure to see one of LehrerDance’s upcoming performances. The next two are right here in Buffalo, and their home season in October will be at the University at Buffalo Center for the Arts.

Keep an eye on the website for more content – Benson expects more media to come up as the summer progresses, and “everyone is more than welcome to provide some more feedback.”