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to the dancers and we would talk about what
does this chocolate taste like, what kind of
flavors do we imagine, and how can we create
movement from that?”
Chocolate may have started as
inspiration for the dancers, but luckily
for audience members, Sipe decided
to create a performance series in which
chocolate tastings for the audience were
incorporated into the shows.
“That seemed to make a natural
connection between the audience and the
performance,” Sipe said. “As I started to do
that, the chocolate business started to
grow, and people wanted to know where
they could buy it. So the business model
is to provide a revenue stream for making
dance and supporting the arts.”
The chocolate is a sweet bonus.
Chocolate Dances is a sponsored project
through Fractured Atlas, a nonprofit that
provides business tools for artists, so it
functions as a nonprofit. “It’s not about making
money; it’s about creating a sustainable
dance community,” Sipe explained.
Between the chocolate sales, grants
and private donations, Chocolate Dances
is able to create not only performance
opportunities for dancers, but also classes
and workshops.
Sipe makes her chocolates locally, at the
Entrepreneur Space (a program through
the Queens Economic Development
Corporation) in Long Island City. She’s
been there since 2013, right around the
time she formed Chocolate Dances and
held her first show with chocolate tastings.
Entrepreneur Space is one of the few
kitchen incubators with a temperaturecontrolled
space, Sipe said, and keeping
a consistent temperature is very important
when making chocolate. She rents out kitchen
space by the eight-hour shift, and she’s always
surrounded by other local makers.
“Sometimes when I go in there, there’s
a bakery room so there will be people
making bread, barbecue sauce, tempeh,”
she said. “There’s a woman who presses her
own oils from different seeds.”
Although Sipe lives in Washington
Heights, she’s happy to have found the
Queens community.
“The Entrepreneur Space has been really
great and really supportive. Pretty much
everyone is based in Queens and close
by,” she said. “Entrepreneur space, since
it’s connected to QEDC, provides a lot of
SHOW