A Long Island girl hitting NYCity…

Sandy Cieslak

Taking an immense career risk to find her way back to dance.

With a laser focus centered on making dance the foundation of a lifelong artistic career.

Reclaiming her identity through the rigor, artistry, and honesty of dance.

“I’m going to do something with this chair
that no one else has done before.”
“Vintage Coquette” by Sandy Cieslak. ©@jazilek

A Long Island girl hitting NYCity…

Sandy Cieslak

Taking an immense career risk to find her way back to dance.

A laser focus centered on making dance the foundation of a lifelong artistic career.

Reclaiming her identity through the rigor, artistry, and honesty of dance.

Sandy Cieslak in her own words…

…

Dance doesn’t ever stop calling me. I simply keep on picking up the phone each time it rings to find out a bit more why.

The past couple of years have been incredibly formative for me. Each and every time I’ve overcome a challenge, life brings me back to dance, whether it be a job opportunity or an invitation from a friend to take class.

Words are beautiful, but what we can convey through dance is magic. An audience leans in, physically sees and feels someone’s body in movement, and suddenly discovers what their own inner soul is longing to say. Whether with music. Or even in absolute silence.

Sandy Cieslak in NPAFE’s words…

Contemporary ballet editorial shoot. ©okulusphotography

…Sandy Cieslak holds a passion for dance that has her on the verge of making a fundamental life change: to set aside the fulfillment of her teaching career (and the pension that comes with it) and instead to return to storytelling through the movement of one’s body and mind.

…A New Yorker by birth who grew up on coastal Long Island, Cieslak is known to family, friends, and colleagues as a part-time middle school French teacher and an even less part-time dancer. She holds a Master’s Degree in Childhood Education from Hunter College in Manhattan and is a Summa Cum Laude graduate of Stony Brook University, with a degree in French Literature, World Language Education, and a minor in Dance.

Sandy Cieslak outside the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art ©zna_visuals

…Raised on rock and roll, Italian heroes on the beach, and alternating weekend trips to the city and the Hamptons, she credits her taste for theatrical storytelling, and a frequent flair for melancholy, to a steady childhood diet of Billy Joel.

…She shares how, at age three, she began dance lessons, how she continued to study classical ballet, how she developed a profound connection to contemporary dance, and how she tenaciously pursued her love of the art form in her undergraduate work at Stony Brook and in the years beyond college as a freelance dancer.

…Cieslak’s love of dance even led her to study French because, she notes, if she was going to fall in love with French ballet repertoire, she figured that she should at least be able to order a croissant with confidence. She studied both language and ballet abroad in Lyon, France, where café eavesdropping quickly became her favorite form of cultural immersion.

Cieslak at a performance art at a gallery opening in Manhattan’s Chelsea

…These days, even with her full-time five-day-a-week teaching schedule, Cieslak takes the 1½ hour LIRR** expedition to Manhattan at least twice a week: whether to show up at Steps on Broadway, Joffrey Ballet School, or wherever the class is strong and the lighting fluorescent and unflattering.

…She does it not simply to practice, refine, and better herself, and instead to uncover whatever it is that calls so loudly within her to set aside a rewarding and stable teaching career, to dive deeply back into the world of dance…to make her way in this incredibly competitive industry… to rediscover her own voice… to inspire others to follow her, to want to work with her, to want to dance with her.

Cieslak at Long Island’s Seacliff Arts Council movement sketch session

…How did we come upon all this about Cieslak? Not through our usual route of exploring social media. Instead, when she came across our Arc and Sound of Dance casting call, Cieslak responded with a compellingly succinct cover letter that included these words: “This project speaks to my passion for storytelling through movement, especially in film. I’m drawn to work that invites dancers to co-create and show up as their full selves: artist, actor, and author.”

…Meeting with her, we discovered that unlike many of her peers competing in New York City’s dance world for recognition and fame, Cieslak devotes little time to cultivating an online presence. Her Instagram, sparse and enigmatic, offers glimpses rather than a narrative by design. She’s less interested in curating content than in creating work that speaks for itself.

Again at the Chelsea performance art gallery opening

…How, then, did we come to understand Cieslak’s sense of self, her artistry, and her creative power? In a challenge we handed her during a Zoom meeting: “Sandy, you need to create a video so that we and others can feel as well as see the dance in you — and where your passion lies.” Four days later, we received what you’ll see below: filmed on an iPhone by her best friend (a nurse, not a filmmaker), shot on the fly by the two of them on a very cold and windy day on Long Island’s South Shore, the seaside where she was raised.

From Cieslak’s “Hymne à la Plage” video (below), shot by her nurse friend Ava Snyder @avachiaraa

…To us, this video is just the beginning of an exciting story. A story of Cieslak’s self-expression. Of her willingness to speak to that inner voice calling her to set the predictable aside and run all the risks that come with doing what she loves. Her courage. Her tenacity. Her love of this art form.

…Join us in discovering how Cieslak navigates her way into the centrality of dance by following her new and quietly compelling Instagram. And you can follow these links to find out more about NPAFE, AAlchemy, and AAlchemy Online’s immersive dance videos.

——————-

**Long Island Rail Road, the region’s 120 mile-long commuter line stretching from Manhattan all the way east to Montauk Point.

hhh

“They say: ‘If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.’ I say ‘If your inner Long Islander can keep her mouth shut when the Steps on Broadway pianist starts playing ‘Piano Man’ for grand allegro, you already have.”

…

“A lot of things in this world are just a performance. The mundane routines, the everyday tasks, the waiting in lines at establishments in the Hamptons behind influencers who do not live here, never mind trying to merge onto the LIE**. Dancing is the one thing that is not performative at all, it’s where I’m actually me.”

**For all non-New Yorkers, the LIE is
Long Island’s highway to hell, the
ever-jammed Long Island Expressway

Sandy Cieslak in her own words…

…

Dance doesn’t ever stop calling me. I simply keep on picking up the phone each time it rings to find out a bit more why.

The past couple of years have been incredibly formative for me. Each and every time I’ve overcome a challenge, life brings me back to dance, whether it be a job opportunity or an invitation from a friend to take class.

Words are beautiful, but what we can convey through dance is magic. An audience leans in, physically sees and feels someone’s body in movement, and suddenly discovers what their own inner soul is longing to say. Whether with music. Or even in absolute silence.

Sandy Cieslak in NPAFE’s words…

Contemporary ballet editorial shoot. ©okulusphotography

…Sandy Cieslak holds a passion for dance that has her on the verge of making a fundamental life change: to set aside the fulfillment of her teaching career (and the pension that comes with it) and instead to return to storytelling through the movement of one’s body and mind.

…A New Yorker by birth who grew up on coastal Long Island, Cieslak is known to family, friends, and colleagues as a part-time middle school French teacher and an even less part-time dancer. She holds a Master’s Degree in Childhood Education from Hunter College in Manhattan and is a Summa Cum Laude graduate of Stony Brook University, with a degree in French Literature, World Language Education, and a minor in Dance.

Sandy Cieslak outside the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art ©zna_visuals

…Raised on rock and roll, Italian heroes on the beach, and alternating weekend trips to the city and the Hamptons, she credits her taste for theatrical storytelling, and a frequent flair for melancholy, to a steady childhood diet of Billy Joel.

…She shares how, at age three, she began dance lessons, how she continued to study classical ballet, how she developed a profound connection to contemporary dance, and how she tenaciously pursued her love of the art form in her undergraduate work at Stony Brook and in the years beyond college as a freelance dancer.

…Cieslak’s love of dance even led her to study French because, she notes, if she was going to fall in love with French ballet repertoire, she figured that she should at least be able to order a croissant with confidence. She studied both language and ballet abroad in Lyon, France, where café eavesdropping quickly became her favorite form of cultural immersion.

hhh

“They say: ‘If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.’ I say ‘If your inner Long Islander can keep her mouth shut when the Steps on Broadway pianist starts playing ‘Piano Man’ for grand allegro, you already have.”

…

“A lot of things in this world are just a performance. The mundane routines, the everyday tasks, the waiting in lines at establishments in the Hamptons behind influencers who do not live here, never mind trying to merge onto the LIE**. Dancing is the one thing that is not performative at all, it’s where I’m actually me.”

**For all non-New Yorkers, the LIE is
Long Island’s highway to hell, the
ever-jammed Long Island Expressway

Cieslak at a performance art at a gallery opening in Manhattan’s Chelsea

…These days, even with her full-time five-day-a-week teaching schedule, Cieslak takes the 1½ hour LIRR** expedition to Manhattan at least twice a week: whether to show up at Steps on Broadway, Joffrey Ballet School, or wherever the class is strong and the lighting fluorescent and unflattering.

…She does it not simply to practice, refine, and better herself, and instead to uncover whatever it is that calls so loudly within her to set aside a rewarding and stable teaching career, to dive deeply back into the world of dance…to make her way in this incredibly competitive industry… to rediscover her own voice… to inspire others to follow her, to want to work with her, to want to dance with her.

Cieslak at Long Island’s Seacliff Arts Council movement sketch session

…How did we come upon all this about Cieslak? Not through our usual route of exploring social media. Instead, when she came across our Arc and Sound of Dance casting call, Cieslak responded with a compellingly succinct cover letter that included these words: “This project speaks to my passion for storytelling through movement, especially in film. I’m drawn to work that invites dancers to co-create and show up as their full selves: artist, actor, and author.”

…Meeting with her, we discovered that unlike many of her peers competing in New York City’s dance world for recognition and fame, Cieslak devotes little time to cultivating an online presence. Her Instagram, sparse and enigmatic, offers glimpses rather than a narrative by design. She’s less interested in curating content than in creating work that speaks for itself.

Again at the Chelsea performance art gallery opening

…How, then, did we come to understand Cieslak’s sense of self, her artistry, and her creative power? In a challenge we handed her during a Zoom meeting: “Sandy, you need to create a video so that we and others can feel as well as see the dance in you — and where your passion lies.” Four days later, we received what you’ll see below: filmed on an iPhone by her best friend (a nurse, not a filmmaker), shot on the fly by the two of them on a very cold and windy day on Long Island’s South Shore, the seaside where she was raised.

From Cieslak’s “Hymne à la Plage” video (below), shot by her nurse friend Ava Snyder @avachiaraa

…To us, this video is just the beginning of an exciting story. A story of Cieslak’s self-expression. Of her willingness to speak to that inner voice calling her to set the predictable aside and run all the risks that come with doing what she loves. Her courage. Her tenacity. Her love of this art form.

…Join us in discovering how Cieslak navigates her way into the centrality of dance by following her new and quietly compelling Instagram. And you can follow these links to find out more about NPAFE, AAlchemy, and AAlchemy Online’s immersive dance videos.

——————-

**Long Island Rail Road, the region’s 120 mile-long commuter line stretching from Manhattan all the way east to Montauk Point.