Thank you SO MUCH for making our event one of the best we've had. Your dancing was so dramatic and compelling visually. Kids were amazed. I’ve heard nothing but positive feedback all day. -- Tamara Grogan Greenfield High “.. it's the art form you practice and the social impact that you have when you dance that is your most important contribution in my mind. While belly dancing may be most popular in the Middle East, one doesn't need to speak Arabic or embrace Islam to understand this dance form, love it, and delight in watching those who perform it. The joyfulness exuded by you and your dancers has more capacity to melt social barriers than any other activity I know. You are self-directed, joyful, celebrative, culturally neutral, and aggressively inclusive. Perhaps you can explain to your dancers that my admiration is real, is based on experience, but that what is in my heart is not very translatable. Tell them that I think that they are all beautiful, that what they do is sublime and important, and that the world needs them."-- Chuck Hayward "I want to thank the Crescent Dancers for a wonderful evening. Everyone has been so enthusiastic about the performance. Here is what people have said: “brilliant and imaginative costumes”, “gracious” ,”welcomed all age groups” ,”willingly answered questions from teens and expanded on the information,engaged audience” ,“hopefully you will return” ,”lovely” ,”costumes stupendous”, “enjoyable”, “awesome”. In addition, yesterday at our teen advisory meeting three of the teens who had been at the performance gave a report complete with demonstration! They were enthralled by the presentation. Thanks so much!" -- Anne Cutler-Russo, Athol Library "Working with the Crescent Dancers was a very positive experience for me. The workshop and the show were very well organized; every detail attended to. Every member of the group went above and beyond to be sure everything ran smoothly and to see that my needs and the needs of the class and audience were met. It was a very professional event". -- Dolores Matzen "The program was great, truly it was. I was so pleased about it and wished I could have stayed till the very end. As I told my supervisor afterward, you all struck exactly the right note for teenagers, balancing education with performance and a little thoughtfulness with a lot of fun. You put everyone at ease and made us feel a part of it. And you also did a great job of fitting several different dances into a reasonably short program. It was quite a treat to see several different styles of dance, different performer, and different costumes. Each dance was a wonderful experience in itself. I know I just loved the costumes -- it was just so much fun to see them all (especially since, as you pointed out, the ethnic style is "in" at the moment.) And you kept things moving along smoothly with the changes in music, even in an unfamiliar and rather small space." -- Martha Coons, Young Adult Librarian, Springfield City Library