CREATIVE TEAM -In the Red and Brown
Pictured left to right: Caroline Stefanie Clay – Director , Kieron Dwayne Sargeant Choreographer , Rebecca Weaver – Dramaturg Savanha Moore – Stage Manager, Bethany Kasperek – Scenic Designer , Loyce Arthur – Costume Designer.
Pictured left to right: Dajzané Meadows-Sanderlin – Oya Kylen Phillips– Elegba Isaac Addai – Ogun Size, Asha Keller— Aunt Elegua, Delaney Waterman– Nia, E'mma Camara – Shun.
Pictured left to right: Victor Maldonado – Sound Designer, Bryon Winn Lighting Designer, Emma Merkes – Assistant Stage Manager, CJ Johnson– Assistant Costume Designer.
Pictured left to right: Michael Taylor – Shango Jasper Rood– The Man From State, Andrew Lindsay – Egungun, Garin Clinton-Nelson – Ensemble / Dance Captain.
ONLINE SUMMER INTENSIVE
JULY - AUGUST 2 2024
THE MIU ONLINE CDP MASTERCLASS GRAHAM & HORTON
I am excited to announce that I have been invited to teach Caribbean Dance at the CPD training course offered by M-Intensive University. This program is designed for dance teachers and performers who are dedicated to learning Martha Graham's and Lester Horton's dance techniques. Participants will gain a comprehensive understanding of the fundamentals of these techniques during this course segment.
New Waves 2024
I was invited to teach a workshop at New Waves 2024 in Barbados. A gathering of dance artists, scholars, teachers, students, and leaders in the field of dance who embody the depth and spirit of contemporary dance and performance practice in the Caribbean and its Diasporas. In an organizing principle of ‘Emancipation’, New Waves! participants connect in essential ways that alter and bring out the light in one another. 26 July to 1 August (Emancipation Day) in Barbados. In honor of the late John Michael Goring.
Online Interviews
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Written By Verdel Bishop
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Written by Salman Akhtar
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Description text goes here
University of Iowa Department of Theatre Arts
In the Red and Brown Water by Tarell Alvin McCraney
Our next Mainstage production, In the Red and Brown Water, has officially begun rehearsal! This week, the team was visited by guest artist and choreographer, Kieron Dwayne Sargeant. This is Kieron’s second collaboration with director Caroline Clay, the first being Lil G: A Gatsby Remix by Isaiah Reeves, as a part of last year’s New Play Festival.
Sargeant was a Grant Wood Fellow in 2022-2023 for Interdisciplinary Performance and taught at the University of Iowa Department of Dance. He received an MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from Florida State University and an MA in Community Dance Practice from Ohio University. His work focuses on the emerging field of African Caribbean and African Diaspora dance practices.
“HE SHALL WALK” (2023)
A lot of thoughtfulness and interiority in this body language for an astonishing result, sometimes confusing, but certainly out of the ordinary. A show that breaks a few chains……………….Franck Bortelle
REVIEWS
In the Red and Brown Waters Director
Caroline Clay Process Review
“It was Kieron who educated our young actors about the necessity for cultural competency and proper regard when dealing with a series of sensitive subject matters. Through his guidance, they have learned to honor the Afro-Caribbean practitioners of the diaspora, the Pantheon of Yoruba cosmology, the orisha, and their devotees- through an outsider’s lens of examining forms of theatricality, while making no attempt to copy, replicate, or claim an authenticity of practice. Instead, they only strive to show their gratitude through gestural representations of appreciation, reverence, and awe.” ………Caroline Clay
“ORI” (2023)
“My skin tingles as the image of the statue of Christ the Redeemer [1] appears ascending to the heavens while he moves through the space. The light dims. This man is a conduit, overseeing and transcribing the orders of the saints through his body.……….A’Keitha Carey
COCO DANCE FESTIVAL 2023 Review (Part 1): Kieron Sargeant
"As a traditionalist, Kieron shared an ideology or technique that is based on “aged bodies,” where he claims that “there is a particular way that the body moves”…………. A’Keitha Carey
FA'ARTS 2023 les Rencontres Chorégraphiques de Lomé
I was invited to Lomé, Togo from November 16 to 26, 2023 to perform and mentor choreographic projects at the 3rd FA'ARTS festival, a project of the ASSIB ARTS Association. The festival is supported by the Fund for the Promotion of West African Cultures (ACP-EU/AWA program), the French Institute of Togo, the Goethe Institute of Togo, Skidmore College, and other partners.
COCO DANCE FESTIVAL 2023
Jaruam and I will present a collaborative solo dance work titled "ORI" at the COCO Dance Festival in Trinidad and Tobago from October 26-29, 2023. The festival will take place at the National Academy of the Performing Arts, where I will also teach a Master Class in Caribbean Folk Dance.
For this choreographic work, we are drawing inspiration from seven distinguished sketches, emblematic of Candomblé’s universe in spiraled movement. Our intent is to foster a dialogue between spirituality's subjectivity and movement, merging the tangible with the intangible, inspired by the imagery and archetypes of these sketches.
TINY DANZ CHOREOGRAPHERS SHOWCASE
I will show the latest version of my solo work-in-progress, "He Shall Walk," which I redeveloped this year during my New Waves Artist residency at The Southern Dance Works Tiny Dance Festival 2023.
“He Shall Walk” first premiered in 2022 at Northwestern University’s Black Arts Consortium “Black Arts Archive: The Challenge of Translation”, commissioned by the Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar Grant. The work delves into Sargeant’s experience as a “Mourner”/ “Pilgrim”, mystical dreams, and encounters with supreme beings during spiritual travels. Sargeant re-imagines the body as an archive and explores how inter-generational experiences are engraved on the body as silent knowledge, excavated in times of need. Sargeant’s work also addresses the interplay between cultural amnesia, remembrance and survival through tracing and embodying family genealogies with projections and various sound scores.
CARIBBEAN AESTHETICS- Part One
“Rhythm and movement are fundamental attributes of Caribbean people. These qualities are evident in the cadence of our speech; they are visible in our gestures. Therefore, a spotlight on Caribbean aesthetics could not be had without mentioning the art form that embodies both—dance.
In this instalment, we veer off the path of oils, paints and canvasses and look at African Caribbean and African dance. As is our custom, we explore the art by spotlighting one of our region’s or, in this instance, our diasporic contributors. Thus, our foray into the African Caribbean and African dance focuses on Kieron Sargeant.”
CARIBBEAN AESTHETICS- Part Two
“In the context of Caribbean dance, a specific misconception I have encountered relates to dances like the Limbo, which originated as a funeral wake dance but have been transformed into drinking games by tourists and others. We must reflect on how our ancestral practices are being appropriated and commodified and reclaim the value and significance of our own cultural traditions. Additionally, there is a concerning trend of cultural appropriation and the erasure of Caribbean dance within the international dance scene. Styles like Dancehall, Bachata, Salsa, Rumba, and even Soca are frequently misinterpreted and misappropriated without proper acknowledgement or credit to their Caribbean origins.”
New Waves 2023
Join us in celebrating 13 years of the Dance & Performance Institute with New Waves! 2023 in Trinidad & Tobago. New Waves Institute returns in 2023 with 5 days of performance, workshops, discussions, communal meals, and limes. From 28 July to 1 August 2023, New Waves! will gather dance artists, scholars, curators, teachers, administrators, and other leaders in the field of dance to celebrate, galvanize, play, workshop, commune, disrupt, engage, mourn, heal, and move.
Movement Workshop: "Engine Room"
Kieron Sargeant
Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 3:00:00 PM EDT
The Engine Room - “Sweating the Culture”
This workshop will look at how culture is put to work. A “sweat” is an event where dancers and drummers from across different cultural companies and communities amateur and professional of different ages come together to exchange rhythm movement and practice. This is in order to experience a community of practice, affirm a cultural core, and sweat out stress and worry.
Black Arts Development Program
The Black Arts Development (BAD) Program consists of six sections that focus on Theatre and Film for Script Writers and Actors, Dance, Visual Arts, Media and Music. The two primary aspects of the BAD Program are training and mentorship. The Program was designed with the intent of providing emerging and pre-professional Black artists the tools and practical knowledge to take the next step in their artistic journey and generate an environment where African, Caribbean, and Black Diaspora culture can flourish in Calgary.
Experience dances inspired by Nepal and Afro-Cuban.
“Every year, we have some money to bring in people, and that’s from chatting with faculty and students. We look at people out there doing interesting work that we think would be good to have come to campus and work with our students, as well as entertain our audiences with something they maybe haven’t seen before,” said Stark.
One of the guest artists brought in for this concert is Kieron Sargeant. He worked on a dance called, Rebirth.
It is a fusion of contemporary dance and dance traditions of the Caribbean.
Photography - Dan Norman
Iowa New Play Festival 2023 Lil G: A Gatsby Remix
Lil’ G: A Gatsby Remix is Kennedy Center, American College Theatre Festival winner and a contemporary re-imagining of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. As we approach the centennial of the book’s publishing and it's becoming a part of literatures’ public domain, we see a reflective look at our society seen not only through the eyes of Fitzgerald’s 1920’s, but how it messages of love, memory, loss, violence, excess, and sacrifice has resonated and ignited the imagination of our playwright Isaiah Reaves. Set in a nightclub, against the backdrop of post-Katrina New Orleans, we peer into a world of hip-hop debauchery, celebration, music, and the search for love in a culture that values social media “likes” over actual human connection.
Directed by the Department of Theatre Arts, Assistant Professor, actor & playwright Caroline Clay, this New Play Festival Thesis Project is an intersection between the worlds of drama & dance, sound & sensuality is total. The New Play Festival is grateful to have Trinidadian born, Grant Wood Fellow, and international teacher, dancer, & choreographer Kieron Sargeant who brings his expertise in period dance styles, and diasporic movement & ritual to bear, with a razor-sharp sense storytelling and its contemporary impact on the Black body.
Shiva’s School of Dance Hosts University of Iowa Dance Professor and International Choreographer
ST. JOHN’S, Antigua (April 18, 2023)— Students at Shiva’s School of Dance are benefitting from the one-week residency of choreographer ,dance professor and researcher Kieron Sargeant, who is also a Grant Fellow in Interdisciplinary Performance and Dance at the University of Iowa.
THE STANLEY MUSEUM OF ART : STANLEY TALKS
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
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It was an honor to present my Grant Wood Artist Talk on "The Limbo Dance: From Backyard to Concert and Commercial Dance" at the Stanley Museum of Art, University of Iowa, in the esteemed presence of Dance Anthropologist, Scholar, and Choreographer Dr. Léna Blou (PhD) from Guadalupe, along with Professors and Students. My talk traced the evolution of the limbo dance from a wake/funerary dance to its adaptations on the concert and commercial stage, examining the dramaturgical devices that enabled these changes. I used references such as the Universoul Circus, TikTok, Pickler and Ben, the NBA Half Time Show, and the Guinness Book of World Records to illustrate the innovation and commercialization of this traditional dance form.
Dr Blou also shared her research on “ Bigidi, une Sociocopolitique du Savior” which explores how the experience of imbalance, chaos, rupture, and adaptation generates ways of inhabiting one's body.
Dr. Blou taught a master class in the Department of Dance, where she shared her extensive didactic analysis of Gwoka dances. This analysis led to the development of her established physical technique, Techni'ka.
I am grateful to Thomas Talawa Prestø, Emelda Lynch-Griffith, Dr. Toya Egbenike, and Jamie J. Philbert for their constant support and guidance in helping me reflect on my work through a contemporary lens. I also want to thank Professor Anny Curtius, PhD, Professor of Francophone Studies and Downing A Thomas Professor of French and Italian at the Division of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures; Dr. Rebekah Kowal, Chair of the Department of Dance; Dr. Christopher Rasheem McMillan for his wonderful introduction; Maura Pilcher, Director of the Grant Wood Colony; Loyce Arthur; Hellen Rugard; and The Stanley Museum of Art for their contributions.
Grant Wood Fellow Talk: Kieron Dwayne Sargeant
The Limbo Dance – From Backyard to Concert and Commercial Dance Stage”
Kieron Dwayne Sargeant’s artist talk will traverse the limbo dance from a wake/funerary dance to the concert and commercial dance stage looking at the adaptations and dramaturgical devices which afforded this change.
Trini Culture at Virginia Opera House
Trinidad and Tobago's culture will be in the spotlight today at the Rhythm Live concert, Harrison Opera House, in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. The pan and folk dance, two of this country's indigenous cultural expressions, will be featured in an electrifying blended production being staged by two sons of the soil-choreographer/ dancer Kieron Sargeant and pannist/ percussionist Daron Roberts.
The production is a collaboration with the Governor's School for the Arts Dance Department, and will trace the history of Trinidad and Tobago culture through the pan, song and dance.
Florida State University Visiting Artist Spring 2023
FSU's School of Dance invites you to join us for a talk from visiting artist, Kieron Dwayne Sargeant: "The Limbo Dance- "From Backyard to Concert and Commercial Dance Stage."
The talk will traverse the limbo dance from a wake/ funerary dance to the concert and commercial dance stage looking at the adaptations and dramaturgical devices which afforded this change.
Minnesota State University Artist Residency
Guest Artist Kieron Dwayne Sargeant
The Department of Theatre and Dance is excited to welcome Kieron in residency next month to choreograph a dance for our Spring Dance Concert, with performances April 27 - 29. Set your calendar now to experience amazing dance from Kieron and other talented artists. Tickets are available at our website.
Florida State University Young Dancers Workshop is geared towards intermediate and advanced students ages 10-18 and will provide the student with a rare opportunity to take a master classes from world-renowned and acclaimed faculty from the School of Dance and other guest artists.
International Association of Blacks in Dance Conference 2023
ON THE 1
IABD’s on the 1 dance class series presents world-renowned dance faculty and celebrated instructors who work professional in various aspects of the industry for three days of technical training and innovative methodologies. Dancers are able to choose from a variety of genres to aide in their well-rounded approach to artistry.
I was invited by National Cultural Foundation as a panelist for the National Independence Festival of Creative Arts, (NIFCA) Choreographic Forum. The Forum is an educational event which takes an in depth look at dance composition and the choreographic process by examining four Gold Award winning NIFCA dance pieces, through the eyes of the choreographer, the judges and invited experts.
Each year new students take a survey, Excelling@Iowa, and are asked to name the person who has helped them the most since they arrived at the university. This year a new student named Grant Wood Art Colony Fellow Kieron Sargeant for having a positive impact. Congratulations, Kieron, for being named a Champion for Student Success in 2022!
The All-Stars had the opportunity to work with Trinidadian choreographer and drummer Kieron Sargeant, in preparation for our 2023 production of Rhythm Live! #rhythmproject #trinidadcarnival #trinidad #vaartsfest
UI Professors travel to Trinidad and Tobago for dance festival !
Kieron Sargeant will be teaching Master Class in Bongo and Limbo Dance at COCO Dance Festival 2022.
GWAC fellow Kieron Dwayne Sargeant is hosting Gonzalez and believes the interpretive work speaks directly to the Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives at the heart of the University of Iowa’s strategic plan, along with the continued emphasis by the UI Dance department.
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Soul and Blues Festival
Description goes hereTrinidad-born artist, choreographer, drummer, and dance researcher Kieron Sargeant's students will be doing a demonstration of Dances of the Caribbean on the street -- South Clinton Street to be exact! #dance #downtowniowacity #iowacityarts #wearesummerofthearts
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An Evening of Talk and Research
Dance professor Kieron Dwayne Sargeant, Grant Wood Fellow in Interdisciplinary Performance, will be hosting "An Evening of Research and Talk" on Sept. 10 and Oct. 2 at the Grant Wood Colony main house here in Iowa City.
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Mojuba Dance Festival
The Mojuba! Festival of Dance and Culture will study and explore dances and ways of African derived communities while highlighting movement as a sacred and healing practice. goes here
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University of Iowa Community Engagement
Grant Wood Art Colony fellow Kieron Sargeant challenges students to think different while bringing rich African Caribbean dance traditions to the University of Iowa campus and community partners through community-engaged teaching and research.
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Mellon Sawyer Seminar
Kieron Sargeant will be performing my (WIP) “ He Shall Walk” at Northwestern University - The Black Arts Archive: The Challenge of Translation” Sawyer Seminar, sponsored by Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar Grant and Northwestern Black Arts Consortium.
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Grant Wood Fellow
Kieron Dwayne Sargeant, originally from Trinidad and Tobago, received the 2022-23 Grant Wood Fellowship for his research on the spiritual dances from this region before and after colonialism.
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Ohio Dance Festival 2022
Saturday, April 30, 2022 at 7:00pm
Professional Concert Choreographers: Nai-Ni Chen, Dancing Wheels; Lisa Ford Moulton, Kara Komarnitsky, Catherine Meredith, Jonathan Pattiwael, Kieron Sargeant, Mojuba Dance Collective; Quentin Sledge. Tamara Williams, Moving Spirits, Inc.
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Come Walk In My Shoes
Come Walk In My Shoes was the ultimate piece earlier than intermission, and left the viewers with a noble ration to cerebrate about through the 10-minute crack. Choreographed by Kieron Dwayne Sargeant, visiting aide professor on the UI Department of Dance, Sargeant explored the concepts of footwear as a mirrored image of femininity.
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PHI KAPPA PHI ANNOUNCES GRADUATE RESEARCH GRANT RECIPIENTS
The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, the nation’s oldest and most selective all-discipline collegiate honor society, today announced the recipients of its Graduate Research Grants. The grants of up to $1,500 are designed to support graduate students who are active Society members seeking funding for research in support of career development opportunities.The 20 grant recipients include students spanning a number of academic disciplines:
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Presenter at Collegium for African Diaspora Dance
Conjuring Up Di Jamette (Part 1): The Kalinda
SESSION DESCRIPTION:
This workshop is rooted in the dance practices of the late 19th Century Jamette Carnival of Trinidad. Focusing on the kalinda (stick-fighting), we will introduce participants to the dances and songs that were used as a way to reclaim their Africanness, assert their power, and protest white supremacist paractices, post-emacipation. In this session participants will engage in the understanding of forming a “Gayelle,” moving in circular formation as a way to embody resistance against colonialism and enslavement. Through movement, dance and song, participants will engage in ideas surrounding gathering, jametteness, winin’, power and protest.
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Diversity ,Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives University of Iowa
In June of 2020, the dance faculty collaborated on an anti-racism/social justice statement for the Department of Dance.
Shortly after, a DEI committee was formed, and work began to revise the dance curriculum to decentralize white supremacy and to enhance inclusively. The department hired Kieron Dwayne Sargeant as a visiting assistant professor in Contemporary Forms of the African Diaspora, curated community town hall meetings with UI MFA Black alumni, and our faculty participated in anti-racism and DEI workshops.
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Florida State University Alumni Scholarship
The Florida State University School of Dance has released its 2021 Issue! The School of Dance Magazine offers a collection of the many events and accomplishments of the department. This year’s focus highlights our alumni and there accomplishments in the field. It serves as a voice for the students and faculty of the Florida State University program, as well as a beacon for prospective students, with all the information about the department, including its history, details on programs, and more.
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The Sweet Liberation of Spaces Makayla Peterson December 17, 2021 /
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UI Dance Company Informal Showing/ Commissoned Work by Kieron Sargeant
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Guest Artist - NYU Steintdard
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Dancing While Masked
Dancers in Trinidad and Tobago have been forced off the stage thanks to COVID-19 restrictions but one choreographer and educator is making a space for them to show off their creativity
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Professional Development Scholarship
Congratulations to the 2021 Recipients! The scholarships are designed for the working dance educator who is looking to continue their education and refine and enhance their current teaching practices. In 2021, all scholarship recipients will receive one year of complimentary NDEO Professional Membership and $600 to be used toward professional development opportunities with NDEO.
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Mojuba Dance Collective Mentorship
Applications for the 2022 cohort will open February 2022 and is available to complete online. Please prepare a 3-5min video submission of choreographic work that speaks to and is an example of your artistic perspective and the work you intend to create (via YouTube or Vimeo links). Invitations to interview and to submit further application materials (i.e. resume, artistic statement, etc) will be sent out the first week of April
Dances of the African Diaspora
MOJUBA! BLACK DANCE FEST VIRTUAL SHOWCASES
Zoom Lecture Demonstrative Series 7
Lecture Series 5
Lecture Series 4
Lecture Series 3
Lecture Series 2
Master Classes 1
Lecture Series 1
Decolonizing Dance Writing: Who is Writing for?
LA DIABLESSE CURSE
I had my first opportunity to work as Costume Designer and a Cultural Consultant on this short film “La Diablesse Curse” . The film will be screening at the 2020 Trinidad+Tobago Film Festival.
https://ttfilmfestival.com/film/a-ladiablesse-curse
Mentions T&T
Coco Dance Festival Online 2020
Digital Dance Concert
Carifesta 2019
Writing the Body Workshop
Mojuba Dance Workshop
Mojuba Dance Collective
Attention: All my NYC Friends, Philadelphia Friends
I will be teaching at Dance X in Belize from November 28th- 30th. I will be facilitating a series of Master Classes in Afro Diasporic Dances and Caribbean Folk Dance
Uniquely Kieron
Selling T&T Dancers to the world.
FSU Visit Trinidad
Music Commmission
This project was a collaboration between myself and choreographer Kieron Dwayne Sargeant on the spiritual ritual of "Mourning" in the Spiritual Baptist Tradition of Trinidad and Tobago, which is practiced by Kieron. “
The Shiva School of Dance based in Antigua invites their first time Artist in Residence Kieron Sargeant from April 20th to 25th 2020. At this Residency Kieron will be teaching Master Classes in Afro Caribbean Dance and Afro Contemporary Dance, and also choreographing two new works.
Another of Sankofa’s international guest artists, Kieron Sargeant, has created “Caribbean Suite” for the concert. Sargeant describes the piece as a “combination of folk dances from various Caribbean countries that have both persevered and morphed through the years, be it due to the Atlantic slave trade, colonialism, or even indigenous dances from the country.”
COCO Dance Festival Workshop with Community Relations and Special Programs Faculty, Dr. La Toya Davis-Craig and MFA Candidate, Kieron Dwayne Sargeant will be co-teaching a Master Class in Caribbean Folk & Afro-Cuban Dance during the festival on October 27th.
The 6th Annual Colorado Dance Education Organization Conference on March 20 & March 21, 2020 at CSU Fort Collins. Kieron Dwayne Sargeant will be presenting “Canboulay to Carnival” . A movement class that focuses on the History of Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago and the Traditional Carnival Character dance forms, that emerged out of the Canboulay riots of 1881, known as ‘Cannes Brulees’, or ‘Burning of the Cane’, which commemorated the extinguishing of cane fires in the sugar cane plantations, during the era of slavery. The class also focuses on the reconstructing and deconstructing of the Traditional Character Dances, in order to build narratives inside contemporary dance practices.
https://codeo.regfox.com/6th-annual-colorado-dance-education-conference
By Public Demand for a second year in a row, Kieron Dwayne Sargeant and Seon Show Boy Nurse presents "The Experience 2020" Afro Caribbean and Contemporary Dance Workshop. Friday 3rd January @Seamen and Waterfront, Wrightson Road Port of Spain, Cost $40.00.
Serendipity Arts Festival . Postponed