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Character Dance Ensemble Masterclass Series 2022

Join CDE for a week of dance, music, and cultural experiences at the Marriott Center for Dance. This free event is open to all School of Dance students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Classes will include dance traditions from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Blackfoot Nation, Iran, Tajikistan, and West Africa.

 

The workshop will run 9:00am-3:00pm, May 9-13. Feel free to drop-in as your schedule allows. The week will conclude with a performance on Saturday, May 14th at 5:00pm, showcasing the work of CDE, alumni, and workshop participants!

Email characterdanceensemble1995 (a) gmail (dot) com with any questions. We will also have a Zoom option if you are interested in attending virtually; just email us for the link! 

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Schedule

CDE Workshop 2022 schedule.jpg

Guest Instructors

Rosie Banchero

Rosie Banchero is the Artistic Director, founder, and force behind Wofa Dance Company, an African Dance & Drum group that has shared its unique brand of performance art in venues across Utah since 2014. The company has quickly gained a name for itself based, in part, on Rosie’s dynamic leadership and dedication to African Dance. She’s visited Africa five times now to study her craft and continues to educate herself with current dance styles. Rosie also is a highly sought-after choreographer and dance instructor who has choreographed pieces and taught classes and workshops for Repertory Dance Theater, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Ballet West, and numerous high schools and community organizations. Her classes have been described as energetic, and life-changing. Rosie is an adjunct professor at the University of Utah, Utah Valley University, and Salt Lake Community College. Rosie graduated from the University of Utah with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and is trained in jazz, modern, hip hop, and African dance. She also was a Utah Jazz Dancer from 1992-1994. Currently, she is the Vice President of the Lahydi Collective, a non-profit maintaining the cultural legacy of guinea, West Africa. Her latest endeavors include Soom Soom Design, a clothing line inspired by Africa. Rosie is a born teacher. Whether it’s guiding a group of dancers across the floor or teaching her son, Griffin, how to tend a garden to produce copious vegetables; Rosie coaxes the best performances.

Evangelina Macias (she/her/hers)
Aamskapipikuni Blackfeet, A'aninin Gros Ventre
Evangelina Macias is a scholar, dance/movement facilitator, and the Helaine B. Allen and Cynthis L. Berenson Distinguished Visiting Professor through the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. Macias holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a Modern Emphasis from Utah Valley University (2015) and a PhD in Critical Dance Studies from the University of California, Riverside (2021). In research, Macias looks to how Indigenous women, femmes, and gender expansive artists have used dance as a site of gender and sexual expression against colonialism and the backdrop of violence against Indigenous peoples. In dance and movement, Macias creates and performs dances informed by her own contemporary experiences as an Indigenous person which invite space for contemplation about identity, gender, and sexual expression. In addition to her research and dancing, Macias teaches Fancy Shawl and Hoop Dance for Native American youth. She has participated and assisted in different projects, which include: The special edition of Indigenous Dance Today in Dance Research Journal (2015), UCR Medicine Ways Conference (2015), Indigenous Choreographers at Riverside (2016), UCR Medicine Ways Powwow (2017), and the Dancing Earth and V’ni Dansi collaboration Michif Medicines in Vancouver BC (2018), Flow Movement Teacher Training (2021-2022), and Tipi Confessions (2022). 

Natalie Nayun

Natalie Nayun has been dancing for more than 18 years, and has devoted her life to the study of dances from the Persianate world including Tajikistan, Iran, Uzbekistan & more. She has received grants & awards to study dance and conduct dance research in Tajikistan & Uzbekistan. Natalie is the Assistant Director of Ballet Afsaneh, Program director & teacher in the Afsaneh Dance Academy, and choreographer for Sorayya Dance Company out of UC Berkeley. Post-Covid she founded Pomegranate Garden Dance, an online dance platform which brings together dance experts & researchers.  Her hope is to share the beauty in these regions of the world through dance. 

Katherine St. John

As director of Eastern Arts, Katherine St. John has organized performing tours and exhibits in Las Vegas Nevada, Branson Missouri, and the United Kingdom. The performances included a company of 15-20 people with music and dance from Turkey, Afghanistan, Iran, Georgia, Uzbekistan, and Armenia. Katherine has performed dances of Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other areas while a member of the Middle Eastern Folk Ensemble in Minnesota (1975-1982), and with Ethnic Dance Theatre there at the same time, also with Ethnic Dance Ensemble of Nevada (1982-1985) and with Zivio Ethnic Arts Ensemble and Eastern Arts in Salt Lake City Utah. She was an instructor specializing in these dance forms for several community colleges in Minnesota. In addition to her studies of dances of North Africa and the Middle East, Katherine also studied Arabic language and was a member of the Arabic American Club at the University of Minnesota. Research for her Master’s thesis on Women’s Dance from Afghanistan was carried out in the USA, Canada and Europe with dancers and actors from the Herat Nandari Theater. Katherine has served as the Bountiful Summerfest International stage & artists director from 2003-2018, has presented at the UCLA Dance Ethnology Forum and the Society for Ethnomusicology, and has received a multitude of grants and awards from entities such as the California Council for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts.

Contact

Please reach out with any questions and also to obtain the Zoom link. We look forward to having you join us!

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