Workshops
African Dance with Monica Luna and musicians
January 22nd and 23rd 10 a.m - 12:30 p.m
Join the powerful group of percussionists and African dancers that will guide you through new grounding movement techniques.
Learn the traditional dance call KASSA, a rhythm that takes place during the planting season of regions of West Africa; an offering dance to the farmers. Experience this practice and melt your roots with mother earth trough this fabulous workshop. Live music will accompany our dances. This workshop combines warm-up stretching with traditional dances and background from the Malinke culture.
Monica has vast experience and studies in performance art and Hatha Yoga. She has performed in theaters across Costa Rica and well as Mexico. Monica comes to share her grand passion for life as art, and expression through movement.
More information on the workshop contact Monica 8874 27 75
$60 for both days, $35 for one
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Intro to Bellydance with Yemaya
Saturday January 24th 10 a.m - 12:30 p.m
In this workshop the student will learn all of the basic fundamemental movents and concepts of Belly Dance or "Raks Sharki". We will move gracefully through the beginning aspects of this wonderful art form leaving each student prepared to venture further into its depths with a good understanding of body awareness, fluid movement, rhthymic interpretation and the divinity this dance can bring to the surface. This workshop is preparation for the workshops Yemaya will be offering in February at the Jewel of Fatima retreat at Bamboo. See retreats. It is essential that all people with little or no experience in belly dance attend an introduction to bellydance workshop with Yemaya before attending the more advanced workshops offered in February.
$25 in advance, $30 at the door.
Yemaya was raised in an environment of Middle Eastern dance, and has been performing throughout the USA since the age of 4. She has devoted her life to learning and practicing Arabic dance, and continues the life long pursuit of this beautiful art form. She shares her gift of dance not only through her amazing stage presence and grace, but also through a whirlwind of dazzling technique, captivating veil work, endless shimmies and incredible improvisation. Yemaya is a seasoned and respected instructor as well. She brings a bounty of experience and knowledge to the classroom and is well known for her compassionate and intricate teaching technique that produces quality dancers. Yemaya’s mesmorizing style of dance is coveted all over the pacific northwestern United States and she is now exhibiting her talent internationally. Her journey has recently lead her to Central America.
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Urban Roots with Amy Secada
Visiting from New York City
Sunday January 25th 10 a.m - 12:30 p.m
An eclectic contemporary approach to the fusion of capoeira and african dance that explores the use of momentum, organic movement and our relation to the floor. The workshop will focus on floor work, African release techniques, and capoeira acrobatics. Beginning with a thorough and thoughtful warm-up that incorporates extensive capoeira strengthening techniques combined with the principles of yoga. The class will progress using exercises derived from the Urban Roots technique followed by selected repertoire of KJM. From this basis, you will learn to efficiently use momentum on the floor, and smoothly transition through your 5 points of balance (head, hands and feet) to explore an advanced yet organic range of physical expression.
$25 in advance, $30 at the door.
AMY SECADA
Kinetic Junglist Movement
Artistic Director, Choreographer
Amy Secada began her journey of dance at the age of 5. After graduating on scholarship from the prestigious School of American Ballet in NYC, she devoted herself to the study of traditional and urban dance cultures from around the world. Secada’s versatile knowledge includes dances from Senegal, Brazil, New Guinea, Congo, Cuba, and Haiti. She has also trained for 5 years in the martial art of Capoeira and has been a freestyle street dancer since the late 90’s. In 2004 she founded KJM and later on curated the Urban Roots Project, an annual fusion dance festival. Secada continues to produce events, teach workshops, choreograph and design for KJM. She is also a member of acclaimed Congolese troupe “Ballet Casquelourd” and has toured throughout South America in the soloist role of “Seucy” in La Mama Etc./ Loco 7 production of “Bokan the Bad Hearted”. She has appeared in music videos and performed for artists such as Wyclef Jean, Lil Jon, Sugar Babes, Bossy Clic and Cyro Babtista. In 2007 Secada was chosen to represent NIKE Women Dance Gear which exposed her Urban Roots technique worldwide. Her work has been performed in the internationally acclaimed “Iberoamericano Theater Festival” in Bogota, Columbia, as well as numerous festivals and events in NYC and Brazil. Secada has taught workshops for Cirque du Soleil, Sarah Lawrence College, Urban Roots Project, Rainbow Gathering, and is a proud volunteer for under privileged youth programs Rhythm of Hope and NGO’s in Salvador, Brazil.