March 20 / 9 AM-4:30 PM
VIRTUAL INAUGURAL FESTIVAL
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Full Day Registration
Price: $40
Includes: 3 Dance Master Classes, 2 Creative Workshops and entrance to Panel Discussion
Closes March 18, 2021
A la Carte Registration
Price: $10
Includes: 1 Dance Master Class or Creative Workshop and entrance to Panel Discussion
Closes March 19, 2021
Full Day Registration Instructions
Click REGISTER down below
Click the "Any Class" tab on your far left
Choose "Virginia Black Dance Festival - Full Day Discounted Pass"
Complete registration as prompted (Be sure to choose on-site or virtual)
You will receive a receipt for your payment from Vagaro to your email
You should expect your Zoom links within 24-48 hours if you are participating virtually
A la Carte Registration Instructions
Click REGISTER down below
Click the "Any Class" tab on your far left
Choose any class indicated "(Virginia Black Dance Festival)"
Complete registration as prompted (Be sure to choose on-site or virtual)
You will receive a receipt for your payment from Vagaro to your email
You should expect your Zoom links within 24-48 hours if you are participating virtually
WHEN /
MARCH 20, 2021 9 AM-4:30 PM
WHERE /
DOGTOWN DANCE THEATRE
109 W 15th St, Richmond, VA 23224
OR WHEREVER YOU ARE
ABOUT THE EVENT /
Virginia Black Dance Festival provides community building and networking opportunities for members of the Black, Indigenous, and Afro Latina dance community in Virginia. With workshops and performances that highlight the diversity of dance genres cultivated as part of Black Dance culture in the diaspora, it honors the traditions of multigenerational dance performance and practice. Virginia Black Dance Festival accomplishes this through workshops, panel discussions, professional workshops as well as juried, showcase performances.
FACULTY /
MK Abadoo
Workshop Facilitator
Community Building within Creative Practice
MK Adadoo, considered a "rising star" by Dance Magazine, crafts dance events that combine Africanist and post-modern movement vocabularies with site activating audience and community engagement. Their creative practice is rooted in the justice work of Gesel Mason Performance Projects, Angela's Pulse, Urban Bush Women, and the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. Abadoo is an assistant professor in the Department of Dance + Choreography at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), and in the Racial Equity, Arts, and Culture Core of VCU's ICubed, the Institute for Inclusion, Inquiry & Innovation.
Deandra Clarke
Dance Faculty
Hip Hop
Deandra Clarke is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, with a bachelor's degree in Radio Broadcasting. After four years as an on-air personality with WBTJ 106.5 The BEAT radio station, she decided to expand her professional career in dance choreography by founding 4 The Streetz Choreography in 2003.
This professional dance company served as a way for dancers in the area to fulfill their dreams without having to leave Richmond for places such as New York or Los Angeles. Providing them with similar opportunities to build their dance resumés, gain experience in the dance industry and help prepare them for the time when they do decide to make that move into a professional dance career. She is now continuing her mission by focusing her attention on her newest projects.
One of which being the Co-Owner of MOVE! Dance Workshops, a traveling dance workshop series that makes stops all over the country, providing hip hop and contemporary masterclasses for aspiring and semi-professional dancers from established choreographers in the industry.She is also the Co-Owner of Studio 4 Dance Company. A professional hip hop dance company based in Richmond, VA that focuses on the training of semi-professional dancers. In addition to private company rehearsals, these members are provided performance opportunities to showcase their talents along the east coast. Not limiting their training to only company members, Studio 4 Dance Company additionally offers open company classes to the public on Wednesday evenings.Over the past three years, Deandra has been the Director, Choreographer and Coach for two sports dance teams; The minor league basketball team, Hampton Roads Sharks and the minor league football team, Virginia Hornets. She is currently the Dance Team Coach for Midlothian High School Trojanettes.In addition to her many business ventures, she still choreographs and dances regularly for numerous independent artists along the east coast as well as teach weekly hip hop classes at the Village Dance Studio and Jadore Dance Studio in her hometown of Richmond, VA.
Christine C. Wyatt
Workshop Facilitator
Women in Resistance: Reflecting Creative Cultural Process
Black, femme mover, from Baltimore, MD (Piscataway Land), continuing legacies of resistance, love, equity, & care through community based movement and organizing practices. Currently residing in Richmond County (Chickahominy Land) a freelance artist and organizer/podcast co-host with The Dance Union; Christine curates, choreographs, facilitates, and archives. She’s been livin’ and breathin’ art, music, theatre and dance her entire life, starting her “training” at the age of 9. Her B.F.A in Dance & Choreography was obtained in 2018 from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Kevin LaMarr Jones
Dance Faculty
African Roots Reunion
Beyond the social barriers of race, religion, gender, and geography, Kevin LaMarr Jones professes that dance and music have the ability to unite the world. Since graduating from the University of Richmond with a B.S. in Business Administration and Virginia Commonwealth University with a B.F.A. in Dance and Choreography, Jones has become a graphic designer, dancer, choreographer, and producer based in Richmond, Virginia. His dance portfolio includes work with the Latin Ballet of Virginia as a professional company member, in addition to founding, CLAVES UNIDOS, a community-based dance company and academy which connects Richmond, Virginia to the world and gathers its residents around dances of the African diaspora. The centerpiece of this work is a weekly community dance class on Saturday mornings that he has led since 2011 called African Root Reunion.
Mr. Jones has been cultivating his own Pan-African dance style since the mid 1990s when as a Senior at UR, he was introduced to and became a permanent fan of the music of, salsa band, Bio Ritmo. Jones studied traditional West African dance with Sister Faye Walker and Judy Lynn Edwards. He discovered a passion for flamenco through teachers like with Ana Ines King, Anna Menendez and Antonio Hidalgo Paz as well as many other master flamenco teachers during his travels to New York, Washington DC, Jerez de la Frontera, Madrid and Seville. He has studied Afro-Cuban dances with Ifé Michelle Milligan, Alberto Limonta Perez and various other master teachers in workshops between Miami, New York and Barcelona. He has studied salsa and partner dancing with various artists including Edwin Roa, Steve Greene and Yamil Boo. In 2006 & 2007 he delved into community engagement through the arts with Urban Bush Women as a participant in their Summer Leadership Institute in Brooklyn, NY. In 2015, he performed with his Bomba Afro-Puerto Rican dance mentor, Isha Renta and VA-based bomba group, Semilla Cultural, at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. He currently serves as a member of the board of directors for Dogtown Dance Theatre where he also creates and presents concert dance performances and productions.
Kendra McNeal
Dance Faculty
Jazz
Kendra is a performer and choreographer here in Richmond, VA. She grew up in Northern Virginia where she studied dance and performed on the competition team at Barton and Williams School of Dance. After high school, she attended Virginia Commonwealth University where she studied dance and choreography and also performed on the Gold Rush Dance Team. While still in the school, she continued to teach and choreograph while also coaching the dance team at Colonial Forge High School. After college, she continues to teach and choreograph here in RVA and in northern Virginia.
Alicia Díaz
Workshop Facilitator
Women in Resistance: Reflecting Creative Cultural Process
Alicia Díaz is a Puerto Rican dance artist and associate professor of dance at The University of Richmond, located on the ancestral lands of the Powhatan and Monacan people. Her choreographic work speaks to legacies of slavery, colonialism, and cultural memory. She is co-facilitator of Pepatián’s Latinx dance artists initiative “Dancing La Botánica: La Tierra Vive.”
Christina Leoni-Osion
Workshop Facilitator
Women in Resistance: Reflecting Creative Cultural Process
Christina Leoni-Osion is a performance artist, circle facilitator, and full-spectrum doula based in Powhatan Confederation Territory/Richmond, Virginia. They received their BFA in Dance and Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University and are continuing to refine their skills in movement, facilitation, and support techniques.
SCHEDULE /
9:00-10:00 AM
AFRICAN ROOTS REUNION
Kevin LaMarr Jones
Come get your groove on and share in the fun of dances with African roots from between your back yard and the Caribbean as CLAVES UNIDOS, Artistic Director, Kevin LaMarr Jones delivers his signature "African Roots Reunion" community dance class. In any one session, dancers of all experiences may encounter dance and musical forms from Colombia, Puerto Rico, Brazil, the United States and beyond as he weaves together movements from sambas to church shouts, dancing along a through-line which he considers a reunion rather than a ‘fusion’ of African dance movements. Experience first-hand the ability of dance, music, and memory to build community as this open-level, fun-for-all class takes participants on a kinetic world tour.
10:15-11:00 AM
JAZZ
Kendra McNeal
11:30 AM-12:30 PM
PANEL: Ball Change Pivot: Dance During Covid-19
Moderated by: Lydia Zipporah C.
Step up your dance game in this dynamic, powerful, jazz class, designed for you to strengthen your strut, and find your inner fierce!
Covid-19, has unexpectedly affected the work and practices of so many artists over past year causing them to pivot, and embrace innovation like never before. In this discussion, we will address how these pivots may have differed in ways unique to Black and Latinx artists.
1:00-2:00 PM
CREATIVE WORKSHOP: Community Building within Creative Practice
MK Abadoo
This workshop invites participants to relish in the joy of movement and creative practice by exploring the question: how do we embody the wisdom of being in a circle, from a distance? Circling is ancient, whether they occur in dances, community gatherings, within the ecosystems of our cells, and beyond. Together, we will enliven our bodies to take up circling together by dancing together, and community building towards creative space making.
2:15-3:00 PM
HIP HOP
Deandra Clarke
High energy class with leading RVA Hip Hop Choreographer, Dance agent, and founder of RVA Dance Awards. Her classes are positive, inspiring and pay homage to authentic hip hop music and dance culture.
3:30-4:30 PM
CREATIVE WORKSHOP: Women in Resistance: Reflecting Creative Cultural Process
Alicia Díaz, Christine C. Wyatt,Christina Leoni-Osion
A reflection-based conversation between Christine Wyatt, Alicia Díaz, and Christina Leoni-Osion on bringing the art to life. The Film and process for Entre Puerto Rico y Richmond: Women in Resistance Shall Not Be Moved (by Alicia Díaz, co- created by Christine, Christina, and Richmond artists of other art mediums) will be at the center of our sharing. We will explore the cyclicality of our process, involving ritual, research, resonance, and reflection. We will talk about the ways we crafted our process to center equity and cater to our humanity to allow the art making to flow.
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