This past October, at the invitation of the US State Department, 651 ARTS brought three of Brooklyn’s most talented choreographers, Reggie Wilson, Nora Chipaumire and Christalyn Wright, to Kenya and Tanzania as part of 651 ARTS ongoing Africa Exchange program. Wilson, Chipaumire and Wright led workshops and performed at Nairobi, Kenya’s GoDown Performing Arts Center, as well as participated in the first contemporary dance fesival in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Check out the slideshow to see some photos taken by 651 ARTS Managing Director, Anna Glass, from their whirlwind trip. And make sure to check back in the coming days to read about the amazing people Nora, Reggie, Christalyn and Anna met and some their experiences of Kenya, Tanzania.
November 11th, 2008
U.S. Embassy Brings 651 ARTS from Brooklyn, New York, to Participate in VISA 2 DANCE Contemporary Dance Festival
(October 21, 2008)
The U.S. Embassy will collaborate with the VISA 2 DANCE Festival and 651 ARTS (Brooklyn, NYC) to present three nights of modern dance on October 22-24 at Diamond Jubilee VIP Hall. Three visiting American dancers will also offer workshops to local dancers October 21-24 as a part of the contemporary dance festival.
For the first time ever in Tanzania, American contemporary dancers Christalyn Wright, Nora Chipaumire and Reggie Wilson will perform three solo performances and a trio piece during the three-day VISA 2 DANCE festival. The artists have just returned from Zanzibar where they performed at Ngome Kongwe in collaboration with the Dhow Countries Music Academy’s Ngoma Dance Project. Following their visit to Dar es Salaam, their two-week East African tour will take them to Nairobi, Kenya.
The three American dancers are visiting Tanzania through a generous grant from the American people to foster the exchange of performing arts between Tanzania and the United States. The artists seek to engage their audiences by bringing their unique dance styles that fuse American dance and other world traditions such African dance, Afro-Caribbean, American Hip-Hop, and contemporary dance techniques that use the movement languages of the blues, slavery and the spiritual cultures of Africans.
Reggie Wilson, Nora Chipaumire and Christalyn Wright will perform HO:ME, a structured trio improvisation piece by the three artists. This piece gives the artists’ perspectives on home, and their relationships to their own homes.
Dance performances will be held at the Diamond Jubilee VIP Hall with different programs each of three nights. Other festival performers include dance companies from Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Italy, Sweden, and Germany. Performances will begin at 7:30 PM on Wednesday and Thursday October 22 and 23, and at 8:30 PM on Friday, October 24.
Visa 2 Dance aims to encourage artistic creativity among Tanzanian artists, empower them with new talent and confidence to achieve their potential. This is in addition to activating artistic and cultural exchanges through music, dance and theatre, opening cultural borders, develop international links and promote arts and cultural development within Tanzanian society.
The American dancers are a part of the cultural life of New York City, and their company, 651 ARTS, has been committed since 1988 to developing, producing and presenting performing arts and cultural programming grounded in the African Diaspora, with a primary focus on contemporary performing arts.
651 ARTS has worked with over 800 artists and ensembles—from Cuba to Trinidad, Senegal to South Africa, Brooklyn to Brazil and now Tanzania—on more than 350 projects and presentations. The company celebrates a broad range of cultural traditions, striving to forge alliances with artists, audiences, fellow cultural institutions, and local organizations to promote creative expression and community partnership.
Also traveling with the dancers is Anna Glass, Managing Director of 651 ARTS who also runs Africa Exchange, an international program created to facilitate collaborations between performing artists from Africa and the United States through residency programs, workshops and performances. This program explores new artistic forms and mutual influences among cultures to encourage the creation of new, collaborative work. For further information, please visit us at http://tanzania.usembassy.gov.
Karibu Sana for three nights of contemporary dance!
October 23rd, 2008
Highway 61 by Pat Thomas
This recording of Highway 61 was made in a plantation graveyard with the Delta blues musician and part-time grave digger, Pat Thomas. Pat is the son of Son Thomas, the famous bluesman first recorded by Bill Ferris in the 1960s. The song Pat is singing is called Highway 61. It’s a standard among musicians, and was made famous by Bob Dylan on his album Highway 61 Revisited.
Often known as the Blues Highway because of the path it cuts through the Delta, Highway 61 parallels the Mississppi River and the Illinois Central Railroad. During the Great Migration, Highway 61 was the esape route for thousands of unemployed Mississippians in search of a new life in Chicago.
“Highway 61,” they sing “is the longest road I know. Goes from Chicago all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.”
Now Highway 61 runs by Brooklyn’s door:: Terry “Harmonica” Bean is at Franks on 6/4, Robert Belfour is at Frank’s on 6/5, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes is at the Kumble Theater on 6/5, and Corey Harris is at the Kumble on 6/6. More info and more shows are listed here: www.651arts.org.
Field recording by Wills Glasspiegel
June 4th, 2008
