Olga El - Page 2

New York City Center's 75th Anniversary Season features an abundance of outstanding programming, from the 15th Fall for Dance Festival to Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Anniversary celebration to a gala presentation of Broadway hit A Chorus Line to Balanchine: The City Center Years featuring the best ballet companies in the world. Jorge Otero-Pailos is one of three artists who have been selected to capture the epoch in City Center's first-ever series of visual art commissions.

Packed with dance workshops, vendors and world-class performances, the Goya Foods' New York International Salsa Congress (NYISC) is a massive celebration of everything salsa that takes place from Thursday, August 30, 2018 to Sunday, September 2, 2018 at the New York Marriott Marquis in Times Square.

The Ailey Extension, a dance school for the public helmed by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, is a partner of NYC Dance Week. It will offer over 30 free classes, in a myriad of styles, for first-time students. There will also be two free classes offered to returning students: Katherine Jimenez's New York Style Mambo class on Saturday, June 16 and Karen Arceneaux's DanceFit class on Friday, June 22.

I have long been aware of Dashu's scholarship. Her extensive research fills in the gaps often left in comparative religion, world history and several other major courses of study. Her multicultural understanding of dance history, especially where women are concerned, and its role in the lifeblood of a given culture is a welcome breath of fresh air in the dance field. I was lucky to be able to interview the historian about her experiences.

Created by Tina Croll and Jamie Cunningham, From The Horse's Mouth is a dance-theatre series that revolves around the lived experiences of dancers from around the globe. Its 20th Anniversary, at the 14th Street Y Theater, was a celebration of the dances of Egypt with a program honoring former prima ballerina of the Cairo Ballet Company, Dr. Magda Saleh.

Felix Jarrar is a 22-year-old composer and pianist whose list of accomplishments includes performances at diverse venues such as Symphony Space, (le) poisson rouge, BAM's Fisher Hillman Studio and Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. His works have been performed internationally by members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Atlantic Music Festival Orchestra and the duo Unassisted Fold. He is currently working on his fourth opera, Tabula Rasa presented by Cantanti Project.

Belly dance's roots in Eastern cultures, North African cultures in particular, is undeniable. Black and Brown dancers fill the scenes of ancient Egyptian wall paintings and of dance history gems such as Dr. Magda Saleh's 1975 documentary “Egypt Dances.” So why is it so hard to find Black and Brown dancers making a name and a living for themselves in the modern belly dance scene?

Michael Goldstein, better known as Mestre Ombrinho, is the director of the Capoeira Angola Quintal and the New York Mindful Capoeira Center as well as the founder of the nonprofit Afro Brazil Arts. He has over thirty years of experience teaching Capoeira to people of various ages and ability levels. His program Teen Leadership Through Mindful Capoeira inspires under-served youth to become positive leaders in their communities.

The first portion of the night was dedicated to the ballet class for students representing both the Dance Theatre of Harlem and the Harlem School for the Arts. As a teacher, Copeland embodied gentle, down-to-earth authority, unopposed to getting on the floor to adjust a stance or hold up a limb. With a focus on proper technique, her descriptive breakdown of the body mechanics at work in each exercise, made the tasks easy to understand and her encouraging demeanor exuded both patience and humor.

With its emphasis on honoring the transition of death, as well as those who have passed on and the undying power of love, Dia de los Muertos exemplifies the roots of the commercial holiday we now know as Halloween. If The Nutcracker is the go-to performance of the Winter months, Dia de los Muertos should be made canon for the Fall.

Walking into the lobby, we were immediately engrossed in a lavish and slightly anachronistic atmosphere. Vintage brass and the chatterings of splendidly-adorned socialites filled the soundscape. My guest and I allowed ourselves to be absorbed into a crowd of masked-revelers being escorted into an unknown area, by unknown forces. Most of the night was a game of simply discovering what to do next.

On August 12, 2017 A Harlem Hafla will take place at the Harlem School of the Arts featuring workshops by renowned North African folk dancers Donna Mejia and Somra El Nubia followed by a showcase featuring performers of color from across the U.S. I caught up with the organizer of A Harlem Hafla, Brandy Heyward, to learn more about this unique event and the inspiration behind it.

Easily navigating the fusion of music, dance, multimedia and traditional theater The Hypokrit Theatre Company's mission is to 'embody the rich cultural complexity of the world we live in.' Whether reimagining Western classics with multicultural aesthetics or presenting classics from around the world to Western audiences, their work is admirable in its ability to communicate universal human experiences.

If any performance embodied the spirit and amplified it in the theater it was Otea Maka, Taura O Te Here and Otea Moena performed by Lei Pasifika and choreographed by Makalina and Carol Leogite, Mahealani Uchiyama and Moena Maiotui respectively. Filled with joyful shrieks and chirps, vigorous hip circles and accents and a rainbow of costumes, this triptych of dances was an unapologetic celebration of female energy and emotion.

Experimental and beautifully composed, Songs of the Soul Beams is a theatrical musical cycle by Felix Jarrar (composer, musical director, pianist) and Brittany Goodwin (librettist, stage director, Persephone) that fuses elements of opera, musical theater and dance in order to explore coping with death. The show made its debut on Sunday, June 4th in the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Fisher-Hillman Studio. I was excited to have the chance to catch up with the promising, young directors of the show and learn more about their process.

Leave it to Pilobolus to restore a bit of your faith in humanity. Beauty, diversity and teamwork are integral to their communal and genre-bending creative process, each piece daring and completely different from the next. Their run at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts opened on November 16th, 2016 and closes on December 4th.

The Hetrick-Martin Institute is the oldest and largest LGBTQ youth-focused organization, serving over 2000 youth annually by providing daily meals, health services, academic support, career preparation, artistic enrichment, support for homeless youth and more. It is also the birthplace of the Harvey Milk High School. One of the most popular programs at HMI is the Kiki Lounge where Vogue dancers, from all backgrounds and experience levels, get to 'slam their backs' as part of a thriving dance scene.

Svb Rosa showcases twelve vignettes that embrace the divine feminine through video art, spoken word, interlacings of original and popular music and dance fusion rooted in vocabulary from women-created Middle Eastern and North African dance traditions. It is the latest production from Lunaris, a group that seeks to 'physically manifest the workings of the soul and spirit through the art of dance, ritual and theater.' Each piece is representative of a branch on the Kabbalistic tree of life and heavily incorporates symbolism from Western ceremonial mysticism.

Ballet, Belly Dance... birds? Desert Sin's latest production Cloud Cuckooland: A Story About Death is a multimedia melange of music, dance, puppetry and aerial arts with sprinklings of spoken word all set against a backdrop of constantly shifting projections.

Khasan Brailsford is a professional dancer who's worked with mega stars such as Beyoncé, Rihanna, Katy Perry and more. He has toured the world with these artists and he has been featured in shows such as the MTV Music Awards, Dancing with the Stars and Ellen.