Announcement: Contemporary African Dance Events - ALL Invited!

The Department of Theatre and Dance invites the entire Gustavus community to join us as we welcome Kemal Nance, a professional dancer, choreographer, professor, and doctoral candidate, who will be in residence the week of February 12-18. Nance will be setting a piece of contemporary African choreography using the Umfundalai technique on a group of dancers from the campus at large. You DO NOT need to be a member of the dance program to be involved!

Open auditions (no previous experience necessary) will be held in Alumni Hall on February 12 at 5:00pm during an ALL CAMPUS master class with live drummers. If selected for the piece, dancers will be required to attend evening rehearsals the rest of the week and performances during the spring dance concert in March. A rehearsal/performance schedule will be available at the audition.

A second master class, again with live drummers and OPEN TO ALL, will be held February 16 from 12:30-2:20pm in Alumni Hall.

The entire Gustavus community is also welcome to bring their lunch and join us in the President's Dining Room on February 17 at 12:30pm as Nance discusses the African American male dancer and the relationship between their practice of African dance and their gender constructions. He will also present his research examining the ways African dance is appropriated in popular culture.

We hope you can join us for some or all of these events! If you have any questions, please contact Jill Patterson at jpatters@gustavus.edu or Sarah Hauss at shauss@gustavus.edu.

Click here to learn more about the contemporary African technique, Umfundalai: http://www.dancingourafrica.com/about2

Bio for Kemal Nance:
http://dance.uiuc.edu/people/faculty/c-kemal-nance