Image, Nicole LeGette
“bloom†#3, Friday 27th, August @ 8:30 pm, praxis place, 1474 N. Milwaukee
Light refreshments will be served. $10 dollar suggested donation.
An evening of new and in-progress dance works crossing the gamut of contemporaneities including African based contemporary, modern, post-modern, somatic and all other “contemporary” movement practices. This event is organized by Celia Weiss Bambara of the CCBdance Project.
Julie Mayo/ Dim Sum Dance will show her work-in-progress “Softspace†created and performed by Mayo, Adam Rose director of Antibody Dance will unveil his creation “The 588 Current†made for Nicole LeGette’s Blushing Poppy Productions, Sylvestre Akakpo of Kor and D’Kor dance will share his work “Frotiere(s) as a duo danced by Akakpo and Celia Bambara, and Dicko Yanogo will show her evolving solo “akercagni†(do it right).
Please contact ccbambara2@yahoo.com to rsvp or rsvp on facebook.
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Master Class in African Contemporary Dance With Sylvestre Akakpo, Kor D’Kor
2-4 @praxis place on August 28th.
Sylvestre Akakpo was born in Lomé, Togo. His professional dance career began working with La Compagnie Henrey Motra. From 2005- 2006 he danced with Dunia Dance theater which performed in African and Belgium. Sylvestre then moved to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and worked as a dancer for Congo Ba Teria which is co-directed by Souleymane Badolo and Lacina Coulibaly. In 2007, Sylvestre was selected to dance with La Compagnie Heddy Maalem, which toured “Le Sacred du Printemps†internationally in Europe, the United States and Africa. Since 2005, Sylvestre has produced choreographic works for his company Kor & D’Kor Company such as “Frontier†(2008), “Reality†(2008), and “Le Recoin De Sinzala†(2005). Kor & D’Kor Dance is currently based out of New York where Sylvestre lives with his wife. Sylvestre has also taught African contemporary dance at Espace Fil Bleu, the International School of France, Arc-en-Ciel Private School, and Lomé Hospital Gym Center. Sylvest directs an international program for cultural immersion, dance and drumming in Togo with Kor and D’Kor dance.
Sylvestre is in residence at praxis place from August 23rd-29th working on his project Frontiere(s). “Frontières réelles – frontières visibles – frontières invisibles. Frontières d’un état – frontières culturelles. Frontières des différences – frontières de la peur Frontières communes – frontières personnelles Frontières intimes Comment dépasser ces/ses frontières, les contourner, les truander, les faire tomber ? Comment s’y arrêter, s’y reposer, les reconnaitre … ? Explorer le thème de « frontière » revient à s’interroger sur ce qui nous limite. L’Histoire nous montre que les frontières des états évoluent perpétuellement ; et l’homme toujours s’est déplacé à travers ces lignes pour découvrir un ailleurs, aller au-delà . Il en est de même pour ces frontières invisibles qui nous façonnent, nous séparent les uns les autres et parfois de nous-mêmes. Ou comment la peur des différences peut nous pousser soit à nous replier sur nous-mêmes, soit au contraire à oublier ce que nous sommes, d’où nous venons, pour tenter de devenir cet « autre ». Vaut-il mieux s’appliquer à effacer ou nier coûte que coûte ces frontières qui nous dérangent ou à travailler à les rendre poreuses pour un nouvel échange, de nouvelles découvertes ?” (synopsis, Sylveste Akakpo, Kor D’Kor)
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Dialogue on Congolese Dance and Drumming with Teber, Makaya and Pline.
Tuesday 14th, September from 7 to 8:30 @praxis place
small donation requested!
please rsvp on facebook or to celia@celiaweissbambara.com
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Congolese Dance and Drumming Workshops with Master Drummer Teber and Dance Artist Macaya.
Friday 10th- Sunday 12th of September @praxis place
contact teberzoe@gmail.com, myspace.com/tambourssansfrontieres, or for more information call, (773)-595-1232.
Teber is a master drummer and dancer from Congo Brazzaville (Central Africa) who has taught throughout the United States as well as in Chicago. Makaya is also from Brazzaville and is a master drummer and dancer living in California. They will be sharing the healing powers of Congolese traditional music and drumming in these workshops which will incorporate learning specific rhythms and movements/dances from the Congo as they have been passed on in-family and through apprenticeship with elders.
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Ongoing Classes
Beginning Monday September 20 th, Haitian dance with Celia Weiss Bambara of the CCBdance Project 7-8:30@praxis place. contact celia@celiaweissbambara.com for class information or on facebook. Open to all levels on Mondays.
African Dance with Christian Bambara of the CCBdance Project (TBA)
Contemporary (African Based Contemporary) with Christian Bambara, Celia Bambara or invited artist Fridays from 2-4 beginning September 24th @praxis place.
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Body Weather Laboratory /Sherwood Chen (San Francisco)
6:30-9:30 October 20th @praxis place
Space limited. Confirmation required. $25 dollars.
Contact: Celia Weiss Bambara
celiaandchristianbambaradance@gmail.com or 310-562-2435
BODY WEATHER is kinesthetic and movement research founded by dancer/farmer and improvisateur Min Tanaka, and further developed byexponents worldwide. This comprehensive movement training offers open and incisive investigations to challenge physical limits and scale, evoke sense memory, and rigorously re-examine the body as a dynamic, transformative environment.
Wear clothing to move in, and bring an extra change of training
clothes as needed.
Full participation required.
About Sherwood Chen:
Sherwood Chen has worked as a performer with artists including Anna Halprin, Grisha Coleman, Shinichi Iova-Koga, Ko Murobushi, Do Hee Lee, and Sara Shelton Mann. Since 1993 he has worked with Body Weather Laboratory (BWL) training developed by Min Tanaka and was a resident member of Tanaka’s Maijuku in rural Japan. He has facilitated BWL and danced with Oguri in Los Angeles and continues to teach in the San Francisco Bay Area and abroad. He has created solo, collaborative and group dances at venues including PS122, Thread Waxing Space, San Francisco Asian Art Museum, Japan America Theatre and San Francisco Art Institute. In 2009, he formed dance collaborative Headmistress with choreographer and dancer Amara Tabor-Smith. Headmistress has performed at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Movement Research at the Judson Church, and are 2010 artists in residence at Headlands Center for the Arts. As a cultural worker, Chen is Associate Director of the Alliance for California Traditional Arts and board member for Intersection for the Arts (San Francisco) and Khmer Arts Academy (Phnom Penh/Long Beach).
Photo by Ana Teresa Fernandez (2010).
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Dicko Yanogo photo credit: Gerard Evans courtesy of Haiti Soleil
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“bloom” #4@praxis place @8:30 September 24th.
“bloom” is an ongoing new works and work-in-process series that crosses the gamut of contemporary dance. It is hosted by Celia and Christian Bambara @ praxis place.
Silvita Diaz Brown
Dena Bermann
Christian and Celia Bambara
Dicko Yanogo
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Dialogue in African Based Contemporary Dance Saturday 25th with Christian and Celia Bambara, CCBdance Project. Ethics, race and cultural property.
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“bloom” #5@praxis place@8:30 October 29th.
Ayako Kato
Dena Bermann
Dicko Yanogo
Christian and Celia Bambara (CCBdance Project)
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Congolese Dance and Drumming Workshops with Master Drummer
Saturday 30th and Sunday 31st October @praxis place
contact teberzoe@gmail.com, myspace.com/tambourssansfrontieres, or for more information call, (773)-595-1232.
Teber is a master drummer and dancer from Congo Brazzaville (Central Africa) who has taught throughout the United States as well as in Chicago. He will be sharing the healing powers of Congolese traditional music and drumming in these workshops which will incorporate learning specific rhythms and movements/dances from the Congo as they have been passed on in-family and through apprenticeship with elders.
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Body Weather Laboratory /Sherwood Chen (San Francisco)
6:30-9:30 Sunday November 21st@praxis place
Space limited. Confirmation required. $25 dollars.
Contact: Celia Weiss Bambara
celiaandchristianbambaradance@gmail.com or 310-562-2435
BODY WEATHER is kinesthetic and movement research founded by dancer/farmer and improvisateur Min Tanaka, and further developed byexponents worldwide. This comprehensive movement training offers open and incisive investigations to challenge physical limits and scale, evoke sense memory, and rigorously re-examine the body as a dynamic, transformative environment.
Wear clothing to move in, and bring an extra change of training
clothes as needed.
Full participation required.
About Sherwood Chen:
Sherwood Chen has worked as a performer with artists including Anna Halprin, Grisha Coleman, Shinichi Iova-Koga, Ko Murobushi, Do Hee Lee, and Sara Shelton Mann. Since 1993 he has worked with Body Weather Laboratory (BWL) training developed by Min Tanaka and was a resident member of Tanaka’s Maijuku in rural Japan. He has facilitated BWL and danced with Oguri in Los Angeles and continues to teach in the San Francisco Bay Area and abroad. He has created solo, collaborative and group dances at venues including PS122, Thread Waxing Space, San Francisco Asian Art Museum, Japan America Theatre and San Francisco Art Institute. In 2009, he formed dance collaborative Headmistress with choreographer and dancer Amara Tabor-Smith. Headmistress has performed at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and Movement Research at the Judson Church, and are 2010 artists in residence at Headlands Center for the Arts. As a cultural worker, Chen is Associate Director of the Alliance for California Traditional Arts and board member for Intersection for the Arts (San Francisco) and Khmer Arts Academy (Phnom Penh/Long Beach).
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Zac Whittenburg photo credit: William Frederking
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“bloom” #6 @praxis place @8:30 November 26th.
Zac Whittenburg
Alesia Young (Los Angeles Guest)
Helen Lee
Dicko Yanogo
CCBdance Project (Christian and Celia Bambara)
Djenane St. Juste, Afoutayi(Haiti/San Francisco)
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“bloom” is a series of new works and works-in-process that cross the gamut of contemporanieties including african contemporary, modern, postmodern, somatic, and experiments in traditional and contemporary dance forms from the african diaspora and all other diasporas.
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Photo credit: David Lowe: Alesia Young in Holly Rothchild's "This is Not Here"
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“Power of Observation” Choreography Workshop with Alesia Young (LA)
11am-1pm @praxis place
Saturday 27th, November
$25 dollars, advanced registration required. Space is Limited.
e-mail:celiaandchristianbambaradance@gmail.com or rsvp on facebook
Workshop description: How we view the world around us and our participation in it directly influences the kind of work we make as artists. But our view can sometimes be clouded by personal judgement and overloaded with information. This workshop, beneficial for both the novice and the veteran choreographer, will take you step by step from the purest moment – that first glance – through the development of a thoughtful and well-crafted piece of choreography. Note to Participants: In the days leading up to the workshop, slow down enough to really see and take in the sites, smells, tastes, colors, exchanges happening all around you. This material will be the foundation for the work you will create.
Biography: With work that has been referred to as organic, sensual, liquid, deeply connected, textural, and a conscious flirtatious play with gaze and perception this choreographer turned filmmaker is revolutionizing dance theatre creating works for the camera that have been gaining her much notice in the dance world. Young has worked professionally as a Choreographer and Performer for well over a decade, and has added Film Director and Producer to her credits creating six dance films over the last five years, including an animated dance short entitled “Fluid,” a collaboration with BET Animation’s Eric Elder. She received her earliest dance training at The Performing Arts Center in New Jersey with additional instruction at New York’s Steps and Broadway Dance Center, and throughout Europe, with a brief stay at Amsterdam’s School for New Dance Development where she was first exposed to the coupling of technology and the arts. Young has had the privilege of performing in such venues as Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors in New York City; The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles; working with such artists as Dana Tai Soon Burgess, Katie Duck, Liz Lerman, Joseph Mills, David Rousseve, and renowned multimedia artist Maida Withers. She has been awarded several honors including the Martin Luther King Jr. Award for Outstanding Civil and Human Service, the Nancy Diers Johnson Award for Outstanding Choreography, the Jean Irwin Award for Artistic Merit, nominated for a Lester Horton Dance Award in Performance, and most recently received Dance Magazine’s August Editor’s Choice Award for her solo “Forward Drift.†Her films have been featured in the FRAME International Film Festival in Portugal, Edit International Dancefilm Festival in Budapest, and on tour with the NY-based Dance on Camera Festival to name a few. Young continues to make films that both enhance staged production and stand-alone as engaging pieces of film artistry. Her goal is to make dance for the camera more a part of mainstream viewing in the States as it is abroad.
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Haitian Dance Masterclass/ Djenane St. Juste (San Francisco/ Haiti)
November 27th 1:30-3:30, $25.00 register.
1474 n. Milwaukee @praxis place
celiaandchristianbambaradance@gmail.com to rsvp.
These events are made possible in part by the Consulate General of Haiti in Chicago and Haiti Soleil
Djenane Saint Juste, a native of Haiti, is an accomplished choreographer, dancer, actress and vocalist specializing in Haitian traditional dance folklore. Djenane has dedicated herself to the research, development, and promotion of traditional Haitian Dance, song and storytelling. She descends from a traditional maternal bloodline of vodouisant in Lagonave, Ayiti. Through study and spiritual practice, she continues to refine, protect and preserve the dance tradition from Haiti as part of a heritage from her family. A former student at Cuba’s International School for Sports and Physical Education, Djenane combine perfectly in her class body work in a spiritual healing accompanied by the delightful sounds of the drum. Djenane’s classes provide an opportunity for students to learn and experience traditional Haitian dance, rhythms, storytelling and to learn about the culture, the language and the vocal traditions issue in the Rada, Igbo, Petwo and Congo. Djenane served more than 15th years as co-artistic director, first dancer and instructor along with her mother Florencia Pierre, famed actress, choreographer and professional dancer at the Institute De Danse Jaka in Petion-ville. She is the founder and Artistic director of Afoutayi Dance, Music and Arts Company based in San Francisco. Djenane teaches kids from 3 years old to adults in French, Kreyol, Spanish and English. Mrs. Saint Juste won the Miss Talented title for her dance performance in “Miss Videomax 2003”. She has worked with most of the top Haitian artists, such as Azor, Boukman Experience, Master J, Cytho and Alan Cavee, Paula Clermont Pean and Fabienne Denis to name a few. She has appeared in 3 music videos and 1 movie. Djenane has been worked for World Vision, Union School and the Ministry of Women. In the U.S., Djenane has performed and has taught master dance classes for adults and children at Occidental College (Los Angeles); San Francisco State University; City College of San Francisco; Malonga Casquelourde Center for Dance (Oakland); Twin Space, Dance Mission, Rhythm & Motion/ODC, Cuba Caribe, Lines Ballet in San Francisco; Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley; and Duck’s Nest in Berkeley. She has performed in the prestigious San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival with her company, Afoutayi Dance company.
Dialogue on Haitian Dance with Djenane St. Juste and Celia Bambara of the CCBdance Project.
FREE
3:30-4:30 Saturday November 27th
@
praxis place
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Fanta Konate
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West African Dance Masterclasses with Fanta Konate
Introductory Class- FREE
Saturday, December 10th, 2010, 2-4 pm
Advanced Masterclass Series A
Monday-Wednesday, Dec 13-15, 2-5 pm
Individual Classes: $20/ Complete Series: $60
Advanced Masterclass Series B
Monday-Wednesday, Dec 13-15, 7-9 pm
Individual Classes: $20/ Complete Series: $50
All classes will take place at praxis place/CCBdance project
1474 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Third Floor
Chicago, Il 60622
Classes are made possible in part by the support of Partners of the Americas and the CCBdance Project @ praxis place.
contact: celiaandchristianbambaradance@gmail.com to reserve space.
Fanta Konatè, Guinean singer and dancer, daughter of Master Djembefola Famoudou Konatè has a voice with the beauty and power of African Divas. Her ancestry is rooted to in the traditional families of Malinke artists and musicians, from the region of Hamaná, in Guinea Savannas, where …the Djembe and the music of the griots originate. Fanta is the founder of the Africa Vivá Institute, Fanta had her training in the African Ballet style of “Hamaná,†“Fareta,†“Bolonta,†“Soleil dâ€Afrique†and “Sangbarala†(the style of her village). She has worked as a choreographer and dance educator in social projects with homeless teenagers and war refugees sponsored by Doctors without Borders and Refugee Children of the World. Whether performing deeply traditional West African themes with her sisters and brothers in the Troupe Djembedon or with other guest artsist and collaborators in the “Contemporary Diaspora†style, Fanta Konaté always delights audiences with her mastery of a variety of timbres, styles and tempos.
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Performance installation with the CCB.
 Good Hug image courtesy of Ms. Tabar.
