Tulane University

By: Alicia Duplessis Jasmin
aduples@tulane.edu

Guest artists from Brazil, Cuba and Haiti will lead dance and drumming classes for all skill levels during the 14th annual New Orleans Dance Festival at Tulane. Classes on the uptown campus begin on Monday (June 28) and conclude on Friday (July 2).

Photo: At last summer’s New Orleans Dance Festival, Peniel Guerrier leads a Haitian dance workshop. (Photo by Sally Asher)

Click here to see video from last summer’s festival.

This year’s objective is to explore the influence of Brazilian, Cuban and Haitian cultures on Carnival as seen in New Orleans today.

Beverly Trask, artistic director of the dance festival, says she is excited about this year’s collaboration with the Summer Teacher Institute on Carnival sponsored by the Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane.

“Every year we offer a summer teacher institute through the Stone Center for Latin American Studies and have recently been collaborating closely with Beverly Trask’s dance festival,” says Denise Woltering-Vargas, program manager at the Stone Center. “The festival’s instructors can help K-12 teachers of all disciplines learn to use movement in the classroom while providing an opportunity to gain a more diverse understanding of Latin America.”

Registration is available online for the dance festival’s full week of activities, which include several daily classes and the opportunity to perform during the summer concert taking place July 2 in the city’s historic Congo Square. Community members who wish to attend individual or evening-only classes may pay at the door prior to each class. Full registration is $500 and individual classes are $18.

To learn more information about the New Orleans Dance Festival call 504-314-7742 and for information on the Summer Teaching Institute call 504-862-3143.

See the original article in Tulane’s New Wave