News
Building a Viable Caribbean Creative Dance Marketplace
±Ê±ô¾±Ã© for the Arts, a Jamaican dance and performance management company is developing local talent with the help of the Creative Caribbean Project funded by the European Union's ACP EU Culture programme. A series of international masterclasses for dancers throughout the region is organized to strengthen local talent and create international dance exposure for dancers who would not have the ability to access this level of advanced training. The international accredited dance trainers are Celise Hicks, dance supervisor for The Lion King, Alvin Ailey, American Dance Theater Associate and Artistic Director Matthew Rushing, as well as the Dean and Director of Dance at the Juilliard School, Alicia Graf Mack.
The first three training events saw over 200 dancers from the Cayman Islands, Antigua, Cuba, Grenada and St. Vincent being trained in dance techniques such as jazz and ballet, as well as the Horton Jazz which is the most famous jazz technique in the world. The masterclass series is in alignment with the goals and objectives of ±Ê±ô¾±Ã© for the Arts, which is to provide dance development, training, and international exposure to dancers throughout the region.
It is important that local Caribbean dancers receive exposure to the best master dance teachers, who represent the most successful musical in the world (Lion King), a world-renowned modern dance company (Alvin Ailey), and arguably the most competitive performing arts conservatory in the world (The Juilliard School).
Shaneika Gibbs, dancer from Grenada, a beneficiary of the project in expressing her gratitude for the training described the series as energizing, empowering and an opportunity that she would not have received without the support from the project. Fabian Grizzle of Jamaica also explained that his main lesson from the training is that “dance is a wonderful means through which he can articulate his cultural talent.â€
Lead trainer, Celise Hicks has invited the dancers trained from the project to attend auditions for Disney’s Lion King which will be held in Jamaica in January. This is expected to be an excellent pathway through which dancers from the Caribbean will be granted an opportunity to have international exposure and advance their talent on the global stage.
The next set of dance masterclasses will train approximately 150 dancers at the Barbados Community College in February.
