Cumbe's Opening Day Celebration at New RestorationART Home Postponed

Cumbe: Center for African and Diaspora Dance (Cumbe), a thrilling and diverse dance studio championing African Diaspora dance and music, postpones its scheduled September 23 opening-day community celebration. The in-studio community celebration will still take place at a later date, to be confirmed. The start of classes is also postponed and will not commence on Monday September 25. While the renovation is close to completion, important details are still being addressed, resulting in an unexpected delay.

Taking on new form, Cumbe staff will be ?in Restoration Plaza, which adjoins the dance studio, from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. offering ?refreshments, $5 t-shirts and tote bags, and an opportunity to win free classes at Cumbe. ?

?"Cumbe is excited to be in the final stages of our journey to re-establish a Brooklyn home for African and Diaspora Dance. We look forward to welcoming everyone to celebrate and dance with us in this important new dance space very soon!" says Cumbe's Executive Director Jimena Martinez. "We are grateful to our teachers and students for their unwavering support, and to RestorationART for their untiring efforts to create spaces for arts and culture in Bedford Stuyvesant and surrounding Brooklyn communities."

The new outfitted studio and partnership at RestorationART in Bedford Stuyvesant will be welcomed by students and community members who have patiently anticipated a location where Cumbe could restore its larger programming. The new studio space at RestorationART features 5,282 sq. ft. of ground-level studios for performing arts with sprung maple dance floors, and large storefront windows. These versatile spaces will make Cumbe's classes visible to the over 1.5 million visitors Restoration Plaza receives annually.

Cumbe offers adult classes from traditional to contemporary styles-including West African, Afro-Haitian and Brazilian, Soca, Dancehall/Reggae, House and more. Classes for toddlers ages 1-4, teach creative movement and rhythm through a combination of games, songs, story-telling, drumming and tumbling.

ABOUT CUMBE

Cumbe is a home in New York City for the music and dance of the African Diaspora. In the five years since its launch in 2012, Cumbe has set out to house the varied traditions and dances of the African Diaspora-priming itself to offer adult classes in West African, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Haitian, Caribbean Modern, Senegalese, dance fitness, Chicago Style Steppin, Samba and Congolese dance among others, as well as creative movement classes for ages 1 to 4?. Through dance and music shows, parties, and social events, Cumbe offers the community the opportunity to gather and experience the breadth and power of the music and dances. Its lectures help educate others about the deep cultural knowledge held in African Diaspora music and dance.

ABOUT RESTORATIONART:

RestorationART (formerly branded The Center for Arts & Culture), the cultural centerpiece of Restoration, is a dynamic 21st century creative complex that is committed to folding our community into world-class artistic discovery and storytelling in dance, music, theater, visual arts and conversation in the epicenter of Black culture, Central Brooklyn. RestorationART reaches a diverse audience of more than 40,000 annually through dance concerts and choreographic showcases, music festivals and salons, theater performances and a new works reading series, as well as talks & films; a Youth Arts Academy; the Skylight Gallery; institutions-in-residence, including the Billie Holiday Theatre, Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, Cumbe: The Center for African and Diaspora Dance, Noel Pointer School of Music and Brooklyn Youth Chorus Academy.

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