SUMMERSTAGE Dance Comes to Queensbridge Park in Queens 7/16

City Parks Foundation will bring the SummerStage dance program to Queens for the first time beginning this Friday, July 16, 2010 as a part of the 25th anniversary season of SummerStage. For this silver anniversary, SummerStage will extend beyond Central Park to include over 100 music, dance and theater programs in 16 parks in all five boroughs, making it the largest provider of free arts programming in New York City. On both July 16 and June 17, SummerStage will hold special dance performances in Queensbridge Park in Queens as listed below. Prior to all SummerStage dance performances, there will be an hour long, all ages dance class with a member of the performing company or a highly recognized dance instructor.

Who: SEEWE AFRICAN DANCE COMPANY AND BALAFROHOP
Queensbridge Park, Queens
Friday, July 16
7:00 pm - Open Guinea West African dance class with Seewe African Dance Company

8:00 pm - BalAfroHop

8:50 pm - Seewe African Dance Company

Artist Website: http://www.myspace.com/seeweafricandancecompany

Seewe African Dance Company is dedicated to performing and teaching traditional African dance forms. Artistic Director/Choreographer Mouminatou Camara founded the company in 2005. Mouminatou is praised as the pre-eminent female instructor of Guinea dance in the United States. For a decade, she was the principal dancer for the world-renowned dance company, Les Ballet Africans. Seewe aims to bridge the gaps in African music, song, dance and folklore existing in African American culture. Using traditional instruments such as the Bote, the Krin, the Balaphone and the Djembe orchestra, Seewe's high-energy performance, its use of the traditional rhythms, instruments and dance forms educates and enlightens its audiences. Join Seewe as they perform a Guinea West African story featuring dancing, songs and drama.

Artist Website: http://www. TracyJack.com

The BalAfroHop Project 2010, conceived and choreographed by Tracy Jack combines traditional Ballet, African and hip-hop dance to tell a story in a new, seamless, fast and physical form. Complete with live drummers, a DJ, and music that spans era & genre, The BalAfroHop Project 2010 focuses on the universal theme of love to tell a tale inspired by dance styles from all over the globe.

Seewe African Dance Company

http://www.myspace.com/seeweafricandancecompany

Seewe African Dance Company is dedicated to performing and teaching traditional African dance forms. Artistic Director/Choreographer Mouminatou Camara founded the company in 2005. Mouminatou is praised as the pre-eminent female instructor of Guinea dance in the United States. For a decade, she was the principal dancer for the world-renowned dance company, Les Ballet Africans. Seewe aims to bridge the gaps in African music, song, dance and folklore existing in African American culture. Using traditional instruments such as the Bote, the Krin, the Balaphone and the Djembe orchestra, Seewe's high-energy performance, its use of the traditional rhythms, instruments and dance forms educates and enlightens its audiences. Join Seewe as they perform a Guinea West African story featuring dancing, songs and drama.

THE DANCE OF LIGHT choreographed by Vernard J. Gilmore and Abdur-Rahim Jackson
Queensbridge Park, Queens
Saturday, July 17
7:00 pm - Open Hip Funking Hop dance class with Calvin Wiley

8:00 pm - The Dance of Light: Choreography by Vernard J. Gilmore and Abdur-Rahim Jackson

The Dance of Light project was created to rejuvenate the Artist and the Dance. We believe dance is not just steps but a way of being. We want to inspire passion through form and technique allowing the Dancer and the Choreographer to grow continuously. By creating with the artists we are able to push pass all boundaries allowing everyone to be an important entity. The Approach, in return allows the world to see its Light. We truly believe that the beauty of simplicity is the complexity it attracts.

Vernard J. Gilmore
Vernard J. Gilmore seeks to make his choreographed pieces into journeys into the exploration of dance. Dance of Light will see him premiering two newly choreographed pieces, Woman's Work - A work built on the backs of all the glorious fabled lives of women that have inspirEd Gilmore and Down Wit It - an exploration about the tyranny of one's selfish desires. Torn between two, the moment is never controlled but reckoned. Dance of Light will also include Can U See, a work commissioned by Brandon Fradd for the Fire Island Dance Festival 2008, Exist, and Communaute d' home.
Vernard J. Gilmore began dancing at Curie Performing and Creative Arts High School in Chicago and later studied at the Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theater with Marquita Levy, Harriet Ross and Emily Stein. He attended Barat College as a dance scholarship recipient, received first place in the all-city NAACP ACT-SO Competition in Dance in 1993 and studied as a fellowship student at The Ailey School. Mr. Gilmore is also a teacher and choreographer and a former member of Ailey II. He joined Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1997 and is a choreographer with The Ailey Dancer's Resource Fund as well as a dance teacher and speaker.

Abdur-Rahim Jackson
Abdur-Rahim Jackson's beautiful and enlightening pieces for Dance of Light are a collage of courageous and eclectic works celebrating the search for purpose, beauty, and power by stretching boundaries. It is a cerebral and passionate journey inviting audience members to not only engage in self-exploration, but to simply enjoy the beauty of dance and individuality.

For the first eight years of Abdur's life, Arabic was his only language and the fluidity of its sounds and lettering define how he sees and creates movement. His vast array of training, ranging from musical theater and African dance in Philadelphia to receiving a Bachelor's Degree of Fine Arts from The Juilliard School and performing around the world with The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for the past decade, has transformed and refined his choreographic voice. He has set works on The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Complexions Contemporary Ballet.

Join internationally acclaimed dancer and instructor Calvin Wiley, founder and president of "From The Top International", an international fitness and dance consulting company and Founder and Artist Director of Calvin Wiley Dance Theater (CWDT), a concert and commercial performance group based out of NYC. Calvin has pioneered and branded his teaching style CALVINOGRAPHY®, which maintains the philosophy that beauty, art and brilliance can be elements in fitness.
Master Class description:
CALVINOGRAPHY®: Hip Funking Hop
A cardiodance workout fused with hip/hop, funk, street jazz and theatre. A collaboration of movement bringing something different to the dance floor and to your dance/movement palette.

What: FREE Dance Performances
Where: Queensbridge Park, Queens

About SummerStage

In June, 1986, Central Park SummerStage was launched with a free performance from Sun Ra and the Omniverse Jet Set Arkestra. In 1990, City Parks Foundation began programming free concerts in neighborhood parks under the name CityParks Concerts. In 2006, City Parks Foundation began CityParks Dance and CityParks Theater. Today, City Parks Foundation is combining all of these initiatives under the banner of SummerStage, a city-wide festival of over 100 music, dance and theater events in 16 parks in all five boroughs. It will be one of the largest, most geographical diverse and thematically broad festivals in the nation. Over 200,000 people are expected to attend the free festival.

For the most up-to-date scheduling and full line-up for all SummerStage programming, visit http://www.SummerStage.org
City Parks Foundation (CPF) is the only independent, nonprofit organization to offer park programs throughout the five boroughs of New York City. We work in over 750 parks citywide, presenting a broad range of free arts, sports, and education programs, and empowering citizens to support their parks on a local level. Our programs and community building initiatives reach more than 600,000 people each year, contributing to the revitalization of neighborhoods throughout New York City.

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