So you think you can dance? ICA’s Dance Extravaganza is for you
To kick off the Christmas season, a dance extravaganza will take place this weekend at the Bliss Centre for the Performing Arts. The annual event is being hosted by NICH and the Institute of the Creative Arts. Dance companies from the City and elsewhere will be putting on special presentations in what promises to be a fusion of modern, contemporary and classical dances. The extravaganza starts at eight p.m. and News Five’s Duane Moody got a preview of what is in store for tonight’s show.
Duane Moody, Reporting
For the first time this year, various dance companies will be under one roof. The presentations will vary from technical pieces to Mayan and Creole folkloric dances, cultural presentations, contemporary, carnival and hip-hop dances.
Gregory Vernon, Director, Institute of Creative Arts
“We are showcasing companies throughout the country of Belize; local companies showcasing what they are made of, what they’re experiences are giving an audience a taste of different dance groups around the country. It is one of the first of its kind. What we’re doing is that we’re mobilizing the dance company, giving them the experience to the stage because next two years in 2011 we are looking at going back to the Dance Belize International dance forum and festival.”
The dance companies are putting together their best to take to the Bliss stage.
Mamie Martinez, Director, Ballet Art School
“We decided to do something new, something exciting and ours is a dance entitled Inspiration and the music by Yani, a Greek composer and we’re dressing all our dancers in Greek style costumes so we think it will be something interesting something new and a little different from the classical that we usually do.”
Naomi Flores-Guzman, Director, Ugundani Dancers
“We’ll be doing the chumba, one of the traditional dances and also the combination; which consists of hungu hungu and the Punta. That is part of our Garifuna culture and we will be presenting it as one of the traditional dances of Garifuna.”
Jillian Fuller, Member, Belize Dance Company
“As you may know, Belize Dance Company is known for its diversity in different dances and come this Friday night you can expect just that fromt eh Dance Company. We’ll be doing some modern pieces and some folkloric pieces so come out and support our local dancers.”
Joseph “Stamp” Romero, Artistic Director, Nu Generation Dance Company
“Well you know NGD represents a young fraction of dancers in Belize because they have different cultures in Belize. We also want to encompass that in our dance so definitely you can expect Nu Generation bringing its hip-hop but also our cultures in Belize, the way that we look at different dances and the way we view it should be seen the eyes of young people because we want to attract them to hip-hop but we also want to keep them remembering where their culture came from. And so we have Bradda David, you know the locals, but also of course what Nu Generation does which is the hip-hop foundation.”
Tickets for the extravaganza are going at ten and fifteen dollars for general admission and reserve respectively. On Saturday night, another show entitled Corozal in the City, will also be held at the Bliss.
Gregory Vernon
“Corozal in the City is coming to Belize and this initiative came about by us creating the Institute of Creative Arts Committee for Corozal, of course legislated in the NICH law is that there should be a ICA committee in each district. And they have been doing a wonderful job out in Corozal exposing their performing artists in this manner and so we have invited them to come out to Belize in exposing their talent and they are coming with folkloric dances with live music. Of course, we have always seen these dances done with recorded music. Now they are bringing in a true band to accompany these dances. We’re having the Corozal Community College junior college dancers coming in.
Tickets are ten dollars. Duane Moody, reporting for News Five.
So map out your weekend to include the shows at the Bliss.
