When:
Through May 31
Where:
Online events with pre-registration via EVENTBRITE
Youth Ensemble
Mature H.O.T. Women
DRDT Company Class
The Continuum Process
Deeply Rooted Dance Theater (DRDT), responding to the COVID-19 crisis, unveils Deeply Rooted Dance Theater Beyond Dance.
Deeply Rooted Dance Theater (DRDT) BEYOND DANCE includes education, conversation, and performance.
Adapting content from its Dance Education programs to a virtual environment, BEYOND DANCE online classes include: the Youth Ensemble; Mature H.O.T. (Health-conscious, Optimistic, Triumphant) Women; and the DRDT Company Class.
Instructors and leaders for these events include Krystal Hall-Glass, Tracey Franklin, Nicole Clarke-Springer, and Fana Tshabalala.
Company Class guest instructor Krystal Hall-Glass, who performed in The Wiz on Broadway, is also the first African-American graduate from SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance with an MFA in performance/teaching. Under her directorship at the Harlem School of the Arts, more than 50 students were accepted into professional performing arts dance programs within a five-year period.
Company Class guest instructor Tracey Franklin, a Chicago native, began her training at age 16 at Joseph Holmes Dance Theater and graduated from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Certificate Program in 1999. In 2000, she started a four-year stint as a company member of Dallas Black Dance Theater, then returned to Chicago in 2004 to join Deeply Rooted, where she was a company member for 12 years. She is currently the department head assistant and teaches Horton Technique at the Chicago High School for the Arts. She is also an instructor at the Hyde Park School of Dance and Studio One in the Chicago area.
The Continuum Process, led by DRDT Artistic Director Nicole Clarke-Springer and members of DRDT's Artistic Team, is a series of virtual guided discussions on self-awareness and personal growth informed by each participant’s creativity and artistic process. Students participate in a warm-up class to learn choreography phrases of a specific work and transition into a guided conversation about that work/choreography. The next session takes place May 28 and features guest instructor Fana Tshabalala from South Africa.
Tshabalala previously worked with Deeply Rooted on the 2017 premiere of an American/Chicago-focused adaptation of his work INDUMBA, which will make up the content of this Continuum session. He has choreographed and performed nationally and internationally, including Lena Dance Company in Sweden, Dance Umbrella 2018 in Geneva, and Dance Dialogue Africa, which toured Germany and 12 African countries. He is co-founder and currently a director for Broken Borders Arts Project based at the University of Johannesburg.
