Spring 2022 Guest Speakers Series
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- Farrah McAdam
- Rulan Tangen
- Joti Singh
- Jamie Nakama & Mestre Espaço
- Byb Chanel Bibene
- Osvaldo Ramirez
Farrah McAdam
Hip Hop Dance & Culture
Wednesday, February 23, 5:30 p.m.
(THAR 373 discussions will include a movement session, but no dance experience is required)
This will take place in person in PE1, Gymnasium/PE Building, Dance Studio 1.
Calling on her movement experiences and gatherings in styles including Contemporary, Release Technique, Whacking, House and Hip Hop, Farrah McAdam is a dance educator, choreographer, and artist in the Bay Area who is invested in equitable, collaborative environments where history and critical thinking are investigated just as much as physical embodiments. She has performed with CALI&CO Dance, Kristen Daley, and PULP Dance to name a few, has been honored to perform at ACDA’s 2016 Nationals at The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. , and currently teaches through Sonoma State University, Luther Burbank Center, and Petaluma School of Ballet. Farrah has been a guest educator and choreographer around the West Region- including Arizona State University, Scottsdale Community College, Modesto Community College, San Jose State, Fresno State University, Sonoma State University, and ODC in San Francisco. She holds a B.A. in both Psychology and Dance.
Rulan Tangen
Contemporary Indigenous Dance
Photo Credit: Sunny Khalsa
Wednesday, March 9 at 5:30 p.m.
(THAR 373 discussions will include a movement session, but no dance experience is required)
This will take place in person in PE1, Gymnasium/PE Building, Dance Studio 1.
Rulan Tangen's work explores movement as an expression of functional ritual for transformation, an embodied source of knowing, and energetic connection with all relations – human and beyond. With an international dance career, Rulan has also been a dedicated teacher, sharing extensively in Native and inter-cultural communities across the Americas. Surviving cancer to discover her leadership purpose as Founding Artistic Director/Choreographer of DANCING EARTH, with a vision for inclusion she evolves a creative practice that explores intercultural diversity and ecological relations. Her mixed ancestral lineage includes Kampampangan / Pangasinan of Luzon Island in Pacific archipelago of Philippines as well to Europe’s Norsk and Eire, and she has passionately cultivated successive generations of Native, mixed, and global Indigenous contemporary performing artists as cultural ambassadors and conduits for social change . She is recipient of 2018-19 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist fellowship for Service, Justice, Freedom, Courage, and Gratitude - and is grateful for all that roots her, for the dreaming and doing of Dancing Earth : moving, shaking , swirling the world into renewal
Joti Singh
Bhangra Dance
Wednesday, March 30, 5:30 p.m.
(THAR 373 discussions will include a movement session, but no dance experience is required)
This will take place in person in PE1, Gymnasium/PE Building, Dance Studio 1.
Joti Singh, Artistic Director of Duniya Dance and Drum Company, is a dance creator and innovator, sprung from the U.S. American south to parents from northern India. She is the Artistic Director of Duniya Dance and Drum Company. Joti began her dance training in Punjabi circles, carrying through her body the culture that’s in her blood and memory. As an adult, West African dance entered Joti’s purview, transforming her body’s imagination. Through this multilingual body, Joti explores where history intertwines with contemporary continuities of celebration and injustice. She created the performance “Half and Halves,” about the Punjabi-Mexican communities of California with collaborator Zenon Barron. Joti has received support from the Creative Work Fund, the San Francisco Arts Commission, California Arts Council, the Alliance for California Traditional Arts, and more. Currently, Joti is creating the piece “Ghadar Geet: Blood and Ink,” about her great grandfather, Bhagwan Singh Gyanee's role in the Ghadar Party, based in San Francisco in the early 20th century, fighting for India’s independence from Britain.
Joti and her partner, musician Bongo Sidibe, lead bi-annual trips to Guinea and in 2012, opened the Duniya Center for Arts and Education in Conakry. She teaches Bhangra all over the SF Bay Area, including at Dance Mission Theater. Joti founded the World Dance program at the Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts in 2016. She holds an MA in South Asian Studies from UC Berkeley and a BA in English from Reed College
Jamie Nakama & Mestre Espaço
Capoeira
Wednesday, April 6, 5:30 p.m.
(THAR 373 discussions will include a movement session, but no dance experience is required)
This will take place in person in PE1, Gymnasium/PE Building, Dance Studio 1.
About Mestre Espaço:
Born and raised in Brazil, Contra Mestre Espaço (Fabio Mendes) discovered capoeira at 18 years of age and instantly knew he was going to dedicate his life to training and teaching. After a few years of intensive training, he began teaching capoeira to youth at a number of elementary schools and to mentally and physically handicapped adolescents and adults at CERPAM. He also became very involved in performing capoeira, along with a number of related dances including Maculele and fire dancing, at a wide variety of venues. He choreographed and performed in shows for well-known music concerts, Brazil’s national tourist fair, the Salao de Turismo, São Paulo’s Carnaval parade, and cultural centers throughout São Paulo.
He departed from his mother’s home in São Paulo in January 2006 to cycle for almost two years, crossing ten countries and pedaling over 12,000 miles to Petaluma, California. Since he arrived in the United States at the end of 2007, he has been teaching classes to children and adults. He has also worked at the Performing Arts Workshop and with Project Commotion, Bay Area organizations dedicated to providing low-income and special needs youth with cultural and physical enrichment programs.
About Instrutora India (Jamie Nakama):
From Honolulu, Hawaii, and currently living in Novato, California, Jamie is an educator, dancer, performer, youth mentor, environmentalist, anthropologist, capoeira instructor and more! She has a master’s degree in ecological anthropology and is deeply engaged in social activism and environmental sustainability. Jamie is the Youth Program Manager at LandPaths, a non-profit organization based in Sonoma County dedicated to community conservation and social change. She also teaches biological and cultural anthropology at Diablo Valley College. Jamie has been training capoeira with Capoeria Besouro Hawaii under the instruction of Mestre Kinha from Rio de Janeiro since 2002. In Hawaii, she taught capoeira for kids and adults for over ten years and currently teaches small classes for youth in Novato. Jamie is also a yoga instructor and is trained in a number of dance forms including contemporary, contact improvisation, aerial dance, and hula. She has performed professionally with a number of Hawaii-based dance theater companies and now performs and collaborates with Bay Area artists including Lizz Roman & Dancers and CALI & CO.
Byb Chanel Bibene
West African Dance
Wednesday, April 20, 5:30 p.m.
(THAR 373 discussions will include a movement session, but no dance experience is required)
This will take place in person in PE1, Gymnasium/PE Building, Dance Studio 1.
Byb Chanel Bibene is a dance educator, choreographer and performer. He is the founder and artistic director of both Kiandanda Dance Theater and the Mbongui Square Festival. Bibene’s innate technical and aesthetic sensibility is rooted in the culture and dances of the Republic of Congo. His professional foci are the interdisciplinary areas of theater, traditional, Afro-urban and contemporary dance. Bibene has performed internationally and toured throughout the world with companies originating from Africa, Europe and the United States. Bibene holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Economics, Masters degree in Finances from Marien Ngouabi University, Congo and an MFA in Dance Creative Practice (Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence) from Saint Mary's College of California.
Osvaldo Ramirez
Ballet Folklórico
Wednesday, April 27, 5:30 p.m.
(THAR 373 discussions will include a movement session, but no dance experience is required)
This will take place in person in PE1, Gymnasium/PE Building, Dance Studio 1.
Osvaldo Ramírez Vidales has been involved in Mexican Folklórico Dance for over 20 years in the city of Sacramento. He completed a full 10-year trajectory with Raices de mi Tierra in Sacramento from 2000 to 2010, the original Mexican dance group at CSU Sacramento. He also co-joined Instituto Mazatlán Bellas Artes dance company as guest dancer from 2005-2007 where he had the opportunity to travel and perform internationally at the Beijing International Dance Festival in China. Osvaldo has received extensive training in México under well-known Folklórico Maestros like Rafael Zamarripa and Viviana Basanta – both pioneers and 2nd generation dancers from the original choreographers of Mexican Dance. He continues his training by participating at National and International Mexican Dance Associations in the US and Mexico. Moreover, Osvaldo has been a dancer in other genres such as Bharatanatyam Classical Indian Dance, Ballroom, Capoeria, Afro-Cuban, Salsa, Flamenco, and Ballet. From 2011-2019, Osvaldo along with Manuel Pérez, co-led as dance directors of Grupo Folklórico Los Alteños in Sacramento. Recently, Osvaldo has now accepted full directorship of Ballet Folklorico Nube de Oro, a dance group in Sacramento that has been in existence for over 26 years. He’s a UC Davis Psychology Bachelor and CSUS Master’s Degree Graduate in Career Counseling. Currently, Osvaldo serves his 11th year as Faculty Lecturer at CSU Sacramento teaching Mexican Folkórico Dance and works full time as a Manager in Workforce Services at EDD with the State.