Carnival Cross Fete! Fall 2022 Carnival Dance Fusion

Carnival is an annual, worldwide celebration of arts and culture rooted in African Diasporic resistance and storytelling through performance and pageantry. While “playin’ mas’” (a Trinidadian expression for the art of the masquerade) has origins in the European pre-Lenten tradition, the transformation of the individual through costume, music, and movement operates from a distinctly African experience. This class provides beginning and intermediate-level instruction in Carnival Fusion Dance technique and choreography by focusing on the music and dances of the three largest and oldest Carnival celebrations in the Western Hemisphere: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies, and New Orleans, U.S.A.