Afro-Cuban Class with Olivia Gonzalez
Friday, May 24 | 9:30-11 am
Dance is crucial to understanding Orisha in Yorùbáland and the diaspora. For centuries, the body was a site of black resistance in the colonies. Knowledge is not only expressed in language, words or thoughts, but it is also written on our bodies. By practicing the Orisha dance, this information reaches our minds, hearts and souls.
The class begins with a traditional warm-up that emphasizes large movements in the shoulder and torso leading up to the basic Orisha step, which would be dancing and progressively moving across the floor with repetitions of steps and ending with a circle where the dancers can improvise. Yorùbá deities called Orisha are invited to mount the bodies of their initiates. The human personality disappears and gives way to the divine. Gods and goddesses join human beings, borrow the device of a body and bring blessings from another dimension.
About the teacher:
Olivia Gonzalez graduated from Escuela Nacional de Arte in Cuba. Following graduation, she danced for four years with Retazos Dance Theater with whom she participated in many international festivals in Canada, Uruguay and the United States, and performed in ‘Transits – Havana’, an international dance collaboration between Sweden and Cuba. Since moving to Chicago, Olivia has danced with Concert Dance, Inc. and Hedwig Dances, and is a regular guest artist for the Ruth Page School of Dance and the Ruth Page Civic Ballet Training Company, teaching modern classes and workshops, and Afro-Cuban technique.
Join us at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts for Open Technique Classes with the Ruth Page Professional Dance Training Program*, select Fridays at 9:30 am. The class will feature rotating guest artists and Ruth Page School of Dance faculty. Method and technique will vary by teacher.
*The Ruth Page Professional Dance Training Program is an elite group of pre-professional dancers, ages 17 - 25 who train daily, 9 am-4 pm, August – June at the Ruth Page School of Dance.
Trainee members will hone their contemporary and ballet techniques in an international environment of artists and educators with dedicated time and personalized attention to create lifelong ambassadors for the art of dance who embrace diverse cultures as a source of inspiration and human self-expression.
