$FREE
Inspired by Urban Assembly for Media High School student, Elaine Goris, this discussion takes us on a journey of identity in America as a multicultural individual, looking to belong. We will discuss the social construct of race and how people around the U.S. struggle to identify themselves within a specific ‘box.’ We’ll explore community, isolation, expression and more.
Our participants include:
Elaine Goris – My name is Elaine Goris, I attend high school in New York City at Urban Assembly for Media Studies High School. I am 17 years old currently applying for college as a dance and criminology major. One of my major goals in life is to travel and experience different cultures around me.
Okai Fleurimont – is a vocalist/percussionist who embodies all the music of the African Diaspora. Brooklyn born with Haitian descent young Okai was beating on anything that he could get his hands on to help his imagination grow. His ears became infected with the hard boom bap drum loops of Hip Hop, and roots music from the Caribbean. Those sounds led him on a musical path to find rock, Jazz, samba, salsa, rumba and pretty much anything that involves percussion. Okai began his path of percussion on the trap set playing for various churches.
Okai’s cultural background shaped him in to being the full round artist he is today. He is Currently the lead singer and percussionist of Brown Rice Family who won “The Battle of the Boroughs” in NYC in 2012 and he is part of an instrumental Horn band called Underground Horns. He is an active percussionist in New York always sharing his voice and energetic rhythms. Locally, Okai has performed in the Brooklyn Museum, the legendary African art auction exhibition at Sotheby’s, Madison Square Garden, Carnegie Hall and venues throughout the States. Internationally Canada, Tanzania, Australia, Japan, Haiti and Brazil have been showered with his sounds and soon the rest of the world will. Aside from being an accomplished percussionist, Okai is also an accomplished Emcee that has worked with various Artists and has a couple of Solo albums.
Penny Godboldo – is a dance artist and a teacher in the Katherine Dunham Technique. For the past five years, she has held the position of Co-Director of the Institute for Dunham Technique Certification. She is a 2018 Kresge Artist Fellow and an adjunct faculty member in the dance department at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Penny trained at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. She incorporates her pedagogy as teacher and her larger philosophical view that dance is life. It is a methodology developed through extensive research in dance history. Her work is informed by her travel to Haiti, Cuba, Benin, Brazil, Japan, China, England, Scotland and other countries, during her role as chair of the Marygrove College dance department for nearly two decades. Penny travels internationally, choreographing, leading workshops and educating students.
Milteri Tucker Concepcion – Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Milteri is the founder and artistic director of Bombazo Dance Company, which aims to preserve traditional Bomba dance but also fuses Afro-Caribbean Folk elements with contemporary, modern, and social styles. She holds a Masters degree in Dance Education from NYU and is currently working on her doctorate. Milteri has worked and performed along Bomba masters from Puerto Rico — such as Cepedas, Ayala, William Cepeda & AfroRican Jazz — and has performed in San Juan, Loiza, Ponce, and Carolina. She is also trained in ballet, Modern, and African dance styles and has worked with a wide range of choreographers including Maria Torres, Sekou McMiller, Richard Pierlon, Jeff Shade, Angel Gil Orrios, and George Faison.
Milteri’s class is open to all and designed to introduce students to the rhythms, basic steps, figure, timing, posture and skirt technique. Each class has a warm up followed by pedagogical Bomba dance content and practice of the form. Learn more about Milteri and the work of Bombazo Dance Company at www.bombazodanceco.com.