UMaine Holding International Dance Festival Feb. 18
Contact: Sarah Joughin, 581-3423; George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO — Student dancers from North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia are pulling out the stops for the second annual International Dance Festival planned Saturday, Feb. 18, at 7 p.m. at the Maine Center for the Arts on the UMaine campus.
Dancers from India, Sri Lanka, Africa, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Mexico, Spain, Brazil, Nepal and the United States have been rehearsing for nearly six weeks for the annual festival, according to the UMaine Office of International Programs. It promises to be an engaging, artistic and musical program showcasing traditional international dances ranging from the serenity of a Vietnamese dance to jubilant African dance to hip-hop and the musical athleticism of Brazilian Capoeira, a blend of martial arts and dance designed by African slaves in the 19th Century to camouflage preparation for an uprising against Brazilian slave owners.
“The festival will feature over 30 different performers, dancing in both solo and group pieces,” says Sarah Joughin, international student advisor and immigration specialist with the Office of International Programs. Performers will dress in colorful cultural costumes from the countries being represented. The idea for the festival originated with Pemba Lama, a UMaine student from Nepal, who wanted to bring international and American students together through the arts. Lama, Senthil Sockalingam, a Malaysian student, and Jessica Bishop, an intern with the Office of International Programs, are the producers of this year’s show.
“One of the strengths of the International Dance Festival is that it allows people to not only see the richness of international arts and culture, but also engage and be part of it through participation,” Joughin says. “We celebrate the differences as well as similarities of student communities within the university.”
This free festival lets people of Maine have an access to the cultural vitality within the University of Maine community, she says.
Moving the festival from Minsky Recital Hall to the Maine Center for Arts provides an ability to incorporate new techniques of stage design with new media such as 3D graphics, in addition to professional lighting and sound systems.
Many of the student performers have had significant professional dance training, with the quality of their work rivaling that of groups seen at the American Folk Festival in Bangor, Joughin notes.
Other dances on the program for the International Dance Festival include swing, tango, Irish step dancing, belly dancing, a Latin American mix, Nepalese dance, group African dance, two styles of hip-hop and a South Asian performance by a popular campus ensemble known as “The Basements.”
Capoeira, a new dance form coming to the festival, is believed to have evolved among African slaves preparing for an uprising when martial arts training was forbidden by slave owners. By putting fighting arts to music and adding dance steps, it appeared to be harmless entertainment. Eventually, capoeira itself was banned for a period by the Brazilian government.
Capoeira performers are known as “players” and dance in pairs. They employ a variety of martial arts kicks, strikes and feign techniques combined with handstands, headstands, spins and twirls all set to the percussive rhythm of South American instruments like the berimbau and the atabaque. The art has grown from a dance form once frowned upon by authorities to one of the most popular sports in Brazil today, second only to soccer. Schools also are blossoming in the United States and beyond because of its increasing popularity.
“These guys are pretty good,” Joughin says of the UMaine capoeira players.
With increasing interdependence among countries for economic and social growth, Joughin says it is vital to understand and appreciate the differences of culture, ideas and nationality. Arts can provide a common ground where people can share and exchange cultural values to better educate themselves about the world. The International Dance Festival is an innovative and inspiring step toward that goal, she says.
The festival is sponsored by the Office of International Programs, the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, the International Student Association, the Asian Student Association, Multicultural Programs, Student Heritage Alliance Center, the Latin American Student Association and the African Student Association.
The event last year attracted a surprisingly large audience of UMaine students and people from surrounding communities, according to Joughin. The festival brought, for the first time, all the international organizations together and created a base to share and work with each other collaboratively, she says.
“We really packed Minsky,” Joughin says, “so from there, people wanted to take it up a notch and expand on the quality and depth of participation. It’s been pretty exciting.”
More information can be obtained by calling the Office of International Programs at (207) 581-2905.