JUNE 28 – JULY 12
Shakia will teach on the faculty at Bates Dance Festival’s Young Dancers Intensive. The Young Dancers Intensive is a rigorous, highly structured, and carefully supervised residential intensive designed for serious dance students ages 14 to 18.
Students take five classes a day, attend performances, work with professional faculty members and guest artists, and receive personalized mentorship.
Registration and more information at this link.
AUGUST 16
Kia the Key & Company will premiere The Gathering, a free, outdoor performance in Springfield, MA.
Past Events
OCTOBER 14 – 26
“Since 1987, through the generosity of Sage and John Cowles, University of Minnesota Dance has annually hosted four to six dance professionals of international renown in residencies ranging from one to ten weeks. The guests teach, choreograph new dance work, rehearse repertory, and lecture in the Department of Theatre Arts & Dance, and the Twin Cities community at large.
The Cowles Land Grant Chair connects nationally and internationally recognized artists and scholars with dance students, exposing them to contemporary artistry, masterwork, and new thinking in dance studies. University of Minnesota Dance is unique for its extensive use of renowned professional artists in the education and training of students.” (from the website of the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts Theater Arts & Dance Department)
Shakia is honored to be a 2024-2025 Cowles Visiting Artist and will be in residence in Minneapolis, MN for two weeks this fall.
JULY 26 – 28
In collaboration with CRĀV, Bates Dance Festival will host a Battle event featuring competition in Breakin’, Hip Hop & House. Uplifting the virtuosity and lineage of Black American artistry, pioneers and ambassadors of the culture will serve as panelists, judges, emcees and master teachers for this incredible weekend of dance and community.
Tickets & more information at this link!
MARCH 26 – 30
CRĀV The Harvest is a network that brings together artists that are building the pedagogy for the continuum of Black American Artistry in higher education. CRĀV The Harvest provides artists, scholars and marginalized artists with the opportunity to be in residence together to; foster interdisciplinary creative collaborations for stage performance, bring authentic Black American experiences to academic spaces and to build artistic events within local POC communities.
CRĀV The Harvest is a collaborative dance program shared between UMass-Amherst and Mt. Holyoke College, that is actively cultivating infrastructure around embodied intellectual property, illuminating the context (history), content (practice), and citation (source) of the continuum of Black American Artistry. The practice will inform the theory, through the embodiment of African American scholarship, Call and Response, double consciousness, and Ritual and Play. We create programming (CRĀV The Harvest) around these ideals and the practices of professionals and culture bearers from around the country. CRĀV The Harvest’s inaugural conference ran March 26-30 at UMass-Amherst and Smith College is featuring Hip-Hop scholar and practitioner Dr. Lorenzo Harris.