Teaching artists from the professional dance company Viver Brasil will provide music and dance workshops for local children at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School, masterclasses for students at Indiana State University, and workshops for the local community. UIS and the general public from October 10 to 13. .
The university will host Viver Brasil for a four-day artist residency to celebrate the 50th anniversary of African and Afro-American Studies (AFRI) and promote generational understanding through dance, music and Afro storytelling traditions -Brazilians. The residency will end with an evening of music and dance demonstration presented by local students and artists from the community with artists from Viver Brasil.
Viver Brasil is a non-profit organization specializing in Afro-Brazilian music and dance with a background in helping rejuvenate communities through the arts.
Three events are open to the public free of charge:
–Afro-Brazilian Dance Workshop (with live drumming) at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, October 11 in the large dance studio inside the Health and Human Services Building (use the 5th Street door / en across from the Hulman Memorial Student Union).
–Lecture on “Ancestralidade/Ancestry and Spirituality in the Carnaval of Salvador, Bahia: Resistance in Motion,” at 3 p.m. Wednesday, October 12, in the events area on the ground floor of the Cunningham Memorial Library.
–Viver Brasil artists performing with ISU students at 7 p.m. on Thursday, October 13 at the University Auditorium.
The residency is made possible in part by the Arts Project Support Grant funded by Arts Illiana and the Indiana Arts Commission, which receives support from the State of Indiana and the National Endowment for the Arts. The “Generational Listening: Dancing the Rhythms of Youth and the Chants of Elders” grant project seeks to recognize and celebrate 50 years of curriculum, scholarship, and creative programming that AFRI Studies has brought to the world. ‘UIS while expanding community reach for educational enrichment, youth development and the promotion of intergenerational relationships.
“ViverBrasil is known nationally, and we are honored to bring them to Terre Haute to interact with our students, but also to help AFRI continue to offer school residences that improve access to creative arts in around the world,” said Colleen Haas, head teacher. member of the African and Afro-American studies program at the UIS. “The group will deliver inspiring and productive public workshops on campus and create community celebrations that resonate with the joys and concerns of our own region.”
“ViverBrasil’s dance repertoire is based on the cultural history and social justice movements of people of African descent in Brazil and around the world. It takes cultural traditions and their intrinsic values beyond the stage and into the contemporary world. Artist-teacher-performers are equipped to engage all ages in the vibrant and mythical word of Afro-Brazilian drumming and dance that resonates with contemporary times.”
Additional support is provided by the University Arts Endowment Committee at Indiana State University, as well as the Community School for the Arts, Charles E. Brown African American Cultural Center, Cunningham Memorial Library, College of Arts and Sciences, African and African American. studies, the departments of history, music and the department of languages, literatures and linguistics.
