Camara Arts Programs & Projects

 

 

-Travel & cultural arts exchange programs in Africa

 

One of our goals is to include a strong component related to rights of passage that allows           youth who have earned the opportunity for travel to Africa to go for research and self-development through their study of African culture, dance, music, agriculture, philosophy, etc.

Each year as we develop a new batch of youth prepared to travel we will focus on a different area of life. 

           

We aspire next year in December of 2009 to send a couple of our youth to study dance & drum in Guinea.

 

 -Residencies, teaching & class instruction in African dance, music, etc.

 

We have on-going rights of passage work with youth in our class instruction series through out the city. Our classes include African dance for youth, African Drumming, Storytelling, as well as various craft specialties.   Our programs will run through out the city sponsoring programs in conjunction with after-school and camp programs.

 

 

-Exhibits; Lecture/Demonstrations:

           

 

An exhibit celebrating the life and legacy of Papa Ladji Camara, with sound, video, text, etc. Plus dance & drum instruction with youth teaching his repertoire in rights of passage.

 

A future project we are working on is the "Feminine Fire" project -- comprised of a youth in rites of passage project that teaches the dance and puts it into choreography engaging the youth in performance with professional dancers in several venues in Pennsylvania; lecture/ demonstration around the feminine goddess of the world winds Oya derived from research both here in the U.S., Africa, and the Caribbean with partnering scholars; an Exhibit explaining and showcasing various artifacts about the Goddess; and master dance class workshops engaging youth & adults conducted by our instructors and partnering dance scholars.  This project potentially will travel through out the U.S. 

           

Rare do you see community artists taking the tradition, examining its links based on African archetype/goddess to critically explore it, challenge its dynamics of form and essence in a multimedia/discipline presentation. I want to examine, explore, and present "Oya" goddess from across the West African region (Guinea, Nigeria, etc) to the African Diaspora, and present the findings of research as a performance, exhibit, workshop, and            discussion. This work helps expose the meaning of deeply spiritual African goddess through dance, music, exhibit, workshop, and discussion open to the public.  A main goal of the project is to offer young teenage girls/artists,  an experience in training & performing traditional dance with professional artists, as well as understanding principles of womanhood through the study of an African archetype/goddess as a function of what's called "Rights of Passage", using African Folklore as a basis. 

 

This type of work is at the heart of our mission to take tradition and bring it to youth       as well  as bridging deeper meaning of the dance through research and presentation.            This work is unique because most of the collaborations within dance forms are across modern dance to African forms, rare do you see collaborations within and across specific African traditions, i.e. Guinea dance and Nigeria, etc.  

 

-Researching & Documenting Tradition with film/documentary:

 

Currently Angela Watson is working on an Educational Guinea Dance Documentary geared towards children utilizing both old footage from her Fulbright scholarship in 1997/98 and recent new interviews with dance elders and scholars here in the A curriculum based book on past research in Guinea West Africa, about African dance in Guinea and healing dance.  

Future Project to Comprise a musical CD of African children's songs based here in Philadelphia with various artists and groups in a community based arts project with 50% of proceeds going back to African children in Ghana and Guinea.

 

-Representing & Sponsoring Various Artists:

 

Currently we are featuring a guest Artist Ibrahima Keita, a visual artist who specializes in sand paintings.  Ibrahima Keita is a starving artist in Guinea working diligently in his craft to support his family.  The sand paintings reflect many different African motifs particular to the history of the region.