Dance Workshop

The African American Dance Company presents

23rd Annual Dance Workshop

Friday, March 19 and Saturday, March 20, 2021

To ensure health and safety for all, this year's workshop will be held virtually on Zoom.

The Dance Workshop exposes participants to dance from the perspectives of African American culture and the broader African Diaspora through master classes, panel discussions, and performances.

No previous dance experience is required to participate. All adults and students ages 12+ are welcome! With questions, email aadcdw@indiana.edu.

Dance Workshop Schedule

Friday, March 19, 2021

Black Dance / New Realities: Artmaking in a Pandemic Panel Discussion & Showcase

Co-moderated by Iris Rosa and Stafford C. Berry Jr.

Date: Friday, March 19, 2021
Time: 7:30–8:30 p.m. EST
Location: Zoom
Admission: Free and open to the public

Saturday, March 20, 2021

Freestyle House with Danzel Thompson-Stout

Date: Saturday, March 20, 2021
Time: 10:00–11:15 a.m. EST
Location: Zoom
Admission: Pay what you can (Students $5–25, Adults $10–$30)

Contemporary with Qarrianne Blayr and Quentin Apollovaughn Sledge

Date: Saturday, March 20, 2021
Time: 11:30 a.m. –12:45 p.m. EST
Location: Zoom
Admission: Pay what you can (Students $5–25, Adults $10–$30)

Afro-Cuban with Beatrice Capote

Date: Saturday, March 20, 2021
Time: 2:00–3:15 p.m. EST
Location: Zoom
Admission: Pay what you can (Students $5–25, Adults $10–$30)

West African with Stafford C. Berry Jr.

Date: Saturday, March 20, 2021
Time: 3:30–4:45 p.m. EST
Location: Zoom
Admission: Pay what you can (Students $5–25, Adults $10–$30)

Registration and Fees

You must register and pay to participate in dance classes.

Class fees are offered on a sliding scale. Give the dollar amount you are able to contribute for each class.

Students with ID: $5 – $25 per class
Adults/General Public: $10 – $30 per class
Household/Studio (3 or more people physically together): $30 per class

Meet the Artists

Professor Stafford Berry, Jr., Director of the African American Dance Company

Stafford C. Berry Jr.

Stafford C. Berry Jr., (Baba Stafford) is director of the African American Dance Company and a professor of practice in the Departments of African American and African Diaspora Studies and Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance at Indiana University Bloomington. Mr. Berry is an accomplished artist, educator, activist, and scholar of African-rooted dance and theater, and aesthetics. Prior to his appointment at IU, Mr. Berry was an assistant professor of dance and black studies at Denison University. He toured 14 years with Chuck Davis’ African American Dance Ensemble for which he was associate artistic director, and he was on faculty at the American Dance Festival. Mr. Berry is co-director of the Berry & Nance Dance Project, an all-male contemporary African dance company. Originally from Chester, Pennsylvania, Mr. Berry received his formal education in theater, dance, and music from Temple University and North Carolina Central University and his M.F.A. from Hollins University. He is a certified teacher of the Umfundalai Technique and has taught, choreographed, and performed African-rooted dance nationally and internationally.

Beatrice Capote

Beatrice Capote is a Cuban American contemporary dancer, choreographer, educator and founder of Contempo: Capotechnique Exercises. In her work, she fuses Modern, Ballet, African and Afro-Cuban dance techniques to support artists with building technical skills while deepening knowledge on African Diaspora traditions. Ms. Capote has served as the choreographer for Citrus, a choreopoem play (Northern Stages) & The Wedding Band Musical (Montclair State University). She has received choreographic commissions from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and The Dark Elegy Project inspired by Suse Lowenstein performed at Gibney Dance. In 2019, she was a MANCC Forward Dialogues artist in residence where she developed her most recent solo based on “Reyita, The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century” written by Maria De los Reyes Castillo Bueno. Her work has also been shown in major festivals/venues such as WestFest Dance Festival, Battery Dance Festival, BAAD! ASS Women’s Festival, Amherst College, Casita Maria!, Contemporary Dance Series at Bryant Park, Vision Festival and more. She began her training at Alvin Ailey American Dance Center and was featured in “Attitude! Eight Young Dancers Come of Age at the Ailey School” written by Katharine Davis Fisherman. She received her A.A. from University of North Carolina School of the Arts, a B.A. in Dance Education and an MFA focused on Afro-Cuban Dance Forms from Montclair State University. During the graduate program, her MFA Thesis choreography excerpt was featured on Bronx NETTV.
Ms. Capote has performed for prestigious companies such as INSPIRIT, a dance company and Kyle Abraham/Abraham. In. Motion. She is a current member of Bessie Award-winning Camille A. Brown & Dancers. To continue her work in the Latinx Artist community, she co-founded The Sabrosura Effect dance company and co-curates Pepatián’s Dancing La Botanica: La Tierra Vive project and Bronx Arts and Conversation showcase under the direction of Pepatián South Bronx. Prior to her position at IU, she served on faculty at Montclair State University, The Ailey School, Gibney Dance, Joffrey Ballet School, and as a guest artist/mentor for many universities and dance institutions.

Danzel Thompson-Stout

Danzel Thompson-Stout, a native of Allentown, PA is a performer, choreographer and educator of Afro-American dance forms. With an embodied cultural history in street and club dance forms, Thompson-Stout commits to being an agent who brings authentic representation of these forms into the academy through his work as he pursues his MFA in Dance at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His latest work, “Manifesting Our…”, an ode to house dance culture, was accepted into the ACDA National Gala 2020 in Long Beach, CA and was invited to Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival prior to the global shutdown by covid-19. His work as a filmmaker, “Plight”, supported by Experimental Film Virginia, premiered at Flatland’s Film Festival this fall 2020. As a performer, he has worked with several street dance artists such as Rennie Harris, Kyle Clark, and Vince Johnson. He is a principal dancer for The Nance Dance Collective and a guest performer for the Stella Maris Dance Ensemble of Kingston, JA. He is one of the last generation of performers who has worked under Dr. Kariamu Welsh and holds a teaching certification in her contemporary African technique, “Umfundalai”. He has been sought out globally at universities such as University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and conventions such as Afro Dance Xplosion in London, UK.

Qarrianne Blayr

Qarrianne Blayr (Fayetteville, North Carolina) earned her BFA degree at Howard University, studying under Sherrill Berryman-Johnson, Pat Thomas, Sandra Fortune-Green, Katherine Smith, Akua Kouyate and Assane Konte. She also studied traditional Jamaican dance at University of West Indies at Mona. In 2004, Ms. Blayr founded the performing arts group Arts International. She joined Dayton Contemporary Dance Company's (DCDC) first company in 2012 after having performed for two seasons in DCDC2, the organization’s training company. In 2019 was named Associate Artistic Directors of the company, and remains a member of the performing ensemble. Ms. Blayr has taught master classes and choreographed for DCDC, DCDC2, several University of Dayton and Central State University dance and theater productions, Hill Dance Theater Academy (Pennsylvania), Kazyna Dance Ensemble (Kazakhstan), the International Association of Blacks in Dance, among others. Touring and teaching nationally and internationally is a passion of Ms. Blayr's. Some notable performances have been in Astana and Oskemen, Kazakhstan; The Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Russia, and Dance Stages Shanghai Contemporary Dance Festival in Shanghai, China. A true believer in community, Ms. Blayr is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Ohio Teaching Artist Roster, and a Board Member of the Ohio Citizens for the Arts.

Quentin Apollovaughn Sledge

Quentin Apollovaughn is a professional dancer from the rough streets of Chicago’s South Side. He began his dance journey in 2009 under the watchful eye of Mr. Homer Hans Bryant, a former member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem. He attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA, in 2010–2014 and graduated with a degree in Business Administration with a Management concentration. Upon a stellar foundation laid by Homer Bryant, Sledge received intensive training for a year at Gotta Dance Atlanta with Darryl Foster, then at Spelman’s dance department, ultimately earning a place in the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company. Since joining DCDC, he has worked with world-renowned choreographers such as Mr. Donald Mckayle, Francesca Harper, Donald Byrd, Ray Mercer, and Ron K Brown. He has also performed in prestigious theatres such as the Joyce and the David H. Koch Stage in New York City and the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. Sledge has also participated in DCDC’s outreach initiative and spent many hours in the Greater Dayton and Cincinnati areas serving the community by teaching young people to dance. He was a featured soloist in the 2016 revival of Donald McKayle’s “Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulder” which was awarded a Bessie for most outstanding revival of a modern classic.

Contact

We’d love to hear from you!

Email aadcdw@indiana.edu with questions and for additional information.