Shimmy Shift Pivot 2021
Voices from the Global South
Shimmy Shift Pivot is a thought-provoking webinar series and dance workshop that engages leaders in the arts and academia to tackle divisive issues such as race, colonization, identity, and gender violence as they are experienced through the lens of dance. It is an interactive, safe space for uncensored honest dialogue that builds community through deeper understanding.
Artfully facilitated by scholar-artist and Hanan Arts Founder, Tiffany Madera, these conversations aim to tackle the issues of our day with a new vernacular/framework that expands our vision, empathy, connection and creativity.
Join us virtually every Wednesday in September
from 1:00-2:00 PM EST
Making Space for Challenging Dialogue
WORKSHOP
Shimmy Shift Pivot: Baladi Workshop
Half-day dance intensive with Tiffany Madera
MDC’s Koubek Center
2705 SW 3rd St, Miami, FL 33135
to
Open to all levels
As part of Live Arts Miami and Hanan Arts‘ Shimmy Shift Pivot initiative, participants will engage in an intensive exploration of their bodies through the Baladi technique as well as critical dialogue around the issues and themes of the Shimmy Shift Pivot program including race, politics, and identity. The intensive will include discussion, reflection, and writing guided by prompts, improvisation, and interactive exercises. Movement is anchored in the Baladi technique, an Egyptian women’s folk and social dance which will be examined through an intersectional feminist framework. Baladi means Country in Egypt. It can describe a person, homeland, rhythm, dance, or various aspects of life.
BIOS
Tiffany Madera, dancer, producer, filmmaker
Since 2002, Miami-based artist Tiffany Madera has become a figurehead in the dance world by re-coding traditional Egyptian raks sharki dance as a tool for empowerment and social justice. As a performer, professor, activist, museum professional, filmmaker, and non-profit leader, Ms. Madera combines a highly aesthetic approach and academic scholarship to tackle the questions of our day.
She offers a theory-based, community-inclusive, and global south perspective to local placemaking in the production of films, workshops, and cultural exchanges in Miami, NYC, Morocco, and the Caribbean. Her expanded approach to the arts is nourished by her Afro-Chinese Cuban ancestry.
She holds a Master’s Degree in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University and a Master’s Degree in Performance Studies from New York University Tisch School of the Arts, both with a focus on intercultural dance and film.
Ms. Madera’s cultural background, professional and academic experience make her an impact-driven and effective nonprofit leader positioned to bring complex work to fruition through strategic partnerships and collaborations. Madera’s projects have garnered support and awards across the world including a $100,000 Knight Arts Challenge award with a full matching grant from the Ware Foundation among numerous state, county, municipal, and national foundation awards.
Helene Eriksen, Dancer, Ethnologist
Helene is a dance ethnologist, teacher, performer and choreographer of traditional dances of the Balkans and Islamic Orient as well as Argentine Tango and folk dance. She lectures and publishes on dance ethnology and costume studies. She has conducted many research projects in Bulgaria, ex-Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Greece, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Argentina as well as with immigrant communities in Europe and the Americas. Helene studied Dance Ethnology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and was later a doctoral candidate in Folklore, Slavistics and Turcology at the Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany. She directed her ensemble Raqs-e Hilal for several years in Germany. Since 1994 she has been teaching intensive ANAR DANA training programs internationally. Currently there are projects in the US, Germany and Argentina. As a dancer she has appeared on television, in large festivals and on stages around the world with performances in: Germany, Austria, England, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, France, Switzerland, Italy, Bulgaria, Croatia, Turkey, Russia, Canada, Norway, the USA, Pakistan, Algeria, Slovenia, Mexico, Argentina and Uzbekistan.
Roxxanne Shelaby, dancer, filmmaker
Roxxanne Shelaby began performing Middle Eastern Dance at the age of 5 and professionally at the age of 16 at the request of Farida Fahmy to represent The Reda Troupe (lead dancer of the National Dance Troupes of Egypt). Roxxanne has studied extensively with master teacher and choreographer Sahra C. Kent as well Farida Fahmy, Mahmoud Reda, Vivianne Hamamdjian, Aida Nour and Fifi Abdo and Ahmed Hussein. Roxxanne produces “Hypzotica” a monthly Middle Eastern Dance showcase with live Arabic music providing dancers of all levels the opportunity to experience and perform in an authentic cultural environment. Roxxanne also teaches ongoing classes and workshops locally and internationally sharing her knowledge of the culture and love for Egyptian Style Oriental and Folklore, Khaleeji and Dabke. Roxxanne is the producer/director of the renowned “The Fez Documentary” which traces the birthplace of Belly Dance on the west coast. The Fez Documentary serves as one of the few historical documentaries of our dance form. Not only does Roxxanne honor her father Lou Shelaby’s legacy but the legacies of the first Arabic musicians and belly dancers in Los Angeles who have gone on to teach and inspire generations world-wide!
Rachelle Salnave, filmmaker
Rahelle Salnave is a filmmaker and cultural leader. With over 20 years of experience, she has focused her lens on the Black Global stories. The first of a handful of filmmakers to document the gentrification of Harlem, Rachelle works include capturing stories about the Haitian Guantanamo Bay experience, Macadamia Nut planting experiments in Guatemala and spotlighting Haitian identity and its society. Rachelle was part of the first class of Sundance Institute Screenwriters Intensive Fellows in Miami in 2015. In that year, the General Consulate of the Republic of Haiti nominated Salnave with the “Beacon of Hope and Achievement” award. Her second feature documentary, LA BELLE VIE: THE GOOD LIFE landed her an Emmy nomination in 2016. In 2017, Knight Foundation honored Rachelle as a “Knight Arts Champion” for her cinematic programming, Ayiti Images and Black Lounge Films. Her current documentary films, MADAME PIPI is currently touring film festivals and she is in production for her 3rd feature documentary entitled DUAL CITIZEN.
Kaeshi Chai, dancer
Kaeshi chai is a NYC-based performer, theatrical director, teacher trainer, and award winning designer. She co-founded the professional dance company and school, Bellyqueen, and PURE (Public Urban Ritual Experiment), a global community focused on healing and social change through dance and music. Kaeshi has extensive training in contemporary dance, physical theatre and Silk Road dances spanning the Middle East to China. She has taught or performed in 47 states and 38 countries. She is an alumni member of the Bellydance Superstars, Jillina’s Bellydance Evolution and Kenji William’s Bella Gaia and curates the Djam NYC event for dancers and musicians to create and play together. Current projects include Ocean Stories, a performance integrating art and science to create more environmental awareness, and Creative Labs in which participants conceptualize, choreograph and mount full-length theatrical dance shows in 3-4 days.
Gina Margillo, Moderator
Specializing in Entertainment-Education, Gina Margillo produces and directs television, radio and web series, documentary films, and concerts for organizations such as the United Nations and Planned Parenthood Global for environmental justice, public health, and sexual and reproductive rights advocacy campaigns. Using the mediums of performance, conceptual art, video, and collage to tell stories, deconstruct issues, and build connection, her work is based on the belief that art can be a powerful tool for social change. Gina Margillo joined the Hanan Arts Executive Board in 2019.
Rosie Herrera, dancer and choreographer
Rosie Herrera is a Cuban-American dancer, choreographer and artistic director of Rosie Herrera Dance Theater in Miami. She is a graduate from New World School with a BFA in Dance Performance. She has been commissioned by The Miami Light Project, The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Ballet Hispanico, Jose Limon Dance Company, Moving Ground Dance Theater, Houston Met Dance, New World Symphony and the American Dance Festival (ADF) in 2010, 2011, 2013, 2016 and 2018. Her company, Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre, has been presented by the Northrop Dance Series, New World Symphony, Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami Light Project, Baryshnicov Arts Center, Texas A & M University, Duncan Theater, The Annenburg Center, Maui Arts and Cultural Center, Dance Place, Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans, The Yard at Marthas Vineyard, Alys Stephens Center, Wilson Center at Cape Fear University, The Rialto Center, Gotham Dance at Skirball and Focus Dance at The Joyce as well as by The American Dance Festival at the Joyce NYC in 2016 and 2018.
Dinorah de Jesús Rodriguez, filmmaker
Dinorah de Jesús Rodriguez is an artist based between Miami and Havana. Her work features handcrafted 16mm film, digital video, and rudimentary projections, often using elementary or outdated technology. Her works include expanded cinema, visual art, installation, and media design for stage, and she has exhibited internationally in film festivals, museums, galleries, TV, outdoor projections, and on-stage collaborations, in locations such as Bangladesh, Canada, Cuba, France, Greece, Honduras, Israel, Nicaragua, Portugal, Spain, and various cities in the United States. Since the 1970s Ms. Rodriguez has been collaborating with artists in every discipline to create multidisciplinary works that explore themes such as genetic memory, sexuality, ancestry, and projects rooted in nature.
Nejla Yatkin, dancer, filmmaker
Nejla Yatkin is an award-winning and critically acclaimed choreographer. Nejla hails originally from Germany bringing a luminous and transcultural perspective to her creations. Her focus is regularly drawn to the role that memory and history serve in constructing identity, causing and resolving conflict and transforming cultural tensions into deep, authentic moments of human connections. Since 2000, Ms. Yatkin has been choreographing solo dances inspired by great female choreographers resulting in 5 evening length solo works that have toured nationally and internationally around the world to critical acclaim. In addition, she choreographs for her own project, NY2Dance and has been commissioned by noted dance companies including The Washington Ballet, the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, The Maryland Dance Ensemble and the Baltimore Ballet, River North Dance Chicago, Leverage Dance Theater and Modern Dance Company. Ms.Yatkin has been the recipient of three Artist Fellowships for her Excellence in Dance and Choreography from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and a three-time recipient of the Creative Performing Arts grant from the University of Maryland.
Jillian Hernandez, author
Dr. Jillian Hernandez is a scholar, community arts educator, curator, and creative. Her work is inspired by Black and Latinx life and imagination, and is invested in challenging how working-class bodies, sexualities, and cultural practices are policed through gendered tropes of deviancy and respectability. Dr.Hernandez received her Ph.D. in Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University and is an Assistant Professor in the Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research at the University of Florida. Her book, Aesthetics of Excess: The Art and Politics of Black and Latina Embodiment, is in production with Duke University Press for Fall 2020 publication. Her articles have appeared in venues such as Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, and the Journal of Popular Music Studies, among others. She is also the founder of Women on the Rise!, an insurgent collective of women of color artists who work with Black and Latina girls in Miami, Florida. Over the course of a decade, the Women on the Rise! collective engaged thousands of girls in art making and critical dialogues about gender and society through feminist art.
Michelle Murray, dancer and choreographer
Michelle Grant-Murray has trained extensively in the areas of Ballet, Traditional and Contemporary Modern Dance, West African, Afro-Brazilian, Jazz Dance and Dance Composition. She has trained with prominent artists across the world such as Reginald Yates, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Katherine Dunham, Donlin Foreman,Nora Chipaumire, Rennie Harris and has studied at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and the Dance Theatre of Harlem.
As a choreographer, performer, educator, author, and social activist, she has presented work in Europe, South America, Asia, the Caribbean and the United States. Currently she is the Artistic Director of Olujimi Dance Theatre, the Miami Dade College Jubilation Dance Ensemble, and the Coordinator of Dance at Miami Dade College Kendall Campus. Michelle is also the author of Beyond the Surface: American Dance History.
