Feb 19, 2010 1:30:51 PM | Introducing…Dance Brigades!

Introducing…Dance Brigades!

Anna Else Pasternak 02/16/2010

Dance is my Eros. Dance is the bridge between God and myself. It is this complete giving up of oneself to the dance which creates the threshold or bridge between the earth and a higher sense of enlightenment. I love dance because it sways in this threshold.

Dance is also one of the few worlds in which I am involved where women are not only prominent, but also dominant. I have always looked to women dancers as the embodiment of women empowerment, for dance is what has developed my own self-confidence, discipline, and empowered me. The arts are also an extremely important part of cultural preservation and development in any community, and unfortunately, often the most over looked.

For these reasons and more, I am overjoyed to be given the opportunity to start Global Dance Brigades. Training with the Panamanian National Ballet enabled me to make contacts with individual professional dancers also interested in creating avenues for artists to give back to their communities. With their support, Global Dance Brigades came into existence, and we are now in contact with the Malambo orphanage and other youth-at-risk programs that want to work with brigades. The Instituto Nacional de Cultura (INAC) of Panama has agreed to let us use the National Theater, local indigenous and contemporary choreographers, as well as professional dancers from such companies as Complexions in N.Y.C. are also thrilled to come help choreograph and teach! I am busy applying for intercultural arts exchange grants from the U.S. Embassy and I couldn’t be more excited to see this brigade eventually come to fruition!

During the dance brigade, volunteers will take part in: dance technique classes with international faculty, empowerment and movement workshops with at-risk youth and Panamanian dancers, and interactive cultural exchange events (Calypso composers, indigenous Kuna dance, Afro-Panamanian drumming, etc) led by local guest artists.   The week will culminate with an opportunity to perform in a site-specific piece outdoors and a performance in one of Panama City’s theaters. The brigade volunteers serve as the catalyst of the programming, empowering disadvantaged youth to reach their potential with workshops and performances that they conduct. While brigades are not in Panama, our current partners will continue to teach and work in the same communities. Panama is the current focus of Global Dance Brigades due to its rich cultural fabric of Afro-Panamanians, Chinese, Ngobe-Bugle, Kuna, Embera, Wounaan, and people of mixed heritage, however, I hope to see Arts Brigades in other places soon!

Some say dance is the quintessential rhythm of life and culture. Life, as Stanley Diamond sees it, “balances on the knife edge between chaos and meaning and that meaning is created or apprehended by man coming, as it were, naked into the world.” Dance continues to help me attempt to find meaning amidst the chaos, and it can do the same for others.

My life’s passion involves service and performance art. I hope Global Dance Brigades will be that cross-cultural movement that combines arts and global service!

Anna graduated from Harvard in 2007 where she studied anthropology, and focused on performance arts theory. She danced professionally and wrote for a travel book before coming to Global Brigades as Director of Global Environmental and Dance Brigades. She is extremely interested in how arts can be used in education, politics and everyday life! Please contact her at anna@globalbrigades.org and check out www.dancebrigades.org for more information about dance brigades.