Master Classes

Master Class Schedule

Because dance should be experienced as well as seen, The Miami Dance Festival annually offers master classes with the Artistic Directors of participating companies and other dance artists of note. Classes are a great opportunity to meet the company directors and other dancers while trying out new styles or brushing up on styles you already know. The 2010 Festival offers a diverse selection of classes from Ballet to Bollywood! All classes are offered at the intermediate level.

All classes are offered at the Intermediate level. $15 in advance $20 at the door. Master classes take place at PAN (Performing Arts Network), 13126 West Dixie Highway, North Miami. 305-889-7730. Entrance and free parking are in the rear of the building.

  2010 Master Class Schedule and Location TBA

  

  

  

  

Elena Garcia, Artistic Director of roko Afro-Cuban Dance Theater

Elena Garcia holds a degree in Modern Dance and Cuban Folklore from the National School of the Arts of Cuba. She was a company member of the prestigious Conjunto Folklorico Nacional de Cuba. Her style is very unique with a Latin twist combined with various ethnic and contemporary forms of movements. Ms. Garcia’s international credits include working as an instructor, dancer and choreographer in Spain, Germany, Argentina and the Dominican Republic. After relocating to South Florida, she founded the Iroko Afro-Cuban Dance Theater, presenting full seasons of performances and outreach programs in South Florida for several years. Ms. Garcia has been commissioned to choreograph for numerous artists and companies including a Lambada piece for Fernando Bujones’ presentation in Miami in 1990, numerous presentations of Latin diva Albita including the video “Azucar pa’ tu amragura”, and several plays for the Prometeo Theater. In the last twenty years, Ms Garcia has been a frequent guest of different Dance Festivals including the Florida Dance Festival in Miami, Florida, the Hispanic Festival at the Global Education Center in Nashville, Tennessee, the “Fa Nyere Fa Annual African Dance & Drum Conference” in Atlanta, Georgia, the Summer Dance Institute of Cleo Parker Robinson Dance in Denver, Colorado and the Hispanic Festival in Nashville, Tennessee. Since 2001, Ms. Garcia has been a member of the faculty of the dance departments at the New World School of the Arts and F.I.U. in Miami.

 

Augusto Soledade, Brazz Dance Theater Artistic Director

Augusto is a native of Bahia, Brazil, is a performer and choreographer and currently serves as a full-time Assistant Professor in Dance at Florida International University in Miami, FL and as Founder, Artistic Director, and Resident Choreographer of Brazz Dance Theater. In 2007, Soledade was awarded the Individual Artist Fellowship, the Artist Enhancement Grant, and the International Cultural Exchange Grant from the State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. In 2005 Soledade received the Miami Dade Choreographer’s Fellowship, the Creative Capital Workshop Grant, and the Community Grant from Miami Dade Cultural Affairs. He has been awarded multiple grant funds from the Northampton Arts Council and Smith College to develop choreographic as well research projects. Other positions Soledade has held at universities and colleges were: Visiting Assistant Professor and Graduate Advisor at Smith College, MA, from 00–04; Visiting Assistant Professor in Dance at the University Of Michigan at Ann Arbor, MI, from  99–00; Guest Artist Instructor at Wells College, NY; and Adjunct Instructor at the University of Rochester, NY,  from 98–99. He received his M.F.A in Dance from SUNY Brockport, NY in 1998. He also received the 1998 Pylyshenko-Strasser Graduate Dance Award, and he was the finalist in the dance category for the 1998 Thayer Fellowship. Soledade has performed in Brazil, Trinidad/Tobago and throughout the United States. His dance training started at the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil in a program with strong modern dance emphasis and has had training with Garth Fagan, Clyde Morgan. He also holds an undergraduate degree in journalism from the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil.

Geeta Dias, Bollywood Dance Instructor

Geeta was born in 1967 and raised in Bombay India the home of Bollywood movies and dance. In 1993 she moved to Miami, Florida where she currently resides. Beginning her dance training at age nine, she studied the classical Indian dance style of Bharatnatyam throughout elementary and high school. She has won awards in several group dance competitions. In 1983 she began studying Kathak another classical Indian dance style while completing a BA from St.Xaviers College  - University of Bombay. While in college she performed many other Indian folk styles of dance like Bhangra, Garba and Dandiya Raas. She received her teacher training at the Nritya Jyoti Dance Academy founded by Khurshid Vajifdar Chavda a disciple of Uday Shankar, she also studied under Jeroo Chavda and studied further at Nritya Manjari Dance Academy founded by Shirin Vajifdar. She and her students have performed at events held by the Chinmaya Mission in South Florida, the Association of Indians in America – South Florida, the Sindhi Association of South Florida and the Arya Samaj of Miami. She currently teaches Indian Classical, Kathak and Bollywood dance styles.

Delma Iles, Momentum Dance Company Artistic Director

Delma is the founder of Momentum and has produced its performances and programs since 1982. She holds an M.F.A. in Dance from New York University and a B.A. in Teaching of Ballet from Virginia Intermont College. She has danced with the Cincinnati Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, and the Atlanta Ballet. In New York City she worked with Rachel Lampert and Stuart Hodes, as well as choreographer Steve Goldbas and stage director Mark Roth. In Miami she was a soloist with Fusion Dance Company and has appeared as a Guest Artist with Ballet Concerto Company, the Greater Miami Opera, the Miami Chamber Symphony, the Gold Coast Opera Company, the Mirochnik Ballet, and many others. She studied in Paris, France on a Rotary Foundation Fellowship in 1978, and was awarded State of Florida Arts Fellowships for Choreography in 1987 and 1992, as well as Honorable Mentions in 1997 and 1998; and New Forms Florida Grants in 1993 and 1998. In addition to creating more than forty works for Momentum, she has choreographed two off-Broadway shows, several works for the Greater Miami Opera (Now Florida Grand Opera) and the Miami Chamber Symphony, work for the Florida Shakespeare Festival, and her work has been featured on three programs produced by WPBT Channel 2. Her Sand Dance was included in a film celebrating the arts in Florida commissioned by the Florida Arts Council, and she has created works for the Dance Umbrella of Greater Miami, Metro-Dade Art in Public Places, the Center for the Fine Arts (Now Miami Art Museum), Miami Dance Theatre, the Tallahassee Civic Ballet, Bristol Concert Ballet Company (Bristol, Va.), the Northwest Florida Ballet, Ballet Pensacola, and Ballet Concerto Company, among others. She has been guest faculty twice for the Florida Dance Festival, as well as for the Northwest Florida Dance Festival in Pensacola and many other festivals and workshops. She has performed and lectured for the Florida Arts For A Complete Education conferences, and performed with Momentum, as well as teaching classes and workshops at the Jose Limon International Dance Festival in Mazatlan & Culiacan, Mexico in 1995. She was the Executive Director of the Children's Cultural Coalition from 1995-1998, and is a designated Florida Department of State Arts in Education Artist. She created the dance portion of a full Performing Arts curriculum at La Salle High School, and is currently on the dance faculty of Miami-Dade College, Wolfson Campus. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Dade Cultural Alliance, and formerly served on the statewide Boards of Arts for a Complete Education and the Florida Dance Association. She was awarded the 2003 Doris Leeper Award for her contributions to Arts Education throughout Florida by Arts for a Complete Education, a statewide arts education advocacy group.