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SKIN JAN 11th

Every Tuesday at the Osher Integrative Medicine Center in SF, cancer patients gather for a weekly dance class. Through movement, expression, imagery and creativity they become conduits for their own healing. By re-awakening the body, the dancers find confidence, freedom, fellowship and gain new strengths. Likewise, the Kalahari Bushmen of South Africa gather when the night air is cool (a time when sound travels best) to engage in an ancient ritual of dancing until the sunrises. This “trance dance” is done for community healing and often will include drumming as a way to contact ancestor spirits.

In 1791, African slaves in the French colony of Saint-Domingue banded together in the most successful slave revolt in history. After thirteen long years, the result was the founding of the Republic of Haiti and the first country in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery completely. Woven into the rich and passionate history of the Haitian people is the expressive and healing experience of dance. Many of these folkloric dances arose in response to surviving oppressive and arduous conditions.

In the neighboring island of Cuba, the marginalized danced rumba in the streets as a form of social protest. Both before and after the Cuban Revolution, rumba provided an outlet for the Afro-Cuban people who were responding to oppression, high unemployment and inadequate water supplies. Rumba, a synthesis of music, dance and poetry was social protest in disguised form and bonded generations of people.

Dancing as a means to move beyond trial, tribulation and suffering has been etched into our collective history. For thousands of years, we have been dancing to tell our stories, to express survival, to call upon ancestors and to share our joy. Our dances might be wild, diverse, feminine, masculine, new, old, proud, inspiring, emotional, mischievous, sensual, awkward or dynamic but they are uniquely ours. Join us as we gather to share our stories as we honor and celebrate Haitian Independence, Cuban Liberation and the promise of a New Year.

*THREE ROOMS OF MUSIC*

Hosted By: Candi

DJ Cecil + Vocalist Monique Vieras
Live Percussion with Ajayi Jackson & Soul Mojo
DJ Leydis of Cuba
Emancipacion
Diaztek
Son of Son

Live Art: Jack + Alise Eastgate of EastRand Studios
Artisan Vendor: Estilo Clothing
Afro-Cuban Salsa Instruction: Sean Foster

Venue Oakland
420 14th St.
Oakland, CA / 21 & Over

Doors 8pm, $5 Before 10pm / $10 After
Afro-Cuban Salsa Class 8-9pm / Music 9pm-2am.

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