“World Dance Showcase”
Wednesday April 15, 2015
8pm at Lannie’s Clocktower Cabaret
1601 Arapahoe St., Denver CO 80202
Natalia Perez del Villar
Director & Choreographer, Flamenco Underground
Natalia Pérez del Villar was born in Oviedo, Spain. She started her studies of dance at the age of nine with classical ballet. At the age of thirteen, while continuing her studies of classical ballet, she began to study flamenco dance in Oviedo where she performed with the Cuadro Flamenco de Iván Bravo. With Iván Bravo she also learned jazz and Russian dance. She then moved to Jerez de la Frontera (Cadiz) to continue her flamenco studies at La Fundación Andaluza del Flamenco. Natalia has studied flamenco with Paloma Fontenelle, Iván Bravo, Matilde Coral, Rafael “el negro”, Marisol Moreno, Juan del Valle, Adriana Maresma, La China, Azucena Vega and Pablo Rodarte. Natalia is very focused on exposing people in Colorado to this beautiful art form by bringing Flamenco artists from other parts of the USA and from Spain to do shows and teach workshops.
Thomas Lynch
Thomas will be performing the Rambling Rake Irish set dance on April 15th. He has been Irish dancing for thirteen years and he has competed in both the National and World Irish Dance Championships. He is currently a junior at The University of Denver where he studies theatre and marketing, and also took Broadway Dance Technique with Professor Brozna his freshman year.
Eva LaBriere
Director of Evalucien Dance, Salsa
Eva began her dance training at six years old, as a competitive Irish Step Dancer, and danced throughout her childhood and teenage years. As an adult, she discovered a love for Latin America, Latin music, and Salsa dancing in particular. She learned my first basic steps in a high school Spanish class, a few more as an international student in Costa Rica, but began her true love affair with salsa seven years ago. Since then she has lived and breathed salsa, traveling for the opportunity to train with master teachers, including: Erica Reyna and Javier Campines, Anita Santos Rubin, Gaby Equiz and Alien Ramirez. Eva was a principal dancer for the competitive/performance team SalsaKo (Denver, CO) from its inception in 2010, and founded Evalucien Dance Company in 2013. The name Evalucien is a play on words, but also expresses her intention as a dancer and human – to continue to learn and evolve.
BaleFire
BaleFire is a professional Belly Dance Fusion performance troupe out of Littleton Colorado. Founders Quaintance Hawthorne and Joli Castor have been dancing and performing together since 2010 and recently added three amazingly talented dancers to the troupe: Teri Awwad, Belinda Borsick and Melanie Bentley. Together they found the beauty of friendship and dance is a bond unlike any other. Tonight they are dancing a high energy Balkan and Bhangra inspired sword dance, bringing together three unique styles and making it their own.
Mila Popovich
Mila Popovich is an awarded international performing artist, choreographer, and art director. She specializes in Oriental Dance, Flamenco, and Experimental Theater, and has been recognized as “The Best of Santa Fe Art District.” Coming from Montenegro, the crossroads of East and West, she embodies the passionate spirit of the Mediterranean. In addition, Mila Popovich is an interdisciplinary scholar and a bilingual poet. With expertise in Comparative Literature and Humanities, her current work focuses on the issues of woman’s migrations and migrant women’s subjectivity in relation to globalization processes. She is an Associate Fellow at the World Academy of Art and Science, where she serves as the Chair of the Academy’s Membership Communications Committee and an international interdisciplinary lecturer of the World University Consortium.
Tejas
Tejas performs and teaches Odissi and Semi Classical Bollywood Dance. She has dedicated her life to the study of Bharathanatyam and Odissi. Tejas has also studied Kathak, Bellydance, Flamenco, African dance, Ballet and Salsa, which gives her a unique style that she incorporates into her Bollywood choreographies. Tejas travels the world teaching and performing Indian Dance, her greatest passion. Tejas studies, performs and teaches Odissi, East Indian Classical Dance from Orissa. Odissi is a sacred and spiritual dance, a divine offering, originally only performed in temples. Odissi is a beautiful and ancient art dating back to the 2nd Century BC. It is a lyrical dance which evokes the water element with fluid and graceful movements. Tejas founded an Odissi Dance Troupe called Shakti in 2004 and its companion group Maya Lakshmi, a Bollywood Dance Troupe in 2008, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with the help of her student Victoria Garrison.
Marsha “Vashti” Bowen
Marsha “Vashti” Bowen is passionate about studying different people and cultures. Music and dance expresses a culture’s “voice”, and she feels that learning and performing them has made her own life richer and given her a better understanding of and genuine love for people all over the world. Over the years she has studied and performed many ritual and traditional dances of Central Asia, Middle East, West Africa, Balkans, and North Africa.
Neena Massey
Neena Massey was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. She is a dancer, painter, teacher, singer, fashion designer, actor and writer. Her current projects include “Raven Speaks”, a performance art piece that includes vocals, dance movement using Sacred South Indian Storytelling (Abbhinaya) and hand gestures (Mudras), performed to electronica. Neena choreographs and performs Bollywood/Latin-infused dances at events and weddings around the United States, including Denver, New York, and San Francisco. Her background is in Middle Eastern, South Indian and African Dance. She has danced “Bharatnatyam” at yoga studios and the Star House in Boulder. She writes song lyrics in English, Spanish, Urdu and French. She has also performed as a vocalist at Vocal Intensive Studios in Denver and Littleton. She works as a Montessori Education Specialist and Chorale Director at Escuela Tlatelolco. Her choir has performed at various venues, including Arvada Center, DCPA, The Denver Mason Center, International Human Rights March, Martin Luther King Marade and Auraria Campus. Neena is immersed in many forms of art. In addition to the above, she is writing a children’s book, and a screenplay.
JOIN US FOR WORLD DANCE CLASSES IN DENVER
Bella Diva Dance’s new studio is located in the Glendale Center on E. Mississippi Ave and Birch St, near Colorado Blvd. We offer you: Belly Dance, Samba, Yoga, Bollywood, Hot Hula Fitness, Afro-Caribe and Kids’ World Dance. Contact Caitlin for more information about classes: 303.359.9414 or email us at [email protected].
Last February, Bella Diva Dance joined a worldwide effort to speak up to end violence against women. The One Billion Rising campaign launched in 2012, and since then events take place in 200 countries where women, men and children raise their voices and dance in flash mobs outside court houses, police stations, and other public places where women deserve to feel safe but too often do not.
