Dance Fest ends tomorrow

Close to 20 awards are expected to be handed out tomorrow evening, as the curtains come down on the 9th bi-annual edition of the Kingstown Co-operative Credit Union’s National Dance Festival.{{more}}

Up for grabs are individual titles of best solo, most expressive, most versatile and most promising dancer, with schools and group vying for other awards.

The finals, which will feature up to 25 performances on the night, takes place at the Peace Memorial Hall in Kingstown, and will feature gold medalists who participated in the three weeks of preliminary competition in the traditional, creative folk, hip hop, social and modern dance categories.

The Canouan Primary School were the 2008 most outstanding school winners, while the Renaissance Dancers were the best group when the competition last took place two years ago.

Tomorrow night’s finals will also see the guest appearance of two members of Cuba’s Ballet Theatre America of Havana Diamela Rodriguez Abreau and Rafael Hernandez Clavijo, who will be accompanied by Yuliet Abreau Fernandez, a percussionist from the rumba group Los Papines.

While here, the Cuban artistes will conduct a series of drumming and dance workshops at the Methodist Church Hall and the Peace Memorial Hall.

The visit by the Cubans will be the first of three high profile visits by dance groups.

Later this month a ten-member delegation will come to these shores also performing and conducting workshops.

They will be followed in November by a group of Native American Indians from a dance theatre in Philadelphia, USA. (JJ)