Santa Monica College’s Global Motion World Dance Company will present “Peace and Security,” an exciting program of choreography showcasing dance styles from around the world.
Performances are Saturday, Dec. 6, at 4 pm and 7:30 pm, and Sunday, Dec. 7, at 7:30 pm in The Broad Stage at the SMC Performing Arts Center, Santa Monica Boulevard and 11th Street, Santa Monica.
The “Peace and Security” performance reflects SMC’s 2014 Global Citizenship theme and features traditional and contemporary dance styles, including West African, Ballet, Belly Dance, Contemporary Jazz, Filipino Dance, Flamenco, Korean Dance, Lyrical Jazz, Mexican Folklórico, Irish, Indonesian, Persian, Salsa, Swing, and Tango.
Global Motion, founded by Judith Douglas, is under the artistic direction of Raquel Ramirez and Sri Susilowati.
Faculty choreographers are Laura Canellias, Kealii Ceballos, Angela Jordan, Cihtli Ocampo, Brian Moe, Cynthia Molnar, Jennifer Jesswein, and Raquel Ramirez.
Guest choreographer is Peter deGuzman. Student choreographers are Nazanin Badiei, Justin Diaz, Andrew Hsi, and Mi Ja Kim.
Global Motion is a world dance performance company that expresses the concept of humanity in the form of global citizenship. The company is composed of SMC students who learn, rehearse, and perform world dance styles.
Global Motion provides a platform for SMC students to experience and learn about other cultures through world dance while working with professional choreographers who are experts in the field of world dance.
Global Motion has toured extensively and performed at schools, festivals, and special events throughout California and Mexico for more than 30 years. The company has recently – for the second time – returned from performances in Beijing, China.
Raquel Ramirez is co-director of Global Motion and a dance professor at SMC. She is also the founder and director of a folklórico performance group, and is dedicated to supporting the traditions and cultures of Mexico.
Sri Susilowati, originally from Indonesia, is co-director of Global Motion and a member of the SMC dance faculty. She is a dancer, choreographer and storyteller, creating and performing traditional and contemporary works that focus on community, gender, and ethnicity.
Cynthia Molnar is an acclaimed teacher, dancer, and choreographer who teaches Classical Ballet on the adjunct faculty at Santa Monica College. She also holds the position of ballet mistress for the On The Edge Youth Dance Ensemble in Los Angeles. Molnar will choreograph a duet “Romantique” Pas de Deux.
Guest artist Peter deGuzman is the artistic director of the Los Angeles-based Malaya Filipino-American Dance Arts. He received the 2012 Best Choreography Award at the L.A. Weekly Theater Awards for “The Romance of Magno Rubio,” which played at the Ford Amphitheater.
He will choreograph a dance piece that combines Pangalay dance style of Southern Philippines with a Tagalog (Filipino) proverb, and puts it into a contemporary context.
SMC student Nazanin Badiei, who started learning classical Persian dance in Iran at the age of 7, has been a professional Persian dance teacher for more than 10 years. She will choreograph two different types of Persian Folklore dances.
The Turkish and Kurdish dances performed by two groups of dancers will show how these different ethnic groups can dance separately, with their own movements, yet join each other and dance together in friendship by sharing their feelings and emotions.
Tickets, which sell out quickly, range from $15 to $18. Parking is free.
For tickets, go to www.smc.edu/eventsinfo or call 310.434.3005. For more information, see www.smc.edu/dance or call 310.434.3467.
