Pinelands Creative Workshop and the National Cultural Foundation Host Emerging Choreographers Workshop

Director of Dance at Bryn Mawr College, Lela Jones talks to the participants at the Emerging Choreographers Workshop which was held on Saturday, October 14th at the National Cultural Foundation Dance Studio.

Pinelands Creative Workshop and the National Cultural Foundation have collaborated on an Emerging Choreographers Workshop which was held on Saturday, October 14th, 2023, at the National Cultural Foundation Dance Studio, St James from 10-4pm.

The session which attracted 12 participants allowed the students to be trained by Lela Aisha Jones who is a movement performance artist and an interdisciplinary collaborator who is currently the Director of Dance at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania USA.

Chief Executive Officer of Pinelands Creative Workshop, Sophia Greaves-Broome said the organization had a longstanding relationship with Lela Jones and decided that as the organization focuses on the development of dance and their dancers that it was fitting to have a workshop with someone of international acclaim.

“The organization is in our season of development which is critical as we continue to build out new material in preparation of any national performance and for our own production. So, we have prioritized development at all levels within the organization, and this initiative, which is being led by Lela Jones who is also the Director of Flyground, is one of the activities that we are starting with to continue to have the kind of quality repertoire, performers and instruction that is expected of Pinelands Creative Workshop,” she said.

L-R Chief Executive Officer, Pinelands Creative Workshop, Sophia Greaves-Broomes, Director of Dance at Bryn Mawr College, Lela Jones and Cultural Officer Dance, National Cultural Foundation, Alicia Payne Hurley, pose for a photo after the successful completion of the Emerging Choreographers Workshop which was held at the National Cultural Foundation Dance Studio on Saturday, October 14th, 2023. 

Cultural Officer in Dance at the National Cultural Foundation, Alicia Payne-Hurley said with National Independence of Creative Arts in full swing this year, she believes the collaboration was timely. “To have an international workshop at this level just around the time of NIFCA which is our biggest developmental festival it was almost a perfect match – it married very well, and we were happy to assist anyway we could. Having Lela Jones here to help young emerging choreographers and give them an experience that they may or may not be able to have in a regular setting by being exposed to international training and the way things are done generally across the world is always something that we are ready to assist in. We know that it is very difficult for our artiste to travel readily and often so anytime a choreographer, dance teacher or any resource person is available to them the National Cultural Foundation tries their best to make our spaces and resources available to those who are our partners,” she said.

The CEO of Pinelands Creative Workshop, Sophia Greaves-Broome said the 12 participants were trained in Processing Spaces, Embodied Meditation, Collective Embodied Listening, Embodied Restorative Activism and the Mining/Witnessing and Archiving Method during their session.

“The participants were from age 18 to 35 with the drumming complement from the Pinelands Creative Workshop. In the afternoon, they focused primarily on the technical and compositional areas-building out choreographies, pulling out that extra in terms of their creativity, telling their story in their pieces as well as the new techniques which were designed by Lela Jones,” she said.

Both Greaves-Broome and Payne-Hurley are desirous of having further programmes such as the Emerging Choreographer Workshop moving forward as they believe it could assist with the overall development of dance in Barbados.
(Write Right PR Services)