You are welcome to attend our daytime or evening presentations of (6-9) dance, (9-12) dance and music in our Growing Room. Students have been working hard and have much to share.
As a certified Dunham teacher, Jeanne Speier shares rich cultural and social dancing heritage from Haiti and Africa with New School students.
We are grateful to have Jeanne Speier on our staff. She’s spent years studying dance in Bali and from Katherine Dunham herself. Katherine Dunham was a dancer, choreographer, anthropologist and humanitarian who developed a modern dance technique based on the primitive rhythms she experienced in Haiti and Africa. Dunham and her dance company performed in 52 different countries, in movies and on Broadway before settling in East St Louis where TNSM dance teacher Jeanne Speier studied with her.
In the video below, you will see students dancing with a blend of Dunham dance movements like Nagu and Haitian rocking horse.
In the video below, students are doing the African welcoming dance that moves into the Yonvalu which is a Haitian snake dance.