Indonesian Dancers Perform, Lead Workshop with Green Street TLC Students

On Feb. 5, the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center hosted dancers from the Connecticut premier of Tari Aceh! (Dance Aceh!). The performance features a group of nine female performers from Aceh, Indonesia on their first-ever tour of the United States. Their dances, inherited from their ancestors, are stunning in their synchronicity and include rhythmic body percussion and the singing of both Islamic liturgical and folk texts, accompanied by percussion. The dancers are between the ages of 14 and 24, and study at Syiah Kuala University, located in Banda Aceh, the capital of the Aceh province on the western Indonesian island of Sumatra.

Green Street held a workshop with the Acehnese dancers for its AfterSchool students. The workshop exposed them to a similar dance from another culture. Afterwards, the Green Street TLC Hip Hop students taught the Indonesian dancers their own dance routine.

A supporter of Green Street TLC, the Center for the Arts regularly includes visiting artists in programming for the AfterSchool program.

A video and photos of the program are below: (Photos by Hannah Norman ’16)

[youtube]http://youtu.be/SAG3NZYI6Zw[/youtube]