West African dance is an essential component of West African culture. Over time, traditional dances incorporated new moves, rhythms and ideas. Through the slave trade, and through national production of traditional dance forms, West African dance has found it’s way around the globe. West African Dance has influenced many popular American dance forms, such as hip-hop, salsa and jazz dance. Traditional dances are still practiced by many people today. Uzuri Asad caters to all levels of students and is part…

Start the season off right with Uzuri Asad! We get pretty excited about the spring equinox bringing us out of winter and officially starting the season of spring. But what exactly is the spring equinox? And does an equinox happen at the start of every season? First, let’s get into the equinox, which actually occurs just twice a year. The word equinox comes from Latin and means “equality of night and day.” So, the equinox occurs at two specific moments…

We are back with another edition of SOUND LAB! Join Oreo Jones at Listen Hear for an evening of sound exploration. Bring your synths, drum machines, pedals, theremins, or whatever you use to express yourself. Sound Lab is a reoccurring workshop where we explore ways to communicate and express ourselves through sonic waves. Each attendee will be encouraged to play a piece that they have been working on and share ways of how they approached their work. The group will…

An interactive workshop led by Mariah Ivey. Mariah is a graduate of Pike High School, studied at Columbia College Chicago and is an active Teaching + Performing Artist, Poet, MC, and Host/Coordinator of various local art and community events. She has spent the last five years working within the non-profit sector as a youth program facilitator and project manager where her love of young people, art, and education have all simultaneously come alive in order to create a more promising…