Not sure if you’ve noticed, but when women from Louisiana move, there is something earth shattering, powerful and massively impactful with every step. This past Jazz Festival 2016 season MoeJoe was able to lend her independent dance services to local reggae band sensation, Higher Heights. The positive vibe group has moved the city of NOLA’s spirit with caribbean music and energy for years.
This season the band decided to work with different types of dancers who knew how to motivate crowds. Little did they realize, each dancer has a personal speciality in performance engagement and professional committment to native dance.
Leading the pack of experience is the 6th Ward Queen, Cinnamon Black. For over 30 years she has served as a culture bearer of New Orleans historic Treme neighborhood traditions with Indian and baby doll masking and has relentlessly served as visionary costume designer and voodoo educator at events, rituals and shops in the French Quarter. While on stage Cinnamon sends an unapologetic message for women in New Orleans culture to have a voice, remembrance and independence within tradition.
Then there’s Reina Foxx, the dread head Samba goddess from Honduras who electrifies crowds with NOLA based Afro-Brazilian group, Casa Samba, led by Curtis and Carolyn Pierre. Reina’s powerfully controlled hips and connection with polyrhythmic drums will make anyone want to sashay their entire body into convulsive isolations. She signals a caribbean ancestral connection of the African diaspora’s Brazilian experience and tradition with a smile that keeps you on your feet.
The youngest of the pack, MoeJoe. A studio and street trained self-proclaimed Afro-Creole folk dancer who brings the bayou Creole and southern dance experience to life at all times. As an independent performer, educator and fitness leader her danceout, Bounce Fitness w/MoeJoe, she lives to move crowds, while educating audiences on the audacity of southern female strength. Her message comes from the core of the refusal to hide identity. Each encounter she shares her holy trinity ingredients of self-confidence, passion and courage.
Dance has a different perspective and meaning to every person. As folk dancers-people who tell the story of the community, family, time and societal conditions non-verbal storytelling is our intersection, where live music and drums bring our stories to life. There we are able to incapsulate the stories of our ancestral journeys’ and present conditions through community. It’s an organic learning experience when artists can unite and creatively nurture a call to their inherited cultures, while responsively connecting movements freely within cross-contextual music experiences.
In featured photo: NOLA Dance Entertainer-Jennifer Jones
Photograph credit: The Baltimore Sun, The Darkroom REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman (UNITED STATES – Tags: ENTERTAINMENT SOCIETY)