T&T's dance lovers are in for a cultural treat of creativity and dance in a m�lange of colour, as La Danse Caraibe celebrates its 25th anniversary with the presentation, Our Identity 2010. The production will premiere at Queen's Hall with a gala opening on October 2, and will continue on September 3. Reflecting the cultural callaloo that is the Caribbean, the production will showcase a diverse array of dance genres, including ballet, modern, tap, hip hop, folk and limbo. At a time when Caribbean youth are bombarded by foreign cultural content, the founder and artistic director for the school, Heather Henderson-Gordon, said: "I thought it fitting to commemorate our silver milestone with a presentation that displays who we are as a Caribbean people and as a school.
Our Identity 2010 will bring our creativity and our local style to the stage." Armed with a deep passion to contribute to the cultural landscape of her home country, and equipped with training obtained from the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Centre, La Danse Caraibe was born out of Henderson-Gordon's vision to develop well-rounded dancers. The small school was formed in 1986 and offered training for children from age three, in the ballet and modern dance styles of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD).
In 1991, with the expansion of its teaching staff to include Hamid Rahman of the dance group, Eclectik, La Danse Caraibe became the first school in Port of Spain to offer formal training in hip hop dancing. Upon completion of postgraduate studies in the University of the West Indies' (UWI's) Arts and Cultural Enterprise Management (ACEM) programme in 2005, Henderson-Gordon renewed her focus to prepare dancers for the professional stage and invited award-winning folk dancer, Gregor Breedy, and Picton Folk Performers' Limbo dancer, Makeba Gabriel, to join her staff.
