WORKSHOPS
Explore dance styles of the AFRO DIASPORA and give space to inspiration, joy and creativity!
YENSA Festival will be hosting workshops this Fall 2023. Stay tuned!
AFRICA VIBES 2023 was exhilarating, inspiring and a real opportunity to create a meaningful exchange with artists from Chicago, US.
Each workshop throughout the week offered a different experience.
Imania shared her knowledge of West African dances from Guinea and Senegal (Sabar) and Afrobeat (mixed with West African street style & Chicago Footwork)
IMANIA FATIMA DETRY is a Chicago-born and bred performing and teaching artist with a focus in West African Dance. With over 20 years of professional training and performance with Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago as a principle artist and as the founding Member and assistant artistic director of Ayodele Drum and Dance, she truly enjoys and works in the efforts to preserve African dance and culture as well as share her current experiences and style in her teaching and performing! She has worked with artists such as Chance the Rapper, Fatima Robinson, Fox Productions, and more. Imania has expanded her choreography with fusion styles that include: Djembe and Dundun Dance, Sabar, House, Chicago Footwork and Afrobeat.
Follow Imania on Instagram: @imaniafatima
IDRIS DANIEL is an accomplished drummer and dancer born into a vibrant arts community on Chicago’s southside. He developed a love for many styles of African diasporic performing arts at a young age.
Currently, he serves as the Associate Artistic Director of Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago. Over the last 20 years, Idris has expanded his studies of various traditional music forms throughout the African diaspora. Idris travels to Brazil, Senegal, Gambia, Colombia, Cuba, Barbados, and Mexico frequently to train, study, and continuously immerse himself in the culture. He desires to educate and enlighten children in the Chicago inner-city by exposing them to the many contributions that people of the African diaspora have made to the world through dance, music, and other art forms.