Eight incredible dancers from the Learning & Empowerment through the Arts Program (LEAP) have successfully completed 2022 edition of the Art Saves Lives Summer Intensive, which ran from July 4 to 8 in in St. Maarten.
The dancers from Saint Kitts and Nevis, joined dancers from Florida, Holland and over 150 students from St. Maarten for the ninth staging of the event.
The week-long program was held at INDISU Dance Theater of St. Maarten and included Advanced Hip Hop, Afro Soca Dance and St. Maarten Traditional Dance & Song. The Community Outreach sessions include Tap and Percussive Dance with Maud Arnold and West African Dance with Karisma Jay heads to Concordia, St. Martin.
Art Saves Lives, a registered foundation which provides young artists the opportunity to participate in masterclasses and be mentored by internationally renowned creatives, was founded in 2013 by former Broadway dancer, Nicole De Weever.
This year, De Weever’s 24-member dream team included the first African American woman Dean of the Julliard Dance Department Alicia Graf Mack, the Director of Strategy and Operations at Google Dale Allsopp, Living Legend George Faison, the first African American to win a Tony Award for Choreographer on Broadway and Clara Reyes, who she calls “St. Maarten’s National Treasure” and the gatekeeper of the island’s cultural dance and song.
The Learning & Empowerment through the Arts Program (LEAP) serves St. Kitts & Nevis as a flagship center for creative fluency and unrivaled artistic excellence. Founded monumentally on January 9th, 2010, it is now the Federation’s largest arts-based organization, operating as haven for hundreds of local artistes.
