NIFCA Dance Finals maintains excellence and unfolds ‘discoveries’ 

The curtain came down on the 2023 NIFCA Performing Arts Finals with a night filled with wonderful choreographies executed by dancers who used their bodies to weave stories of love, pain, sorrow, friendship, courage, healing, music, mental health, and heritage all enhanced by costumes, lights, music or spoken word.

The NIFCA Dance Finals, themed: Sankofa: A Night of Discoveries, was a celebration of movement, an homage to those dancers who came before and a tangible demonstration of what the future holds in genres ranging from ballet, to street dance, lyrical jazz, to modern contemporary and African and Caribbean folk and praise dance. The Finals saw a total of 26 acts with eight making their debut.

Hundreds of dance aficionados, NIFCA stalwarts, family and friends gathered in the Frank Collymore Hall to watch the finalists go for gold and one of the many prizes offered in this creative art including the prestigious $35,000 Prime Minister’s Scholarship, The Richild Springer Award of Excellence and The Madame Ifill Award of Excellence.

This year, as part of NIFCA’s 50^th anniversary celebrations, entrants also have a chance to cop The Gene Carson Award of Excellence and The 50^th Anniversary of NIFCA Award for the Most Outstanding Presentation in NIFCA Dance.

During the four-hour show held on Thursday, November 16, soloists, duets, community groups, one secondary school, and dance schools stepped on stage to face the judges in 26 performances starting with The Ellerslie School doing a Sophia Lee choreography titled BLS Wise Vanguard and ending with Gem.in.I Project’s Unbroken, a Diane Brathwaite choreography which showed the many ways the COVID-19 pandemic and the fluctuating experiences impacted us a people.

Gem.in.I Project – Unbroken

Lee also choreographed Haynesville Youth Club’s two entries – Celebrating Our Heritage, a salute to the 160-year-old Barbados Landship and Nigbe Gbekekbi, a lively dance in the African category hailing African ancestry.

Also, among the groups performing were Pearls Dance Academy whose Culture gave snapshots of Barbadian culture intertwined with the engaging, fun tale of courtship between boy and girl all done to an original musical arrangement of Cultural Ambassador Dr. The Most Honourable Anthony ‘Gabby’ Carter’s classics Bridgetown Market and Emmerton.
 

Pearls Dance Academy – Culture

Dancers from the 58-year-old Barbados Dance Centre seemed to thoroughly enjoy performing Rhythmic Rhapsody and Dance Again as much as the audience enjoyed watching them execute the ballet and jazz entries respectively.

Barbados Dance Centre – Mother Nature’s Energy

In their third piece, Mother Nature’s Energy, they brought awareness to not only the importance of taking care of the earth, but how reliant humans are on it.

Although not chronicling the history of songs popular and dances, Multifarious Dance Crew’s B.F.A.B (Born from a Boom Box), told a story of music’s impact on an individual’s life, specifically and a nation generally encasing it as a “science experiment gone wrong” starting and ending with short clips from the popular 90s cartoon Pinky and The Brain.

Multifarious Dance Crew – B.F.A.B (Born from a Boombox)

Dance as a powerful method of communication and community was displayed by S. Neverson Dance Company’s And So We Danse; Gentle Steps Arts Academy’s had questions in Who Do You Judge and brought plenty attitude in Ballroom Babeez; Bajans in Movement represented different elements of time in a choreography of the same name and K-Eve’s (School of Performing Arts) celebrated sensuality, grace and strength, those aspects of womanhood and sisterhood in Feminine Synergy.

S. Neverson Dance Company – And so we Dance

The soloists also depicted various themes in powerful and gripping performances.

In Showstoppa inspired by the movie The Next Step, Anika Small showed her prowess in the in the self-choreographed entry and in Unrequited Love which she choreographed, Shaunell Neverson conveyed pain and other emotions from the unreturned love she was grappling with, effectively.

Shaunell Neverson – Unrequited Love

Faith Williams’ self-choreographed entries – Speak The Name, performed under Praise Academy of Dance banner, and It’s Back which portrayed the journey of a woman fighting against her worst fear were profound.

She also performed Bittersweet Chapter One, as part of a duo with Akil Ifill, an educator making his dance debut because he wants to see more males competing in the artform. They depicted a love tangle between a man and a woman.

Kemal Marshall in State of Recovery, which he choreographed, explored the idea of recovery as a never-ending process. He also explored the themes of struggle of mental health and grief among young people in a dynamic contemporary dance work showcased by Dreaming Black Boy Productionz in One More Day, the underlying message of which was that support from loved ones can help through difficult times and emotions.

Dreaming Black Boy Productionz – One More Day

That theme was also evident in Friendship Community Centre’s The Box and Issachar Arts’ Rescue, both duos, which dealt with suicide and strong support while Élevé Performing Arts Centre’s Healing examined the sorrow and anger that someone may feel as they navigate their healing process with the hope of a better tomorrow.

The Journey by Dancin’ Africa’s Jada Best showed that no matter the obstacles you face, you can overcome them by not quitting and in Kendra Leacock’s Rescue, she showed that leaning on God and His promise to guide and protect could carry bring you through any trials and tribulations.

NIFCA Dance Finals clearly demonstrated that the excellence synonymous with the festival, is continuing. (PR)