Joti Singh studied Guinean dance with master artist Alseny Soumah as part of ACTA’s Apprenticeship Program in 2007. Soumah’s family taught him to dance when he was a small child in Conakry, Guinea, and he performed with a neighborhood group before dancing professionally with Ballets Merveilles and Les…
Ruth Yafonne Chen (San Francisco) will study Chinese Wushu (sword dance) with Ling Mei Zhang (San Francisco).  Zhang studied with masters Liu Yuhua and Lee Wenjin in Tian Jinh and became the double straight sword Wushu champion for all of China in 1975.  She has taught martial arts for over…
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Cheza Nami

African and African diaspora Arts and Culture
Dance Group XoroTroptzi is a performing ensemble founded in 2012 under the auspices of the Bulgarian-American Cultural Educational Forum in Los Angeles. Evolving from simple social gatherings between friends to learn traditional dances, they are the only Bulgarian folk ensemble in Los Angeles. With a mission…
After citizens of the town of San Miguel Cuevas, Oaxaca, Mexico migrated and settled their families in the Central Valley, many became concerned that their children would not be exposed to their indigenous roots leading to cultural extinction. In 2001, community members came together to discuss how they can continue…
The mission of the Morava Folklore Ensemble is to preserve Serbian song and dance traditions and to pass those traditions onto future generations. Established in 1987 as an auxiliary organization of St. George Serbian Orthodox Church in San Diego with a few participants, three dance groups…
Sometimes when a people survive the greatest of tragedies, art and culture is the first thing they turn to in order to continue. Although 90 percent of all Cambodian classical artists perished between 1975 and 1979 after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, those who did survive wandered out from…
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David Chen

David Chen is a former choreographer and dance instructor of the Shanghai Opera and Dance Theatre. In his forty-year dance career, he performed numerous dances, as well as choreographed over thirty dances including such notable pieces as “Pantheon of Chinese Gods”, “Heroine Hua Mulan”, “Armor of the King” and “Peach-Flower…
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Seibi Lee

Kathak
Bay Area Youth Arts is a nonprofit program with a mission to help at-risk, inner-city youth develop discipline and self-confidence necessary to lead positive and productive lives.  Offering African and jazz percussion, as well as classical and jazz violin, students learn listening and learning skills that…