CALGARY -- As part of the ongoing celebration of Black History Month, the stage of The Grand will come alive this weekend with a jubilant display of dance.
Unganisha: Explore. Connect. Dance. blends artistic genres in a similar vein to how Wunmi Idowu — the show's founder and artistic director — personifies several distinct cultural influences.
Idowu spent her formative years in Lagos, Nigeria before relocating to Edmonton where she studied and performed dance for nearly two decades. The accomplished performer moved to Calgary where she has lived for nearly ten years.
Saturday night's performance at The Grand will be the third production of Uganisha. The show features dancers and actors depicting the origin stories of Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Cuban dance through film, music, theatre and dance.
"There’s everything — there’s acting, dancing, sometimes singing," explained Idowu. "There’s multimedia, voiceover. We want to be extravagant. We want people to leave the theatre wanting more."
Idowu says Unganisha will showcase Calgary dance groups as well as individual dancers in performances that will show the evolution of the artform.
"We’re merging the history and the modern style of dance together -- so you’ll get to see what it looked like and how it changed to what it is now."
The cultural sharing will extend off the stage as the theatre will be transformed into an Afro-Canadian cultural marketplace Saturday between the 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. performances. The market is scheduled to be open between 3:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Idowu hopes the market will expose Calgarians of African or Caribbean descent — a sector of the community that she says seldom partakes in the theatre — to the performances.
CTV Calgary is a corporate sponsor of Unganisha.
