Roundtable Event Aims to Explore African Diaspora through Song and Dance
By Jada Frazier
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Originally posted in The Collegian
A room full of people of different ethnicities and backgrounds danced in a circle, shaking their hands in the air and moving their hips. They were following the ministrations of Kevin LaMarr Jones, a ’94 graduate of the University of Richmond and founder of CLAVES UNIDOS, a collective of artists who explore and connect the African Diaspora through song and dance.
During the “Afro-Diasporicities Roundtable,” on Jan. 29 at 5:30 p.m., Jones had the crowd mirror his movements and even opened up the circle to allow various members of the UR community to dance freely.
The event was a part of “Dancing Histories: This Ground,” this year’s Tucker-Boatwright Festival. The festival is presented by UR’s theatre and dance department and features panels, performances and artist residencies.
Wednesday’s roundtable was hosted by theatre and dance professors Alicia Díaz and Patricia Herrera. The roundtable covered how to tell stories of people of the African Diaspora through oral history and performance internationally, nationally, in the Richmond area and on UR’s campus.
Left to right: Speakers MK Abadoo, Kevin Lamarr Jones and Free Bangura watch as Professor Alicia Díaz encourages Lauranett Lee to dance for the crowd. Photo by Jada Frazier of The Collegian
“It is in our doing, it is being in our bodies, that we can be with each other,” Díaz said. “To be present is to be part of the experience.”
Alex LaSalle, the founder of Alma Moyo, an Afro-Puerto Rican Bomba music group, was the first speaker at the roundtable to share his story.
LaSalle’s family encouraged him to learn more about his ancestry and culture as a teenager, and he spent the rest of his life studying the connections between his Afro-Puerto Rican heritage and his Afro-Latinx community in the U.S. through music, he added.
When bringing up the different musical styles he discovered from his culture, LaSalle demonstrated them by singing. He was accompanied by two drum players and a dancer.