NEW DATE! KowTeff's 2018 Season Opener is Back: Djembe Dance with Darian Parker!!!

Thank you for your patience as we rescheduled our Season Opener due to inclement weather earlier this month!

Join KowTeff African Dance Company for our first dance class of the 2018 season! Come out on Tuesday, April 10th and learn traditional West African technique! With a mission of preserving traditional African cultural arts, we recognize the importance of "keepers of the culture" and that one generation must pass it to the next. KowTeff is pleased to present Darian Parker as our season opener instructor for the 2018 Dance Class Series! This first class of the series will feature Djembe dance...come out and enjoy!

About Darian Parker:

Darian Marcel Parker, hailing from Winston-Salem, NC, began studying West African dance at the age of 19 under the incomparable Nzingha Camara. Nzingha taught him that African dance is life. Since that fateful meeting, Darian has continued to travel to West Africa and throughout the US to study Guinean, Malian and Casamance dance styles. He has performed with a number of dance companies, including Les Ballets Kouman Kele (Nzingha Camara), Kouffin Keneke (Aly Tatchol Camara), Harambee Dance Company (Sandella Malloy) and Sewee African Dance Company (Mouminatou Camara).

His choreography and teaching have earned him grants from the Harlem Stage Fund for New Work, the Jerome Foundation and the New Haven Arts Council. As a teacher, he has served on the faculties of the Harlem School of the Arts, Forces of Nature Youth Arts Academy, Dwana Smallwood Performing Arts Center, and Cumbe Center for African and Diaspora Dance, among others. Whether teaching students or working with professional dance artists, his central message is always the same: everyone has genius; it is up to you to find it, accept it and develop it.