We’re going to the Nairobi Dance Life Festival!

It is with great excitement that I announce that They Dance For Rain was invited co-produce, partner, and perform in the Nairobi Dance Life Festival taking place in Nairobi, Kenya in July. Fellow artist and They Dance For Rain project alum Josephine “JoJo” McDonald will be joining me in representing, as well as, collaborating with our artistic partner TapaTapa in Nairobi to create an exciting and memorable experience of Tap Dance and performance. This opportunity to represent is an ideal outgrowth of our long-term efforts to nurture the Tap Dance community in Kenya since our first escapade in January of 2012.

TapaTapa April 2023

The burgeoning Nairobi Dance Life Festival was conceptualized by Kenyan dance artist Adam Chienjo along with the Goethe Institute as a response to the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It showcases the diversity and quality of dance in Nairobi from traditional to contemporary, via ballet, afrofusion, urban, seben, raga, and tap dance—the festival shows the vibrant dance scene that still exists, despite all the challenges.

Adam Chienjo, curator of the Dance Life Festival © Ray Ndikwe

To support our efforts please donate to our Fractures Atlas account here: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/they-dance-for-rain/general_support

Or come along to our next FUN fundraising event in NYC!

Four Wednesdays for Midday Moving

Let’s meet in April for 4 Wednesdays from 1-1:45p and take some time to move in ways that our bodies (and minds) need. You will be guided by me and my many years of study and service to the moving body. We’ll meet in downtown Pittsfield in my intimate, bright, calm, and creative studio space. Every session will be made exactly for who is in the room and will end with a little bit of facilitated unwinding from me.

All bodies are welcome. Space is limited. Please contact Stefanie.lynx.weberATgmail to rsvp or to inquiry about other days and time for sessions.

$20 each OR pre-register for ALL 4 for $65.

Plenty of parking and the building is easily accessibly. Clock Tower Business Center at 75 So. Church St., 3rd Fl. Clock Tower Artists Studio #313

(across from Big Y and next to Miller Art Supply)

Facebook invite: https://fb.me/e/Z9uM6dWv
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Stefanie Weber is an action-based dance artist and a certified movement specialist who offers private sessions in GYROTONIC and CFT (CranioSacral Fascial Therapy) along with aerial silks fascial release and restorative exercise principles. Her methods are also drawn from her life-long study of dance, somatic movement, meditation, energy, anatomy, and nature

I am so grateful for the many years of working with Stefanie. Her great experience, skill and warmth helped me in so many ways. I gained a new sense of the power of alignment in my body, both for healing and for functioning in general. Stefanie really instilled a new sense of mindfulness of the body in motion. I can’t recommend her highly enough! -Barbara Bonner, Housatonic, MA

An Unsilent Auction

We are back in action!

They Dance For Rain and The Foundry announce the long-awaited benefit event, SOFT SHOE BOOM BOOM SPIN!, an echo of the wildly successful interactive fundraising events SOFT SHOE BOOM (2015) and SOFT SHOE BOOM BOOM (2019). The funds raised from this event go directly to supporting They Dance For Rain’s dance-making programs in Nairobi, Kenya.

The event will take place on Saturday February 11th at 7pm at The Foundry at 2 Harris St in West Stockbridge, MA and will feature an experimental and interactive un-silent auction of improvising musicians who will respond to the participation of the audience who purchase from a menu of items for directing and conducting the performers.

Musicians include: Adriana Tampasis (flute), Andy Wrba (bass), Beth Craig (cello), Bonnie McCubbin (violin), Charlie Tokarz (saxophone), Conor Meehan (drums), Justin Geyer (keyboard) and tap dancer Stefanie Weber. More musicians and special instruments to be announced! 🙂

Before the musical feature, the audience will have the opportunity to add their words to a “mad libs” script written just for this event by the amazing Don Jordan and spontaneously performed by the audacious members of his Nutshell Playhouse crew: Maizy Scarpa, Mark Hohlstein, and Maddy Campbell.

A short work-in-progress film edited by Michael Sinopoli highlighting the Virtual Residency work of They Dance For Rain during the pandemic will be shown at the start of the evening when project directors Weber and Pizzichemi will reveal the exciting itinerary of this winter’s journey to Nairobi. 

The event will culminate with an Afro-Dance-Electro-Pop playlist dance party.

Creative projections by artist Joe Wheaton accenting the camera work of fine arts photographer Monika Pizzichemi will light the space throughout the night.

There will be a cash bar.

$25 for 7p entry for Unsilent Auction  
$15 for 8p entry for Dance Party

Get your tickets online HERE

Seats are limited and buying tickets before is highly encouraged.  

For more info about reserving tickets or donating offline call 413.344.8303 or email TD4Rkenya@gmail.com

Cannot attend? Please consider donating to THEY DANCE FOR RAIN HERE
 

Press

A Pittsfield woman is sharing her passion for tap with communities over 7,000 miles away

  • By Emma Ryan, Eagle correspondent
  • Dec 19, 2022
photo of Stefanie Weber at Shangilia Child Rescue Center in Nairobi by Monika Pizzichemi 2013

Click below for full article in the Berkshire Eagle

https://www.berkshireeagle.com/arts_and_culture/berkshirelandscapes/pittsfield-tap-dance-classes-nairobi-kenya/article_528f9432-7d9a-11ed-bf84-374eb6f9a073.html?utm_campaign=blox&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR27-rvUGT2hzzNeFuxcnEKLtnRCGwaRQ7MRxHhgdY0Nj8tSs6YRHU2dCi0