All Africa Dance Festival

This is to specially welcome you to be part of the delegation attending

the 'All Africa Dance Conference & Festival' in Nairobi between 9th and

13th of December, 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya.

The conference will be a great opportunity to learn from various

practitioners in the dance and peace building and Peace Education while

interacting with people from all over the globe for a great cultural

connectivity at the festival.

History and current experience shows that so deep are the pains of most of

the conflicts experienced in Africa that the popular individualized and

rationalistic approaches to healing and transformation simply lack the

language and resources to solidly address the challenge of holistic

peaceful transformation. 'Arts approaches' provide an accessible language,

compelling processes that affirm everyone's creativity and, above all, an

inclusive space that enables healing, genuine dialogue and transformation

to happen. Dance promotes the sense of belonging and can promote and

motivate change, unite communities for a cause and rally them to a common

vision including promoting peace, conflict prevention, Human Understanding

and democracy.

Inspired by the indigenous African motif of the 'drum,' Peace Drum Project

introduced by Purple Images Productions will 'drum up' a most

significant call to artistes-peace builders and peoples in Africa to take

greater leadership in intentionally and imaginatively transforming

ideologies of violence and, above all, (re)constructing a narrative of

just peace.

Various Artistic groups, producers, choreographers development workers,

cultural activists and teachers from Africa and other parts of the world

have confirmed participation in the festivals and workshops that will not

only impart skills in dance for peace and development but will celebrate

the use of dance as a tool for social change and development in Africa and

the world over.

The following topics will be facilitated by professionals in workshops

* The role of Indigenous dances in peace education

* Community Based Peace Education

* Indigenous Arts and Philosophy of Peace

* Integrated Arts Approaches in Healing, Dialogue and Transformation

* Advocacy and Dialogue using Dance

* Facilitating Community Based Arts and Peace programs

* Training for Dance Choreographers and producers in Peace building

* Arts Approaches to Peace building & Development

* Forgiveness & Healing using Dance

* Dance for peace and conflict prevention and management

* Democratizing Africa using Dance

* Storytelling in dance drama

The culminating carnival/ festival will provide a rich, inclusive and

challenging forum for reflective practitioners to celebrate their creative

richness; critically and deeply engage; dream and act jointly in producing

alternative cultural and dance products and in shaping new narratives of

just peace.

The best dance troupe coming up with a peace and human understanding

message will be awarded and so teams are encouraged to creatively get

involved seeing that the messages of peace created at the festival could

be used as a model for peace building in Africa and the world over.

Registration fee for this event is $130 for individual delegates, such as

consultants and activists and FREE ADMISSION

for delegates within a dance group from Africa (Registration forms are

available for

download from www.africadancefestival.com. Delegates must also meet the

costs of their travel and accommodation to Kenya. Groups that need

recommendation letter for scholarships will be assisted by the

secretariat.

Please visit www.africadancefestival.com;

email us on; info@africadancefestival.com

or call +254 020 4452674/ 4450937 for more information.