Trip to Senegal w/Fatou-Carol Sylla

Greetings fellow travelers and potential fellow travelers;
Here is the new, updated payment information about the Special Cultural Exchange in Senegal this summer. Study West African dance, music, culture and the healing arts/ritual from the villages of Casamance to Goree Island to the metropolitan capital city of Dakar,   Find more info below.

A deposit of $250 is now due to hold your seat. I have reserved ten seats. $1500 more is due on May 1, 2006 to complete the airfare. The balance is due June 1, 2006 (this last payment date could be a little flexible if necessary).
 
Please mail checks to Fatou-Carol Sylla, 220 Chestnut Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

STUDY Summer 2006 IN AFRICA

West Africa is rich with humanistic culture that is transferred from generation to generation through the art forms. This course will oller students a Senegalese grass­roots cultural emersion experience with the opportunity to study West African dance and music. Through a dance ethnological approach, students will also explore the roles dance, music and the integrated arts play in traditional West African culture.

This exciting two-week study abroad program is open to anyone with a genuine interest in experiencing African culture through a life-to-life exchange and a hands ­on experience through the arts.

While based in the rural city of Zigincbor, students will spend a week cxploriog the dance, music and culture of the Casamance, the most southern and beauliful region and known as the garden of Senegal. This is a special summer in Casamance because the long awaited puberty rites will take place. Students will participate in the preparations for sending the initiates off.

Students will spend a second week on the beautiful, historic island of Goree, a twenty-minute ferry ride from Dakar, the capital of Senegal. The island of Goree is home to a village hundreds of years old that has also developed a new artistic and cosmopolitan flavor due to its proximity to Dakar. Many traces of the past, however, still remain on Goree. Walking is still the only means of transportation on the island and the Slave House Museum stands as a reminder of its history as a major port for the exportation of Africans as slaves.

While in Senegal students will have the opportunity to:

Study indigenous dance and drumming in their traditional contexts as well as with members of the National Ballet of Senegal.

Participate in community drum and dance festivities, puberty rites preparations and a whole day healing ritual.

Visit the Slave House and Ifa Museums, the University of Dakar as well as attend a National Ballet rehearsal and hear from the artists.

Meet with traditional medicine practitioners, watch artisans at work and visit traditional open markets in Ziginchor and on Goree Island.

Study Senegalese history and culture, with special focus on the arts and spirituality, community and healing; the influence of Islam and colonialism on traditional ways of life and the history of Casamance, a region separated from its own country by Gamhia.

The cost of this arts based cultural exchange is $2950. It includes roundtrip airfare from NY/Dakar/NY, airport transfers, accommodations, midday and evening meals (except when traveling); all classes and planned excursions.

Meals are local cuisine, home cooked to share family style. (Vegetarians welcome)

The Credit Option cost for three Lesley University credits is $630.

Fatou-Carol Sylla founded A Special Cultural Exchange in 1985 and has organized and led West African arts based, grassroots study abroad programs for almost two decades in Senegal, Guinea and Guinea Bissau. She does this in conjunction with

Sadio Diatta Rosche, international artist and tour organizer in her native Casamance, Fotigue Toure, music director of the National Ballet of Senegal, Cheikh Sene, professor at the University of Dakar, as well as many other artists and family members.

For more information call Fatou-Carol at 617-868-6193 or send an email to underthesundandd@hotmail.com.

Contact us as soon as possible to insure fight reservations.

 

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