A Grand Forks dance instructor was given a $1,000 arts grant by city hall and the city’s art gallery, Gallery2.
The funding partners award annual civic arts grants to promote arts and culture in Grand Forks and the Boundary. Grants are awarded by jury, according to a letter by Gallery2’s curator and art director, Tim van Wijk
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Michele who has taught world and folk dance in the community for 20 years, said she was “very pleased” to get this year’s grant on behalf of her company, Rara Avis Dancers.
The money will go toward costumes for the world and folk dance performances she directs. Every dance performance requires specific, meticulously designed costumes Cipressi said are produced by local seamstresses, Claudia Kley and Irina Makortoff.
Cipressi stressed that her company observes “points of respect” in representing other people’s cultures through dance.
“You can’t touch on a North American white woman teaching folk and world dance without visiting the topic of cultural appropriation,” she told The Gazette.
“It’s a subject I’ve spent countless hours researching and discussing among the people of the cultures that I’m working with and staging dances from.”
“We’re not just slapping costumes on and dancing to music,” she continued, highlighting the significance of authenticity in her work.
“If I’m going to be staging a dance that comes from a Muslim culture, I will make sure that, in that whole entire dance show, there’s not a scantily-clad belly dance piece — just because it would be starkly at odds with the cultural value of modesty. And it would cause confusion, which is really the biggest problem.”
Cipressi said she hopes to showcase three recitals in 2021 featuring folk dances from North Africa and the Levant. She added that she wants to see more men on stage, noting that dance tends to appeal mostly to local women.
“I’m teaching world and folk dance. And folk dance is for and of the people. It’s not an elitist dance form: It’s open to everyone,” she said.
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laurie.tritschler@grandforksgazette.ca
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