{"id":42752,"date":"2017-11-09T00:02:25","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T06:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=42752"},"modified":"2017-11-09T11:52:44","modified_gmt":"2017-11-09T17:52:44","slug":"dance-company-opening-doors-between-ole-miss-and-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/dance-company-opening-doors-between-ole-miss-and-cuba\/","title":{"rendered":"Dance Company Opening Doors Between Ole Miss and Cuba"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone can dance, sort of. Most everyone can square dance, cupid shuffle, or waltz, but to convey emotion in a way a musician or painter does with their chosen art form is a real talent. Jennifer Mizenko<\/strong> began dancing as a young child and now works with dancers and actors at the University of Mississippi<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI have three brothers,\u201d said Mizenko. \u201cSo, while this isn\u2019t a very PC statement today, my mother put me in dancing school because she didn\u2019t want me to walk and talk like a boy. I took to it, but the irony was that it wasn\u2019t the ballet I took to it was the jazz and the more athletic. I\u2019ve always been an athlete. It appeals to that part of me but also there\u2019s the aesthetic aspect that sports don\u2019t have.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As part of her continued efforts to educate about the world of dance, she has put together a three-part program<\/a> that will bring the talented Malpaso<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0dance company to Oxford, Mississippi all the way from its homeland of Cuba. First the dance company will arrive in Oxford to work with students, then as part of a study abroad program Ole Miss students will travel to Cuba, and finally Malpaso will return in January to perform with the students at the Ford Center.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe structure of the whole thing, I was really approaching it as they come to Oxford and get to know us in our space. They see our life and culture, then we get to do the same,\u201d said Mizenko. \u201cIt\u2019s creating that friendship and dialogue. Then of course the pinnacle is performing January 27 at the Ford Center.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea for this endeavor was sparked while Mizenko was catching up with an old friend.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLast year around this time I just got an idea,\u201d said Mizenko. \u201cI had no company in mind, no plan. I have a friend who does a lot of work in Cuba, Milly West. She\u2019s brought Cuban artists to Oxford before and I thought wouldn\u2019t it be cool if we brought a Cuban dance company to Oxford? Then I got to work to see how I could make this dream a reality.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mizenko began researching Cuban dance companies to find one she thought would be a good fit for her vision.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI found Malpaso, discovered their choreographer Osnel [Delgado], watched them online and in that process discovered that they are a hot commodity,\u201d said Mizenko. \u201cThey perform all over the country. When they return to us they\u2019ll be flying in from Joyce Theatre which is the pinnacle place where dance companies perform.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Malpaso will initially arrive in Oxford November 12 and work with the university through guest lectures and workshops with students. The dance company will stand in for classes ranging from theater arts to political science.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBeside the public events on the poster, the company is going into political science classes, honor classes, and modern language classes,\u201d said Mizenko. \u201cSo all those sponsors you see are from me just going around asking [departments] if they were interested, and people got on board one at a time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Once the sponsors were lined up, all that was left was a commitment from Malpaso who were not concerned at all about arriving in the South but about being educators.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy request of doing a class with the company was a little unusual and that took a pause [because they] hadn\u2019t done anything like this before,\u201d said Mizenko. \u201cThe hesitation wasn\u2019t about coming to Mississippi at all but about [teaching] the classes. Even if I were to contact an American dance company they\u2019d scratch their head a bit.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

More than anything about this project, Mizenko is excited for the relationships that will be built around Malpaso\u2019s residencies in Oxford and her students\u2019 trip to Cuba.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve just always been a believer in understanding other people, their culture, and their way of life,\u201d said Mizenko. \u201cI thought it would be really cool to open these doors between Cuba and Ole miss and to start a new relationship.\u201d\u00a0\"The<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone can dance, sort of. Most everyone can square dance, cupid shuffle, or waltz, but to convey emotion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":42754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[300,1],"tags":[11159,5,642,4,3,753],"class_list":["post-42752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-localart","category-uncategorized","tag-dance-company","tag-mississippi","tag-ms","tag-oxford","tag-the-local-voice","tag-tlv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/2017-11-08-Malpaso.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}