This fall, I’m offering FOUR ABSOLUTELY FREE AddLife! African dance workshops at the Jamestown Bluff County Library-- every other Thursday-- starting September 13.
No RSVP is necessary. Just come! My classes brim with fantastic people and we have so much fun it should be a crime!
WHEN:
Thursday, September 13 @ 7pm
Thursday, September 27 @ 7pm
Thursday, October 11 @7 pm
Thursday, October 25 @ 7pm
WHERE:
Jamestown Bluff County Library 4153 N. Highway 67 Florissant, MO 63034
For more information, please call or text me -- Malena Amusa at (314) 458 – 4282.
WHY:
My mission is to fearlessly provoke your
success by helping you soar and exercise your great gifts.
With
each spin, flap of the arm, and tremble of our torso, African dance brings us
to life-- and into orbit of the sheer power, beauty, and energy that our bodies and
spirits harness wonderfully.
While
difficult, African dance is brilliantly doable and that’s why I’m dedicated to
sharing the dance form with anyone seeking superior movement and a total ignition of thought, action, and excellent execution.
AddLife!
African Dance is a rare workshop experience combining some of the most
magnificent movements of West Africa and my high dose of fun, technical instruction, and explosive creative artistry. Inside my class, magic is born and so
are friendships and lifelong passions.
Through
African Dance, you literally learn to fly and I challenge you to bring
your unique personality to every move that you make. Each of us has a different, powerful story and I want yours to speak!
As a
result, my classes are totally integrated into the human process -- from the very
conception of an impulse in your spirit, to its fierce expression and impact.
As you
can see, African dance is a calling and one of my life’s great privileges and honors!
In each
dancer, I see a heart bursting to unleash the confidence, intelligence, and
potential stored in greater value than all of the earth’s riches.
Now, I
simply can’t wait for you to join me on this journey of taking our talents to
the next level.
This is more than movement -- this is a movement!
For
class, I advice wearing loose-fitted clothes, bare feet, and of course, your
dazzling smile!
AddLife!'s 100 Dancers Unite is gaining and growing! Join us this Saturday for learning out loud!
9:19 PM
Wow -- it is August 1 -- and AddLife! is organizing yet another unbelievably life-lurching learning fest, bringing together top dance instructors in St. Louis and uniting the power of people to bring out the best we have through movement, phenomenal live drum music, and lively interaction!
Featuring -- special guest instructors >> Bokulaka Ilonga -- the brilliantly hip-swirling master dancer, drummer, and singer from the Congo >> Babatunde Sylla -- the magical and charming master West African dancer >> Andrea Peoples -- the Guinea dance powerhouse stunner >> and Malena Amusa -- the African dance lightening bolt + the live drumming wows of Kreative Pandemonium's drum-band led by the drum kapow! Weedie Braimah.
This event is growing strong -- so do join us and be sure to RSVP your friends and delight in what is an opportunity for total dance immersion and social and cultural inspiration.
For more information, call founder of AddLife! Studio Malena Amusa at (314) 458 - 4282
Featuring -- special guest instructors >> Bokulaka Ilonga -- the brilliantly hip-swirling master dancer, drummer, and singer from the Congo >> Babatunde Sylla -- the magical and charming master West African dancer >> Andrea Peoples -- the Guinea dance powerhouse stunner >> and Malena Amusa -- the African dance lightening bolt + the live drumming wows of Kreative Pandemonium's drum-band led by the drum kapow! Weedie Braimah.
This event is growing strong -- so do join us and be sure to RSVP your friends and delight in what is an opportunity for total dance immersion and social and cultural inspiration.
For more information, call founder of AddLife! Studio Malena Amusa at (314) 458 - 4282
June 30 -- AddLife! Studio teamed up with Kreative Pandemonium to host AddLife!'s 2nd ever 100 Dancers Unite African dance class inspiration fest, harnessing the creative power and collective genius of dancers, movers, and shakers in St. Louis.
The class was a big, big success -- gathering dozens of artist and entpreneuers who swapped incredible learning and skills for a whopping three hours.
Guest teachers -- AddLife! Studio founder Malena Amusa, Aparna Kalyanaraman, Kreative Pandemonium founder Andrea Peoples, and Babatunde Sylla -- rocked the class and inspired people with dances that were both captivating and challenging. The lively gathering formed and strengthened friendships, swapped business cards, ultimately electrified the experience with tons of fun, inspiration, and some of the most incredible dance and learning on earth!!
The next 100 Dancers Unite will be in July and August. Stay tuned for more details.
--Malena Amusa
AddLife! Studio Founder
The class was a big, big success -- gathering dozens of artist and entpreneuers who swapped incredible learning and skills for a whopping three hours.
Guest teachers -- AddLife! Studio founder Malena Amusa, Aparna Kalyanaraman, Kreative Pandemonium founder Andrea Peoples, and Babatunde Sylla -- rocked the class and inspired people with dances that were both captivating and challenging. The lively gathering formed and strengthened friendships, swapped business cards, ultimately electrified the experience with tons of fun, inspiration, and some of the most incredible dance and learning on earth!!
The next 100 Dancers Unite will be in July and August. Stay tuned for more details.
--Malena Amusa
AddLife! Studio Founder
Saturday,
AddLife! Studio presented three titans of music in a lecture and learning party
at Schlafly’s Library in St. Louis.
In honor of
June’s Black Music Month, AddLife! designed the program to give attendees a
hands-on experience of music, dating back to Ancient Africa, and up through the
rise of West Africa’s Djembe orchestra and America’s Hip-Hop renaissance.
I kicked off
the presentation with an explanation of Nubia’s rock gong – an ancient stone
drum our ancestors played to communicate some of the most intricate messages.
Later, co-founder of Kreative
Pandemonium,Weedie Braimah, lit up the room with a jolting lesson about the
dynamic Djembe orchestra which owes its heart and soul -- and advanced
communication system -- to its three barrel drums – the Kenkeni, Sangban, and
the Dundunba.
“If you can
say it, you can play it,” Braimah said, highlighting African drum music’s
implicit tie to the poly-rhythmic language of the people.
Tapping
their hands to flipped-over chairs, the audience sang and drummed in unison “I
can play the drum, I can play the drum!” Two audience members who had never
laid hands on a West African drum were instant converts as they chanted and
commanded their hands to animate the beats spoken on their tongues.
After
Braimah's presentation, St. Louis jazz and gospel star Al Anderson gave a
riveting lecture about how African Americans formed gospel music by bending
classical European church hymns into voluptuous ballads.
“Gospel
music is sacred music,” Anderson said. “And it is a marriage of European and
African music. Now anyone in the world can hear gospel music and it will
resonate. The same goes for jazz.”
After
Anderson, super producer Dan Liddell, aka StLou. Hitz, traced the evolution of
African music from village to urban Hip Hop culture. “Hip-Hop music comes from
those African beats,” Liddell said. “Now we have a multi-billion dollar culture
defined by dance, fashion, and mindset.”
As AddLife!
grows, we look forward to bringing more high-caliber master classes to you –
especially concerning the intersection of art, life, and business.
The support
from institutions and attendees in St. Louis has been remarkable and I look
forward to partnering with more powerhouse people to bring bold life to our
world.
--Malena
Music, particularly international dance music, is a full-blown passion of mine and my family's. At any given moment, you can find my mother shouting James Brown, my dad crooning Peter Tosh, or my sister blasting Beyonce down the highway. Not long ago, my brother Dan, who happens to be the Einstein of urban music production, decided to jump on board and help me make our first global dance music album. It was 2010 and all we wanted was to rip the limits off music and produce something so soulful, it could wake the dead!
Naturally, we turned to the music of our ancestors and contemporaries -- Africans and African-Americans whose drums and chants can call forth an unearthly magic and whose impact is ever felt across the world today. What we produced turned into an even more incredible reality once we invited the terrific Weedie Braimah to dash his powerful Djembe magnificence into our hot dance-music sauce. The dance music we made was quite simply and unspeakably tantalizing...and at the time, my brother and I had just seen the movie Avatar 3 times and aptly named our album Avatar & Beyond.
Now, this Saturday, Dan, Weedie, and myself, will join forces once again and present a thrilling music class chronicling the epic magic and science of Black American Music, dating way back to Ancient Africa, and to the beginning of the Djembe and Hip-Hop.
I was over-joyed when the city Library asked me to organize this powerful
lecture and hands-on exploration of Black American Music. And now it is an honor to invite you to this experience -- which is set to be a true AddLife! adventure. Check it out!
--Malena!
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