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Trickster

Trickster!

 Launch Media

ABOUT 

  • ABOUT Glenda Zahra Baker

    Glenda Zahra Baker is an acclaimed vocalist, musician, performer, and teacher. For the past 13 years she and storyteller Emily Hooper Lansana have collaborated as In the Spirit, weaving stories, songs, rhythms, role-plays, chants, and poetry into interactive lessons on black history. Baker has also worked with the ETA Creative Arts Foundation, Old Town School of Folk Music, Ravinia Festival, Albany Park Theater, and Chicago Public Schools.

    Profile

  • ABOUT Pranita Jain

    Pranita Jain is a classical Indian dancer, teacher, and choreographer. She trained with India’s foremost Bharata Natyam dancers and choreographers. After immigrating to the United States in 1985, she received a masters in dance ethnography from the University of Illinois. She has performed nationally and internationally as a solo artist and with her company Kalapriya.

    Profile

  • ABOUT I Gusti Ngurah Kertayuda

    I Gusti Ngurah Kertayuda is a graduate of the National Performing Arts Institute (KOKAR) in Denpasar, Indonesia. He has taught and performed traditional and modern dance and gamelan since the 1970’s both nationally and internationally for numerous dignitaries and festivals. Since his relocation to the United States in 1989, he has served as the artistic and choreographic dance director for the Indonesian Consulate General of Chicago.

    Profile

  • ABOUT Emily Lansana

    Emily Lansana is a theater and literary arts curriculum supervisor for the Chicago Public Schools. She has served as an arts-in-education consultant for ETA Creative Arts Foundation and has taught at Columbia College Chicago, Chicago State University, the University of Chicago, and DePaul University. Formerly the director of education for New York's Lincoln Center Theater, she serves on the board of directors of the National Association of Black Storytellers and as president of the Chicago Association of Black Storytellers.

    Profile
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The Trickster—sometimes funny, often devious, always unpredictable—is a familiarly mischievous character in the folklore of many cultures. In this family program, two tales of tricksters good and bad come alive through story and dance. Emily Hooper Lansana and Glenda Zahra Baker of In the Spirit tell the tale of West Africa’s meddlesome yet helpful Anansi the Spider. In contrast, the wicked demon king Ravana of the Hindu epic the Ramayana disguises himself to capture a beautiful princess. This story is brought to life with vivid masks and costumes by Kalapriya Dance, Indian dancer Pranita Jain, and I Gusti Ngurah Kertayuda of Indonesian Dance of Illinois.

Pictures above, image from Sita Sings the Blues, created by Nina Paley.

Tags

Dance, folklore, Hinduism, Trickster, storytelling

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