Sunday, September 28th, from noon to 3PM, Esperanza Academy Dance Ensemble will participate in the 52nd Annual Puerto Rican Day Parade.
Esperanza Academy will join hundreds of performers, local celebrities, and community youth groups in the march up Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the Eakins Oval. Look for our #YoSoyLaCara banners and post your pictures on our Facebook page with the hashtag #YoSoyLaCara to be the face of Latino community pride on Sunday.
The Esperanza Academy Dance Ensemble, under the direction of Tania Ramos, is the school’s main performance group. Through this group we provide high quality dance training in technique and performance to our students in addition to their dance major course work at the school. Students learn and perform genres as Contemporary Modern Dance, Ballet, Jazz, Hip Hop, African and various forms of Latin Dance. Our audition only group further prepares talented students, ages 15-18 for careers in dance, whether it be as entry to a college program, or for concert stage or commercial dance work.
In the past, the Dance Ensemble has won numerous awards at this event including:
The theme of the parade this year is “El Jíbaro Puertorriqueño”. Our piece is inspired and created from a compilation of images of “el jibaro, el campo y las montañas de Puerto Rico”. The students were an important part of choreographing this piece.Our approach was to take images and abstract movement, while also exploring the idea and feelings of identity, nationalism and pride. The music was chosen as the driving force behind all choreography in the piece and as a representation of the pulse of the people. The costumes are red and white dresses for the girls, and white shirts, brown pants, and straw hats for the boys.
Be sure to come out and support local youth talent this Hispanic Heritage Month!