Representatives of Cora Dance Studio of Brooklyn NY have been touring Lewisburg, WV, Lexington, Harrisonburg, Staunton, Waynesboro, the Alleghany Highlands, and Clifton Forge, over the last couple of years as Cora South, conducting episodic workshops to determine whether to make things permanent by establishing a hub in Clifton Forge.
Cora Dance was founded in 1998 as “an arts organization that houses a professional company of pay what you can school,” said Shannon Hummel, Founder and Artistic Director. “Professional artists and dance students come together and try very hard to be radically open to conversations about things that divide us and sit in a space of trust so we can productively make decisions before moving forward together,” added Hummel.
Ammara Shafqat, a professional dancer with Cora Dance’s professional dance company in Brooklyn, will be relocating to the Clifton Forge area in mid-June to work closely with Hummel. Shafqat will coordinate and oversee the launch of Cora South by leading classes and piloting ongoing programs.
Hummel, a resident of Clifton Forge, is from Singers Glen and spent a lot of her growing up years in Clifton Forge with her grandfather, who was a train enthusiast.
She took ballet as a small child and thus began her love of dance. After later moving to New York, she became a professional choreographer and an educator in the NY school system, on the side. She was living her dream but felt like something was missing.
Craving the ruralness of home, she would visit on the weekends, bringing back to Virginia what she had learned in New York.
“Her heart and soul are in the south,” said Nahisha McCoy, a Cora Dance Board Member and the first to enroll her family in Cora Dance when they first opened. “Establishing a hub in Clifton Forge will connect her heart and soul,” added McCoy who also plans to relocate to Clifton Forge and become a part of Cora South.
Over the last couple of years, many of Cora Dance’s professional dancers left New York and moved within an hour radius of Clifton Forge due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Having so many dancers in close proximity and “with Amtrak being here and a thriving Art’s Scene already in place, Clifton Forge felt right to me as a place Cora’s practices could take root and be celebrated,” said Hummel. “And that’s what has happened thus far.”
Currently, in Phase 2 of a 4 Phase Project, professional dancers and student apprentices are touring the community with pop up performances at local celebrations and festivals: to include a recent performance at Dabney S. Lancaster Community College’s International Culture Day Celebration, workshops for all ages and abilities at the Alleghany Highlands YMCA’s Healthy Kids Day, and a performance at the Clifton Forge School of the Arts, the Historic Masonic Theatre and the Masonic Amphitheatre’s Mayfaire Festival, to build bridges in the community through dance.
Moving into Phase 3 in January of 2023, Cora Dance Studio will have a hub in the local community, offering ten weeks of ongoing programs. Cora South will start with three classes at CFSOTA’s on Tuesdays and three classes at the YMCA on Fridays while continuing to conduct tours in Virginia and operating
Cora Dance Studio in New York.
“Classes will be based on the structure of performance, not only modernized dancing but also learning to know what it means to be in the Arts World. We’re just building up and figuring out what works best for both communities,” said Shafqat.
Cora Dance has just done so many beautiful things with the community, here in Red Hook, and I’m so excited to see all the beautiful things that will come in the future in Clifton Forge,” added Shafqat.
Hummel has spent 25 years doing work in the local community; with that and Shafqat’s local connections (having grown up in the Harrisonburg area), they believe joining the NY/VA forces together will bring a lot of artists to the Clifton Forge area. This will contribute greatly to the town’s economy by creating some professional opportunities and boosting sales in housing, dinning, and shopping.
Hummel’s hope for the next five years is that “this (Cora South) will become an anchor to building things that include and make everyone in the community feel a part of dance and to make this a destination for people outside of the community to come in and see what goes on here and the sharing back and forth will grow,” said Hummel in conclusion.
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