October 12 - November 22, 2026

Professor: Careitha Davis

Tuition: $310 member / $410 non-member

6 Weeks; 1.5 NDEO-Endorsed PDCs

Discover the profound histories, diverse contexts, and innovative choreography found in Afro-Caribbean dance traditions! This mini-course traces the evolution of Afro-Caribbean dance as both a cultural practice and an artistic form, from sacred ritual and communal expression to the concert stage and global commercial dance. Through live sessions and guided independent study, we will critically examine primary sources, oral histories, and movement analysis to understand how colonialism, slavery, and migration shaped traditions such as Haitian Vodou, Jamaican Dancehall, and Trinidadian Carnival. We will also explore how those same forms have been sites of resistance, survival, and cultural continuity, from Katherine Dunham's pioneering fieldwork to today's global stages.

You will investigate the intersection of music, rhythm, and dance across the diaspora, and examine dance's essential role in spiritual expression, community-building, and identity formation. Rather than studying these traditions from a distance, you will practice embodying Afro-Caribbean movement principles and apply them directly to your own choreographic or pedagogical practice.

The mini-course culminates in a creative capstone where you will choreograph and record a movement piece that fuses an Afro-Caribbean tradition with a dance genre from your own training, translating historical and cultural study into an original artistic work.

Whether you are a seasoned educator or an emerging researcher, this mini-course will deepen your understanding of the intersection between history, music, rhythm, and dance, while equipping you with culturally informed tools to bring into your teaching, research, and creative practice.

Questions about this Course?  Email opdi@ndeo.org

I feel more confident in the content that I have to offer my students. After taking this course, I have strong ideas about what questions to ask to inspire deeper analysis and thought when approaching the study of Afro Caribbean dance.

Having several reference videos and texts are useful if I ever want to help my students dive into Afro-Caribbean Dance.  I appreciated the use of peer-review and peer-feedback as a way to build community whilst being remote.

I was able to create an entire presentation on Afro-Caribbean dance that I will be using with my upper level classes.  I was also able to us a lot of the content to supplement our jazz history unit.

I learned so much about the history of the transatlantic slave trade from the African diasporic viewpoint, the culture that the enslaved people brought with them, and the way that these cultures have blended with Colonial culture to make Trinidadian carnival characters, the religious rituals of Haitian Vodou, and have fused with the global trends of Afro-Caribbean dance. The material we studied was very timely since I am teaching a West African dance class to 6th graders this fall. As I learned about the history of the djembe, I relayed this info to my students the very next day. I learned a few new African dances through viewing the videos and have been able to infuse these steps and cultural history to my students.

Careitha Davis, a Brooklyn native with roots in Trinidad and Tobago, is a professional dancer, choreographer and educator. From an early age Careitha started training as a dancer in Modern, Jazz, Ballet and African while traveling as a young performer. Careitha attended SUNY Purchase College receiving a BA in Media, Society & the Arts and earned an MA in Dance Education K-12 Track from New York University. She has performed the works of George Faison, Dianne McIntyre, Ronald K. Brown, Mouminatou Camara, Joya Powell/Movement of the People, Jemal Gaines, Michael Manswell and Pearl Primus. Careitha began teaching Soca at Cumbe: Center for African and Diaspora Dance in 2018 and established BodyRa Movement in 2020. Her teaching and choreographic philosophy for BodyRa Movement is for dancers to reach a level of freedom in their movement, building community through the rituals and traditions in Caribbean culture. Careitha has taught workshops in Basel, Uganda, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Martin and the United States. Her works have been performed at Spoke The Hub, PBS-Travel BareFeet, Alvin Ailey Citigroup and the Apollo Theatre.  Careitha is awarded a Jacob’s Pillow College Partnership Program Faculty Research Fellowship, currently an adjunct at New York University- School of Steinhardt teaching Afro-Caribbean, serving as a DOE Dance Educator and a Teacher’s College, Columbia EdD student.

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