In cel­e­bra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Dance Day com­mem­o­rat­ed an­nu­al­ly on April 29, the Sec­ondary Schools Dance Ed­u­ca­tors As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go ho­n­oured two lo­cal dance icons.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said Dance Eth­nol­o­gist Hazel Fran­co and Dance Ed­u­ca­tor Al­li­son Seep­aul have both sig­nif­i­cant­ly con­tributed to the de­vel­op­ment of the lo­cal dance fra­ter­ni­ty and art form and have been in­stru­men­tal in forg­ing the way for­ward for dance ed­u­ca­tion at the pri­ma­ry, sec­ondary and ter­tiary lev­els.

From tiny lo­cal dance stu­dios to tak­ing their Trin­bag­on­ian moves across the world, both Fran­co and Seep­aul have spent decades de­vel­op­ing, im­ple­ment­ing, chore­o­graph­ing and shap­ing dance and na­tion-build­ing through dance in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ac­cord­ing to the as­so­ci­a­tion, the Cha­co­nia Sil­ver medal re­cip­i­ent Fran­co was re­spon­si­ble for the de­sign, nur­tur­ing and in­tro­duc­tion of the Cer­tifi­cate in Dance and Dance in Ed­u­ca­tion and the Bach­e­lor of the Arts Dance pro­grammes of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine cam­pus.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said at the Ear­ly Child­hood Cen­tre Ed­u­ca­tion (EC­CE), pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school lev­el, in­ter­na­tion­al dance teacher Seep­aul has struc­tured the re­view of na­tion­al dance cur­ric­u­la, fa­cil­i­tat­ed and mon­i­tored the im­ple­men­ta­tion of dance pro­grammes in sec­ondary schools, and de­signed Cre­ative Move­ment work­shops for pri­ma­ry and EC­CE teach­ers.

Seep­aul has re­ceived pro­fes­sion­al dance train­ing from the Boston Con­ser­va­to­ry of Mu­sic, School of the Toron­to Dance The­atre, Alvin Ai­ley Amer­i­can Dance Cen­tre and Dan­za Con­tem­po­ranea de Cu­ba.

Lo­cal­ly, she has per­formed with many com­pa­nies in­clud­ing the As­tor John­son Dance The­atre, Trinidad The­atre Work­shop, No­ble Dou­glas Dance Com­pa­ny and the La Chap­pelle Dance Com­pa­ny.

Cre­at­ed in 1982, In­ter­na­tion­al Dance Day was cre­at­ed by the dance com­mit­tee of the In­ter­na­tion­al The­atre In­sti­tute (ITI), the main part­ner for the per­form­ing arts of UN­ESCO.

This cel­e­bra­tion has been ear­marked as a cel­e­bra­tion for any­one who at­tach­es es­teemed val­ue and im­por­tance to dance.

Join­ing the world in cel­e­brat­ing this year, SS­DEATT is en­cour­ag­ing young peo­ple to dance and cel­e­brate move­ment through a so­cial me­dia chal­lenge.