KULARTS at the 2025 World Arts West Dance Festival Weekend #3
Dance as Health and Healing: Presentations from legacy artists sharing cultural rituals from Haiti and the Philippines, embodying health and healing through dance and ritual.
Sunday, September 7, 2025
1:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Presidio Tunnel Tops East Meadow
Lakbai Diwa, Diasporic Spirit Cultural Ceremony at Yerba Buena Gardens, May 2021.
The 2025 World Arts West Dance Festival will focus on the theme “Dance as Health and Healing,” exploring what constitutes a healthy community. It aims to showcase dance and art forms rooted in cultural traditions, including sacred, social, and contemporary. The festival will feature movement workshops, artist dialogues, and new activities like Hawaiian lei making, Kalimba music and Afro-Cuban healing rituals. Additionally, community activations will occur across the San Francisco Bay Area, emphasizing the theme of health and healing through dance.
PROGRAM SCHEDULE
1:30 PM - 1:35 PM
Welcome and Land Acknowledgement
1:35 PM - 1:55 PM
KULARTS’ Alleluia Panis Dance Theatre
Lakbai Diwa, Diasporic Spirit is a ceremonial performance—a living dance prayer and global meditation—featuring spirit boats adorned with offerings of food, flowers, herbs, and sacred objects, festooned with prayer flags.
1:55 PM - 2:15 PM
Dimensions Dance Theater (DDT)
A collaborative presentation between Laurie Fleurentin and Deborah Vaughan that brings together the rich traditions of Haitian dance. DDT will create a space to honor these sacred rituals, with the transformative dance of Yanvalou, which honors the lwa Damballah Wedo, symbolized by a serpent. The presentation culminates in a vibrant celebration of Rara, a dance synonymous with resilience and determination.
2:45 PM - 3:45 PM
Haitian Dance Workshop with Laurie Fleurentin
Laurie will share the role of music and dance in Haitian culture as health & healing and how they were instrumental in the success of Haitian revolution.
ARTISTS
Alleluia ‘Manai’ Panis, Choreographer and Director
Rachel Lastimosa, Lakbai Diwa Music Composer
Joshua Icban, Ritwal: Bahai Ng Mga Anito (House of the Spirits) Music Composer
Ladislao ‘June’ Arellano, Costume Designer
Dance Artists: Jonathan M. Mercado, Johan Casal, Jenelle Gaerlan, Francis Anthony Cailles, Jess DeFranco, Francis ‘Senses’ Aquino, Genevie Dela Cruz, Ladislao ‘June’ Arellano, Marc Cunanan Chappelle