Gabrielle Dumont – The Concordian

The Concordia Dance Club (CDC) is hosting their last two surprise dance workshops on April 10 and 11, concluding their first year at the university.

The club welcomes everyone who likes to dance. Ranging from experienced dancers to the dancing-in-front-of-the-mirror-in-my-room training, the members have no judgements. “The whole goal is to give people, students, a space to express themselves and let go of any stress they have,” said Yasamin Fawzi, the vice president of external affairs of the club.

The principle is simple, every session is a new dance style with a different teacher. The executive members are often choreographers as they are all experienced dancers. Moreover, other workshops are given by established choreographers.

Most students who attend workshops are interested in, or familiar with, the featured style, but they are always welcome to try new genres of dance.

A ballet dance workshop was led by Anna Krupa on March 20. Photo courtesy of the Concordia Dance Club.

Since the fall semester, various styles were presented: hip hop, high heels, Latin dance, freestyle, ballet, contemporary, afro dance, funk and much more.

On Sept. 20, 2018, the CDC held its first session. Prior to that, there were no dance clubs at the university.

Chelsea Foster, an exchange student from Jamaica, has been attending the dance workshops since day one. “I’m still in shock that it’s the first year because everything is so well organized,” said Foster. “The people here are nice, the executive team is very friendly, inviting. It’s been so good so far,” she said.

It all started when the executive team members were in CEGEP. Andrea Montes, the president of the CDC, created a dance club at John Abbott College, where the executive team met. When they started studying at Concordia, the group looked for a dance club to join,“but when we came here, there wasn’t a dance club,” said Fawzi. They decided to take the matter into their own hands and start one.

“We had a lot of ups and downs, but even with all that we had an amazing year,” said Montes. “We worked really hard every time for every workshop.”

The club’s success is partially due to the fact that it is free to join and accessible for Concordia students, and the club plans to keep it that way.

So far, the club has been hosting recreational workshops and plans to make future events more accessible. “People in the dance community can meet people in our dance community,” said Fawzi. Weekly workshops will be held alongside these new events, but with different teachers and new dance styles.

The CDC is planning an event to celebrate the end of their first year in May.

“I am really proud of all the work that we’ve done and [in] future years, I know it will be even better,” said Montez.

For more information, visit @concordiadanceclub on Instagram and Facebook.

Roadmap to Apartheid draws parallels between South African segregation and Israeli occupation

This year’s Israeli Apartheid Week featured the screening of a film about the living conditions of Israeli Palestinians. Roadmap to Apartheid was screened by La Société générale des étudiantes et étudiants du Collège de Maisonneuve (SOGÉÉCOM) and Tadamon!, a Montreal-based association that supports the Middle East and diaspora communities.

According to War On Want, an organization that fights against poverty and for global human rights, Israel controls both the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel itself. The legislation in place favours the Jewish population by allowing them better living conditions in opposition to the Palestinians, whose fundamental rights, such as education, liberty of movement and housing are restricted. Israel commits acts that are prohibited by the UN Apartheid Convention, including “preventing Palestinians from returning to their homes and lands” and “murder, torture, unlawful imprisonment and other severe deprivation of physical liberty, especially of Palestinians living in Gaza,” as mentioned in the Israeli Apartheid Factsheet section on the War On Want website.

Organized by over nine organizations, including two from Concordia and McGill, Israeli Apartheid Week consists of a series of events aimed to educate people on the subject. This year marks the 15th edition of the global event. The week’s ultimate objective is to bring awareness to the environment in Israel and to reinforce the BDS (boycott, divest and sanctions) movement. The BDS movement aims to put an end to the international support of the oppression of Palestinians by targeting Israel’s economy, encouraging government sanctions and ceasing support of Israeli institutions (sports, academic and cultural).

Jérôme Charaoui, a member of Tadamon!, was the host of the event. Tadamon! advocates for Palestinians seeking refuge in Canada. The association is also involved in organizing various protests in Montreal.

During the South African Apartheid, media pressure on the government helped put an end to the country’s discriminatory politics. The reason the issue with Israel is unique, according to Charaoui, is “the actual situation is not internationally recognized as Apartheid.”

During the 90-minute screening, Roadmap to Apartheid showed aspects of the Palestinian-Jewish conflict that are similar to the South African Apartheid. Part of the documentary consisted of a juxtaposition of images from both conflicts to illustrate their similarities.

The documentary discussed the differences in access to resources for Jewish and Palestinian citizens. Jewish people have an abundance of water, whereas Palestinians would go without it for several days, particularly in the summer. It has reached a point where they have resorted to collecting rainwater.

Alice Guindon, a 22-year-old Guijek student, attended the event because she is interested in issues surrounding oppression.
Guindon recommends the documentary because “we have to open our eyes on the issue that is happening there.”
According to Guindon, the situation is “very violent, thus, we must mobilize ourselves all around the world.”

For more information about Israeli Apartheid Week, visit apartheidweek.org, and for more on Tadamon!, visit www.tadamon.ca.

Photo courtesy of Tadamon!