Connecting Cultures through Dancing
By David Triana
While serving in the United States Air Force, Liz Walker got a chance to travel the world and regardless of where she was stationed, she always found a way to join a dance group. That is how her love affair with multi-cultural dancing began.
Liz, a native of Panama in Central America, started performing at age 5 and has danced professionally and internationally and mastered a number of ethnic dance styles including Egyptian Belly Dance, African, Polynesian, Latin, Spanish Flamenco and Limbo Dancing.
It was when she got stationed at Tyndall Air Force Base, that she decided it would be a neat thing to start her own dancing group. It was at Tyndall that Liz found her first recruit, Marie Byhardt. Mary is from Puerto Rico and Liz told her that she was thinking about starting a dance troupe and asked her to be part of it. Marie had not danced in over 20 years. “It does not matter”, Liz told her. That was back in 1997, the year Liz founded the Gypsy Rhythm Dancers and since then, Marie has been a member of the group.
The group perform both to entertain and also to educate their audiences about different styles of folkloric dances and how dancing can be used as a tool to connect different cultures. They have performed at Tyndall AFB, Multicultural Festivals, schools and colleges, nursing homes, libraries, churches, and numerous dance workshops around Florida, Alabama and Georgia. The women and children in the troupe have always been from varied nationalities and backgrounds. Some of the countries represented include Panama, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Iran, the Dominican Republic and of course the US.
Without a doubt, they are the most varied, multi-cultural group in our area in both members and the dance styles they can perform! They excel at what they do and more importantly, they enjoy it and have established long-lasting friendships amongst its members throughout the years.
The group is currently composed of 14 members and their ages range from 6 to 62! Some are retired military, some are wives, and some of them have been living in Panama City most of their lives.
“The girls are like family to me, we don’t just dance, we really take care of each other”, Liz told a reporter during a recent TV interview in Panama City.
Walker says anyone can be a member and while dancing experience isn’t a must there are some other requirements.
“So I ask the girls, if they join the group, that they have to be able to commit to performing for the community,” said Walker during the TV interview.
Their dancing also comes with a message. “When we go and do shows, we teach the attendees about the country. Not only do we perform for them but we teach them about the costumes, we teach them about the food, we teach them about the demographics and traditions of the countries that our dances represent”, said Walker.
Walker keeps the group small because she provides all the costumes for the performers. Members pay $25 a month to help offset the cost of renting the building to practice and help with buying the costumes.
If you’d like to be part of the group and help connect cultures through dancing, call Liz Walker at 624-9732 or you can check out their website www.grdstudio.net
