2009 San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival

Artistic Directors

CARLOS CARVAJAL has danced and choreographed hundreds of works over the years, and is versed in many forms of ethnic dance. He began his dance career at the San Francisco Ballet, then traveled overseas dancing with several companies including the International Ballet of the Marquis de Cuevas and Ballet Nuevo Mundo de Caracas. During his ten-year career overseas, he choreographed over 78 works for ballet, opera, and television. In 1970 he founded San Francisco Dance Spectrum becoming a leader in the dance renaissance of the '70s, choreographing over 50 works during his company’s decade long existence. In 1981 he received the first San Francisco Art Commission Award for Choreography and Dance, and in 1986 he received the Isadora Duncan Award for lifetime achievement. Mr. Carvajal received the Critics Circle Award in 1990 and from spring 1995 through Spring 2004 served as Artistic Director of Peninsula Ballet Theater.

C.K. LADZEKPO, PhD. is the director of the African music program at the University of California at Berkeley. He has combined a brilliant career as a performer, choreographer and composer with teaching and extensive scholarly research in African performing arts. He is a member of a well-known family considered leading dancers and drummers among the Anlo-Ewe people of southeastern Ghana in West Africa. Mr. Ladzekpo’s company, African Dance and Music Ensemble, has performed throughout the Bay Area since 1973, and has appeared in the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. Major presenters throughout the country, including Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and UC Berkeley’s Cal Performances, have presented his work.