2010 San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival

Artistic Directors

Carlos Carvajal, a native San Franciscan, is a distinguished dancer/choreographer of more than two hundred works for ballet, opera, musical theater and television. Beginning as a folk dancer, he went on to the San Francisco Ballet, then the Ballet of the Marquis de Cuevas, Opera of Bremen, Opera of Bordeaux and Ballet Nacional of Venezuela as soloist, principal dancer and choreographer. He created more than twenty works for the SF Ballet as its ballet master and associate choreographer. He founded San Francisco Dance Spectrum, creating over fifty works during its ten year tenure. He has also choreographed for the SF Opera, Oakland Ballet and Dance Theater of Harlem, among others. His full length ballets include Cinderella's Crystal Slipper, Totentanz, Wintermas, Carmina Burana and The Nutcracker. Honors/grants/awards include five from the National Endowment for the Arts, the SF Art Commission, the Critics’ Circle and Isadora Duncan Lifetime Achievement. He holds a BA in Theater and MA in Creative Arts from SF State University. Carlos returns for the 4th season as an artistic director for this Festival.

CK Ladzekpo, PhD, is the director of the African music program at the University of California Berkeley. His is a distinguished career as a performer, choreographer, composer, teacher and published scholar in the African performing arts. He is a member of a renowned family of African musicians and dancers who traditionally serve as lead drummers and composers among the Anlo-Ewe people of southeastern Ghana in West Africa. He has been a lead drummer and instructor with the Ghana National Dance Ensemble, the University of Ghana’s Institute of African Studies and the Arts Council of Ghana. He joined the music faculty of the University of California Berkeley in 1973 and continues to be an influential catalyst of the African perspective in the performing arts. Awards include two choreographers’ fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Irvine Choreographer's Fellowship and the Ruth Beckford Extraordinary People in Dance Award. He has been a member of the faculty council of the East Bay Center for Performing Arts since 1974. This is his 4th season as an artistic director of this Festival.