MISSION

The vision of Gwendolyn Renee Puckett, Founder of Ballet Lisanga Congolese Performing Arts Company, was to create a fully large professional performing arts company that would be able to develop and present classical dance from Central and West African countries.

Ballet Lisanga Performing Arts Company is dedicated to presenting and preserving Congolese and West African culture through the overt artistic interpretation of its daily life and rituals.

The work is based on the vast wealth of classical dance forms throughout Central and West Africa and each production explores dances of various dances throughout those regions. Although the repertoire of Ballet Lisanga Congolese performing Arts company is choreographed, staged and presented for American audiences, Gwendolyn and the company members realize the objective remains to present and preserve work on regional basis.

Each production is seen as the guardian of the root dance forms, ensuring the integrity and clarity of the art form; it maintains a tangible link directly to the Congolese and the Senegalese regions and the cultural contexts in which each dance functions. As mentioned, though clearly Congolese Senegalese in origins, the dance and music of Ballet Lisanga is choreographed and composed overtly for an American audience and the company will consciously engage within political issues that define and assert cultural values and identity to the art form of those represented. In doing so, Ballet Lisanga joins a wide spectrum of artist with cultural origins beyond America whose performance shapes and colors American black arts.

Mission 03/06/04