Kiandanda Dance Theater, the organizer of Mbongui Square Festival, has laid an eight-month plan to raise funds in support of the festival production. We are knocking to your door to ask for your continuous support for the performing arts and the festival. Our goal is to obtain $2000. This amount will assist artists and marketing fees. Artists dedicate their time and talent to educate, entertain, and create beauty through their dance, music, poetry, and visual art talent. We believe in the important to reward the work they do. For the Bay Area and the world to see this work by the artists, we have a set of marketing strategies to reach a larger audience. Your tax-deductible donation via our fiscal sponsor Dancers’ Group, helps us to make sure that every corner of this beautiful Bay Area becomes aware of Mbongui Square Festival and remembers the work and name of each artist presenting in the festival. Help us in reaching this goal.
In gratitude to your contribution, we will reserve for you: special guest seating and a package including one or more of these items: Ethnic African print fabric, Handcrafted ornament, ethnic jewels, recognition on social media platforms, recognition on our printed programs and website.
Year after year, Kiandanda Dance Theater is dedicated to bringing to you Mbongui Square Festival, a festival that celebrates the Bay Area performing and visual arts. Mbongui Square Festival is a community project that promotes ethnic diversity and encourages the intersectionality of art forms. This event creates a bridge between local, national and international artists to enrich the local experience and reinforce the vision of a society that coalesces through the art of dance, music, spoken word poetry, and visual arts.
In the Kongo language of Central Africa, Mbongui is a place where the community gathers. Mbongui means togetherness, and it upholds the values of hospitality, free speech, justice, equity, and societal moral codes.
Creating Mbongui Square has contributed to the reinforcement of these values and promotes the integration of communities across the Bay Area. Collaborations between the local Bay Area artists and international guests will allow for a deep and meaningful cross Atlantic exchange.
Objectives for the festival are to:
Inspire creativity Cultivate professionalism Inclusion of all art genres Inclusion of people The emergence and discovery of new talents.
Plans for the festival are:
To explore the possibilities of an ideal world. The artists’ works encourage and address social justice issues to support the transformation of the individuals and society. This will enrich and transform our Bay Area by keeping it an inspiring, informative, healing and a transformative place. Scope:
This week-long festival includes:
Performances Workshops Lectures Nourishment Locally handmade Arts, Crafts and more…
Vision Statement:
Mbongui Square exists to enhance a diverse audience’s engagement to the arts of dance, music, spoken word, and visual art, in a communal environment that is the shared performing stage. Our mission is to encourage the performance of artists from varying art forms and from different racial backgrounds. By bringing together diverse artists, we bring together a racially heterogeneous audience to create community and understanding.
Mission Statement:
Mbongui Square aspires to present professional performing and visual arts that speak to the people of all races. With the intention of becoming an international arts festival, Mbongui Square would like to show that there is a way to break with all kinds of boundaries via the arts. We mostly concentrate our efforts on bringing people together in the Bay Area arts community to connect all the communities. Our vision is to reinforce the way audiences look at the arts created by diverse professional artists sharing the same stage.
Major goals:
Make Mbongui Square an international festival presented on two to three weekends in the Bay Area. Build a strong organizational team Have an office for operations Artistic Director’s Bio:
Byb Chanel Bibene is a dance educator, choreographer and performer working in theater, ethnic, Afro urban, and contemporary dance forms. His own technical and aesthetic sensibility is rooted in the culture and dances of his country of origin, the Republic of Congo. He has toured the world and performed internationally with companies and choreographers originating from Africa, England, France and the USA. Bibene has had the honor to work with choreographers such as Orchy Nzaba, Salia Sanou, Reggy Wilson, Johanna Haigood, Amara Tabor Smith, Latanya D. Tigner, Paco Gomes, Paco Decina.
Artistic Director of Kiandanda Dance Theater, Bibene initiated Mbongui Square festival, a multidisciplinary arts festival that gathers dance, music, spoken word and visual artists from the Bay Area and across the world. Bibene is also facilitator of the monthly Talk series called Tracing Africa Circle-African Dance Histories and Philosophies. A two-time nominated for the Izzies-Isadora Duncan Dance Awards, Bibene has won 3rd place at the African Choreographic Contest and the Radio France International Dance Award.
Outside of his professional careers of Theater and Dance, Bibene has a passion for writing. He is author of numerous poetry and shorts. Bibene owns a Bachelor in Science, Economics/Finances from Marien Ngouabi University/Brazzaville, an MFA in Dance Creative Practice and a certificate in Dance Production Management, earning the Dean’s award for Academic Excellence from Saint Mary's College of California.
2019 Participating Artists (Individuals and Ensembles):
Shonnita J. Productions Patricia West Mukti Dance Collective Vidhya Subramanian Ensemble Shruti Abhishek A. Spearman & Co. Lucia August Kendra Kimbrough Dance Ensemble Danica Sena Kiandanda Dance Theater Julia Chigamba and the Chinyakare Ensemble Alexandra Commins Marvin K. White Sistah Iminah Bahiya Movement Darius Simpson Nia McAllister Naina Shastri Bliss Dance Company 
