World Renowned Ethiopian Dancer To Chat Online With BCPS Students

BALTIMORE COUNTY, MD — Melaku Belay, a world-renowned Ethiopian dancer and an ambassador for Ethiopia’s music and dance, will join Baltimore County Public Schools students virtually Thursday at 8:35 a.m. The Zoom meeting ID number is 818 8321 6458 and the passcode is 019248 and is open to everyone.

Belay, who will be speaking from Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, is being featured as part of the World Culture in Context initiative. This program connects students with renowned artists from around the world performing in the places that have impacted their work. The presentations will be accompanied by virtual, live conversations about creativity, belonging and culture. The series was launched in November 2020 by the BCPS Office of Social Studies and BCPS Office of Career and Technical Education and Fine Arts and the Baltimore-based Creative Alliance.

As the founding director of Fendika Cultural Center and the founding president of the Ethiopian Dance Art Association, Belay was celebrated as a finalist for the 2018 Ye Bego Sew Award (Ethiopian Person of the Year) in the category of raising global awareness of Ethiopian culture. Belay’s international honors include a 2015 Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (France), a 2019 Visa for Music Award (Morocco) and a 2020 Prince Clause Award (the Netherlands).

Belay is a contemporary virtuoso interpreter of the Ethiopian eskista dance, characterized by rolling the shoulder blades, bouncing the shoulders and tilting the chest. His spectacular mastery of eskista has earned him the nicknames of “walking earthquake” and “King of Eskista.”