Persephone DaCosta strives to preserve, educate and celebrate arts from West Africa and the African diaspora and expose communities to cultural arts to be used as gateway to reach disadvantaged and troubled youths. DaCosta aims to be an ambassador of African/ Diaspora dances; she would like to continuously travel to Ivory Coast and other parts of Africa and study traditional dance and culture and serve as a medium to expose and teach American youth about traditional dance. Through cultural exchange, DaCosta also hopes to travel to places in the African diaspora such as the Caribbean to educate and share African dance culture and traditions.

This summer, DaCossa will take traditional and contemporary dance and drum classes in Ivory Coast West Africa June/July 2020. After achieving a proficiency in traditional dance, drumming, songs, the origins of Ivorian traditional dances, and various contemporary modern dances, she will conduct interviews to understand whether the youth in Africa have translated traditional dance to contemporary styles of dance and how they have been influenced by Western culture.

This training is vital to DaCosta’s career; being able to to study with prestigious traditional dance schools in Ivory Coast is essential to her work of preserving and educating communities on African culture. Then, she will be able to share this well-sourced information in classes, workshops and community performances in Brooklyn and abroad.