Nora Garda

Tango dancer, Iowa City
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Nora Garda is a dancer, chemist, performer, videoographer, and dance instructor who was educated in Argentina and the USA. Garda has been in the USA for 18 years. She has a MS Degree in Chemistry from Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA. She is a part-time chemist at University of Iowa Pharmaceuticals.

Garda is a member of KamKan Dance, Travelers Dance Company, Habeas Corpus Early Dance Project (a Renaissance, Baroque, English Country dance company), InterDance, and ACE. She produced and directed Iowa Dance Fest from 2007-10 in Iowa City, a week long event with workshops and performances that included numerous dance groups from Iowa, California and Spain.

Over the years, Garda has been extremely active not only in Iowa dance performance but also in creating organizations, bringing Iowa dance and choreography to international venues and to nontraditional art venues. In 2002, Garda founded Arts a la Carte, non-profit organization for the art of movement that she directed until 2006. That year, she traveled to Spain, to dance and produce an International Dance Festival with Ballet Contemporáneo de Santa Fe in Tenerife. In 2009, Garda created InterDance to promote dance as a cross-cultural art form that brings people together and to utilize local dancers and people of many cultures to develop community-wide participatory events in Schools and public spaces.

Garda’s dance education began at the age of 6 in Argentina and consisted of 11 years of Classical Ballet and five of Spanish Dance: Bulerias, Sevillanas, Fandango, Pasodoble, Jota, Muneira and Flamenco. She studied Modern and Jazz, for 6 more years, with the much honored South American dancer/choreographer Mario Giromini Droz, and Frances Machala, a graduate from Martha Graham’s School. Garda studied and performed Argentinean folkloric dance, Opera ballet, African dance, Renaissance Court, Baroque, and English Country Dance. In Iowa City Garda continued her dance education with the University of Iowa and private instructors.

Garda is currently teaching dance and drama workshops in IC Public Schools, Libraries, Community Centers, Old Brick, and Iowa Children's Museum. She has been on the boards of Arts a la Carte, Habeas Corpus, Kahraman Near East Dance Ensemble, United Action for Youth, and the Hancher Auditorium Advisory Committee.

Contact: Nora Garda, Iowa City, noragarda@gmail.com, interdancebynoragarda.blogspot.com, (319)-400-4695.