Detroit Multicultural Dance Festival
Detroit Institute of Arts
Detroit
June 20, 2026
The inaugural Detroit Multicultural Dance Festival was meant to celebrate the city’s diverse dance scene – and joy was in the air Saturday during the event’s closing performance at the packed Detroit Institute of Arts’ Rivera Court.
Organizer and Detroit native Nathan Trice, founder of the nathan trice/RITUALS dance company, wanted to create a celebratory event for those who dance for the love of dancing. In a previous interview, he said he couldn’t find such an event in the competitive professional dance scene in New York City, where he lives. The weeklong festival included an opening performance and free dance classes at Wayne State University.
Saturday’s closing show was the main event. It featured about a dozen performances from amateur dance groups from throughout Metro Detroit, which included a variety of African and ballroom dances, as well as Bollywood, salsa, flamenco and others. The African dances were arguably the most jubilant and colorful. I particularly enjoyed the TéMaTé Institute’s Mande/Malinke West African Traditional Dance performed to live African drumming. The women’s broad smiles were infectious throughout their high-energy dance. It looked like so much fun and something I would love to try.
The Detroit School of Arts Sankofa Children of the Drum was another highlight, in which students danced the West African Djembe Dance Kuku, also performed to live African drumming. This one also featured a dancer on stilts, working the crowd to get audience members to dance with him (or her?), which was fun. The students – who are planning to travel to Guinea later this year for training – were clearly passionate about their art, which was nice to see.
My favorite performance was from the House of Jit, which was also the most polished of the lineup. Jit is a distinct Detroit dance form dating back to the 1970s. It’s a high energy dance with fast footwork and battling soloists, with influences from hip hop and African dance. It’s fun, it’s fast and always a crowd-pleaser.
House of Jit
Dance has always been a cultural unifier, and Detroit’s rich history – welcoming people from all over the world – is a great thing to celebrate. The festival hopes to become an annual event, and I hope it does and grows to incorporate even more styles within the city’s dance scene, because options aren’t lacking. By the looks on the faces of the people around me, odds for a return are looking good.
