Olivier Tarpaga, a 2018-2019 Princeton University’s Caroline Hearst artist in residence is a Lester Horton Award–winning dancer-choreographer and musician, a dance lecturer at the Lewis Center for the Arts, and the director of the African music ensemble for Princeton University’s Department of Music. Tarpaga’s major works includes When Birds Refused to Fly(2019), Declassified Memory Fragment (2015), Not Because You’re African(2010), Disorder Inside Order (2008), Sira Kan (2007) and Tin Suka (2001) with Companie Ta. Tarpaga is the founder and artistic director of Dafra Drum and Dafra Kura Band, and co-founder of the Baker & Tarpaga Dance Project. He danced with David Rousseve/REALITY from 2006 to 2010, when he was also a State Department Art Envoy in South Africa, Botswana, Burkina Faso, and Sri Lanka. Tarpaga is a recipient of numerous major grants including two NEFA’s National Dance Project (NDP) awards, the Suitcase Fund from New York Live Arts, Mellon artist in residence grant, a Chime Mentorship Fellowship with David Rousseve as his mentor, the Durfee Foundation, and grants from the Ohio Arts Council and the Flourish Foundation. He has been commissioned by Connecticut Ballet, Malaysia’s HANDS percussion, MAYA dance theater of Singapore, and the Temple of Fine Arts in Perth, Austrailia. Tarpaga has performed and taught dance and music in over fifty countries throughout Africa, Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania.