Pentacle


R E P E R T O R Y

		I DREAM AMERICA I Dream America seeks to engage the tensions, commonalities, strains and histories between the Black and Latino communities. Traversing the political landscape of immigration and Hurricane Katrina, I Dream America will investigate compassion and peace, and paint a disarming and thought-provoking critique of contemporary life and injustice.

		AGAINST THE TIMES Salsa is a dance form that is rooted in Cuban and Puerto Rican cultural tradition. It is laden with social and political contradictions. An improvisational form, it is created and recreated with every new combination of people that dance it; a dance of change. Born from the fusion of African and Spanish musical influences, salsa was originally created as a cultural voice and form of expression for working class people. It has always been a patriarchal dance form, in that men are leaders and women are followers. In more recent times, the over sexualized representations of women have become more extreme, especially in styles that have been popularized by ballroom dancing and Hollywood films. The cast of CONTRA-TIEMPO will flip the script on who leads who… Together they will move resistance from being adversarial to being the fundamental key for communication and empowerment between partners and for a people.

I N D E V E L O P M E N T

		FULL.STILL.HUNGRY FULL.STILL.HUNGRY is a full-evening journey for 8 dancers set to an original score by Cesar Alvarez and prominent Latin percussionist, Bobby Matos. It explores the parallel ways we are nourished by music and food. Technology and globalization have created a disconnect between ourselves and our origins. Agriculture sustains us with increasing efficiency, but nourishes us less if by nourishment we mean energizing our connections to the food we eat and its significance in our life systems. People’s desire to repair that connection explains growing interest in sustainable farming, organic produce, and farmers market. This is not a far reach from the original way folks learned dances like Son and Danzon–the traditional Cuban forms that would later give birth to what we know today as Salsa—which were a communal and sometimes sacred experience for people. Today the huge wave of interest in Latin dance and all things Salsa, due in some part to the mainstream media, hides a lack of understanding of its roots –the depoliticizing of its significance as a vital cultural voice.Likewise, Salsa’s lyrical content which nowadays tends to focus on an appreciation of body parts, used to explore the struggles and vitalities of everyday experiences. In the context of this piece there is a hunger for the ‘authentic’ Salsa. These interests are a direct reflection of our need and desire to connect to other human beings, the earth and our bodies.Work on the development of FULL.STILL.HUNGRY started in the Fall of 2009. CONTRA-TIEMPO will premiere the piece at the Ford Amphitheater on September 23, 2011. The work of the company as well as its racial and cultural make up have the ability to engage audiences across socioeconomic, racial, cultural and age divides. This piece will engage and establish a contact between the foodies, the Salsa and ballroom dance communities, Latino and African American audiences as well as the underserved youth populations, regional hospitals (women’s and children’s clinics), rural schools, where there is often a high immigrant population, and urban schools where issues like nutrition are often ignored. FULL.STILL.HUNGRY will also open up a dialogue about empowering marginalized communities to make healthier food choices.

W O R K S H O P S

		SCHOOL PERFORMANCES AND WORKSHOPS Through performances and interactive workshops students celebrate their connected histories and are inspired to find their own cultural voices. The company’s performances run approximately 45 minutes. CONTRA-TIEMPO will begin by introducing themselves and the piece to the children, and lead a quick call & response activity. They will then perform their piece (there are several to choose from) and leave about 5 minutes in the end for questions and answers for the artists.

		COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS CONTRA-TIEMPO caters their workshops to the unique needs and interests of each community they work with. In all of their workshops they use Salsa, Afro-Cuban and their own Urban Latin Dance Theater movement technique. They explore the fundamentals and principles of leading and following combined with improvising in pairs, groups, and as individuals. In their technical dance workshops they pull from the Rueda (Cuban Salsa) and work with students around concepts of ‘compassionate partnering’ and movement metaphors. In their choreographic workshops, students will create movement studies designed to engage with, and push audiences to redefine and explore new ideas about dance partnering and what it means to work as community.

PHOTOS Background: Tim Agler, Insets from top left: Tim Agler, Tyrone Domingo, Tyrone Domingo, Vertical top to bottom: Tyrone Domingo, Tim Agler, Gar Travis, Gar Travis