Long Table: Latina/x in Dance & Performance

What are the burning issues facing Latinx dancers and performers today? How do we bridge disciplines and geography to build stronger community? Join guest host Alicia Diaz for conversation and music as we find culturally relevant ways to deepen our discourse. 

Guest Host: Alicia Diaz
Core Participants: Beatrice Capote, Yanira Castro, Mariana Valencia, Larissa Velez-Jackson

Photo of Alicia Díaz by Hiroyuki Ito.

Long Table conversations adopt performance artist Lois Weaver’s non-hierarchical Long Table format, encouraging informal conversation around topics of concern to the community. Learn more here about Long Tables and how they work.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Alicia Díaz is co-director of Agua Dulce Dance Theater with movement artist Matthew Thornton. As a Puerto Rican contemporary dance artist in the diaspora, her work speaks to issues of migration, colonialism, and the legacy of slavery. Her recent collaborations with percussionist Héctor “Coco” Barez explore Caribbean cultural memory and identity by referencing Bomba, the oldest Puerto Rican music and dance form, characterized by the improvisational dialogue between dancer and musician. Alicia is lead artist, along with Beatrice Capote, of the Pepatián project, Dancing La Botánica: La Tierra Vive! which supports Latinx dance artists and their collaborators, and is also a Board member of Pepatián. Over the years, she has performed with Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Andanza: Puerto Rican Contemporary Dance Company, Donald Byrd/The Group (The Harlem Nutcracker), Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre, Maida Withers Dance Construction Company and independent choreographers Marion Ramírez, Ñequi González, Sally Silvers, Julio Rivera, and Steven Iannacone, amongst others. Her choreographic work has been presented in the United States, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Argentina, Mexico, and Spain. She is an associate professor of dance at The University of Richmond.

Beatrice Capote is a Cuban American Dancer/Choreographer/Teacher trained at The Alvin Ailey School, graduated from University of North Carolina School of the Arts and received her BA and MFA in dance at Montclair State University focusing on the fusion of contemporary dance and traditional Afro-Cuban dance narratives. Performing Companies: INSPIRIT, Mavericks, The Wells Performance Project, Areytos Performance Works, Earl Mosley/ Diversity of Dance, Darrell Moultrie, Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In. Motion and Camille A. Brown and Dancers (CABD). Solo Choreography: invited to perform for ASHA Dance Company, the Eric Dolphy Jazz Festival, WestFest Dance Festival, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD), Pepatian, Amherst College, Pregones Theater, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Brooklyn Dance Festival, City Parks Summer Stages 2018, and Battery Dance Festival. Ms. Capote recently co-curated the APAP: Bronx Arts Showcase and Conversation produced by Pepatian and performed her recent solo project “Reyita”, The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century, music composed by Farai Malianga. Ms. Capote is faculty at the Ailey School, Joffrey Ballet, and Montclair State University, and is a company member with CABD!! Beatricecapote.com

Puerto Rican choreographer, Yanira Castro, is a Bessie-award-winning artist. In 2009, she formed the
interdisciplinary collaborative group, a canary torsi. Castro’s work borrows from dance, performance,
and visual art often utilizing interactive technology to form hybrid works. With her collaborators she
has developed over ten projects for the stage, gallery and non-traditional sites ranging from video
installations, performances and text-based computer games. The work was been presented most
recently in NYC at The Chocolate Factory, The Invisible Dog Art Center, Abrons Arts Center, and
Danspace Project. Currently, she is a 2018/19 New York Live Arts’ Live Feed Artist, 2018 Yaddo Fellow
and Marble House Project Artist-in-Residence. She has received various awards including NYFA’s
Choreography Fellowship, NEFA’s National Dance Project, and a 2019 NYSCA Theater Commission.

Larissa Velez-Jackson (LVJ) is a NYC-based choreographer and multi-platform artist. She uses improvisation as a tool for research and creation, focusing on dance, sound, humor, and the unique personality of herself and her collaborators. She presented work at numerous NYC venues such as: Danspace Project (2010), American Realness Festival (2011 & 2015) at Abrons Arts Center, Chocolate Factory Theater (2014), and New York Live Arts (2017) with Yackez, a song-and-dance collaboration with her husband, Jon Velez-Jackson. In 2016, LVJ was nominated for a New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” award for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer and was awarded the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Grant to Artists award, as well as residencies (toward the creation of Yackez’s “Give It To You Stage”) with Gibney Dance Center DiP, Mount Tremper Arts, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Process Space. Parallel to her performance career, LVJ has taught mind/body wellness and fitness classes at 92 St Y and West Side Y in Manhattan for thirteen years, specializing in the older adult population. Her recent projects “Give It To You Stage,” and “Zapatografía/Shoegraphy” at Bushwick Starr (2017) & Abrons Arts Center (2018), incorporated casts of inspiring, elder dance-fitness students.

ACCESSIBILITY

Gibney 280 Broadway is accessible via elevator from the main entrance at 53A Chambers Street.

We welcome the opportunity to make this event more accessible. Please refrain from wearing scented products, so that people with chemical sensitivities can join us. Please request ASL interpreting, audio description, or open captioning 30 days before the event or submit other requests by completing our Access Requests and Inquiries Form or calling 646.837.6809 (Voice only).