Because the daughter of two labor union organizers, being an advocate for social change is in Ana María Alvarez’s blood. “I’ve been very clear just about my complete life that dance isn’t simply one thing I do, however one thing that has the capability to maneuver the world and be transformational,” describes the Cuban American dancer and founding inventive director of CONTRA-TIEMPO in Los Angeles.
After receiving her levels in dance and politics from Oberlin School, Alvarez started working on the Heart for Household Life in Sundown Park, Brooklyn, of their Life Traces Neighborhood Arts Undertaking. “I feel that work actually solidified the facility of dance for me and what it will possibly do,” says Alvarez, who can also be a tenured school member within the Dance Division on the College of California, San Diego. Now CONTRA-TIEMPO is inspiring the following technology of “artivists” by way of its Futuro Summer season Dance Intensive in Los Angeles, operating from August 12–21 (registration ends July 22).
Underneath the theme “None of us are free till all of us are free,” Futuro will maintain approach lessons in salsa, hip hop, home, Afro-Cuban, and extra. This system can even dive deeper into these ancestral motion practices, their histories, and CONTRA-TIEMPO’s “artwork as social motion” methodology. Acclaimed poet Amanda Gorman is a notable alum of the Futuro Summer season Dance Intensive.
We chatted with Alvarez about what members can acquire from Futuro.
Who’s Futuro for and what distinguishes it from different dance intensives on the market?
We describe it as a 10-day transformational expertise for anybody interested by each dance as a bodily follow and making social change with their work. Artists who’re dedicated to seeing the world be a distinct place than it at the moment is. As an organization, CONTRA-TIEMPO is deeply built-in with neighborhood, dance schooling, and the live performance stage; these issues are all deeply in dialog with one another, and the Futuro program actually displays that. We dedicate part of every day to what we name “artwork as social motion,” serious about the micro and the macro; your self as the start level of your activist work, and when that embodiment of self is stable, it lets you contribute to the world.
Artists actually come to us [from all walks of life]. We now have highschool and school college students, graduates, skilled dancers, and people working in different industries like neighborhood organizing, metropolis work, and nonprofits. It’s not simply centered on how you can be a dance practitioner, however how will you truly be an entire human being as an artist and the way can we collectively construct this concept that artwork has the capability to rework the world as we all know it.
What’s the extent of coaching and expertise wanted as a way to take part in Futuro’s approach lessons?
The fantastic thing about this system is that we run two tracks concurrently. We normally have about 45 to 50 members every year. There are some lessons we do collectively, just like the rueda de on line casino, a Cuban type of salsa that’s finished in a circle and has partner-changing. However then we break up up for lots of the opposite approach lessons, [which are divided] into skilled and newbie tracks. Every day, we show what lessons are being taught, and you’ll select what observe you wish to do. You possibly can bounce forwards and backwards based mostly by yourself need and the way laborious you need to push your self.
Are you able to speak extra concerning the ancestral motion practices and art-as-social-action methodology?
Our framework in instructing dance is considering of those as “ancestral applied sciences,” as I prefer to name them. Whenever you consider know-how, it’s one thing that was created by human beings to resolve issues. After I take into consideration dance, music, and artwork, I take into consideration the methods these had been designed by human beings to make sense of the world, overcome obstacles, and discover deep connections and that means in our lives. These ancestral applied sciences are all of the issues we train—salsa, Afro-Cuban, hip hop. We additionally train somatic motion practices to deepen into the physique as a bodily follow, wanting on the physique as a location of social change and activating that means.
“Artwork as social motion” has varied completely different approaches—there may be Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed and the Theatre of the Sphere, by Luis Valdez. These are lineages we share in this system. We’re instructing about intersectionality and liberation frameworks as a approach for individuals to have a deeper understanding of the instruments they have already got and the practices they’ll acquire to construct a extra liberated future for all of us.
There’s additionally a Future Artivist Management Intensive that runs in parallel to Futuro. What can dance educators acquire from that program?
The Artivist Management Institute shouldn’t be a program that we’ve run since COVID, however it’s one thing that we’re wanting ahead to making an attempt to restart. It focuses extra on the activist a part of what we do, nearly taking the art-as-social-action facet of Futuro’s curriculum and actually having a deepening two-to-three-day expertise round that. The way in which we’re serious about it’s a coaching floor for individuals who [want to] interact in these themes of their lecture rooms. With that mentioned, proper now the Futuro Summer season Dance Intensive remains to be one of the best place to try this even in case you are an educator or somebody who’s working with youth. Futuro gives you the total expertise along with bodily follow. I’m hoping in 2025 we are able to convey again the [redesigned] Artivist Management Institute.
What’s the Sponsor a Pupil initiative?
Futuro oftentimes has grant funding, however this 12 months we don’t have a full sponsor the best way that we’ve prior to now. Often round 75 p.c of our college students are on some form of scholarship. So we’re asking our neighborhood and anybody who believes on this work to go on our web site. You possibly can sponsor a person pupil ($1,000) [or donate another amount]. Presently, all of the donations on our web site are going in direction of scholarships for Futuro.
