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 creative 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 Venture. “I believe that work actually solidified the ability of dance for me and what it may 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 era of “artivists” by means 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 courses in salsa, hip hop, home, Afro-Cuban, and extra. This system may also 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 concerned with each dance as a bodily apply and making social change with their work. Artists who’re dedicated to seeing the world be a special place than it presently is. As an organization, CONTRA-TIEMPO is deeply built-in with group, 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,” fascinated with the micro and the macro; your self as the start level of your activist work, and when that embodiment of self is stable, it means that you can contribute to the world.
Artists actually come to us [from all walks of life]. We now have highschool and faculty college students, graduates, skilled dancers, and people working in different industries like group organizing, metropolis work, and nonprofits. It’s not simply targeted on learn how to be a dance practitioner, however how are you going to really be an entire human being as an artist and the way can we collectively construct this concept that artwork has the capability to remodel the world as we all know it.
What’s the extent of coaching and expertise wanted with a purpose to take part in Futuro’s approach courses?
The great thing about this system is that we run two tracks concurrently. We normally have about 45 to 50 members annually. There are some courses 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 cut up up for lots of the opposite approach courses, [which are divided] into skilled and newbie tracks. Every day, we show what courses are being taught, and you may select what monitor you wish to do. You’ll be able to bounce forwards and backwards based mostly by yourself need and the way exhausting you wish to push your self.
Are you able to discuss 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 wish to name them. While you consider expertise, 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 which 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 apply, trying on the physique as a location of social change and activating which means.
“Artwork as social motion” has varied completely different approaches—there’s 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 folks to have a deeper understanding of the instruments they have already got and the practices they will 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 now have run since COVID, however it’s one thing that we’re trying 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 side of Futuro’s curriculum and actually having a deepening two-to-three-day expertise round that. The way in which we’re fascinated with it’s a coaching floor for individuals who [want to] have interaction in these themes of their school rooms. With that stated, proper now the Futuro Summer season Dance Intensive continues to be the most effective place to try this even if you’re an educator or somebody who’s working with youth. Futuro offers you the complete expertise along with bodily apply. I’m hoping in 2025 we are able to deliver again the [redesigned] Artivist Management Institute.
What’s the Sponsor a Pupil initiative?
Futuro oftentimes has grant funding, however this yr we would not have a full sponsor the best way that we now have up to now. Normally round 75 p.c of our college students are on some form of scholarship. So we’re asking our group and anybody who believes on this work to go on our web site. You’ll be able to sponsor a person pupil ($1,000) [or donate another amount]. At the moment, all of the donations on our web site are going in the direction of scholarships for Futuro.
