Our new Education & Outreach intern Liza Cardinal created this fun video from the recital! Thanks for sharing, Liza!
Recital 2011!
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Monthly Archives: June 2011
Instituto Coreografico: Panel Presentation
It was a wild ride at the panel presentation of George Céspedes’s ‘Stop: This Door is Alarmed’ last Thursday. Click here to view the pictures!
Instituto Coreográfico: Inside the Studio, Week 2!
Instituto will be wrapping up this Friday and wow, does the work look amazing!
Check out the new set of pictures courtesy of Joshua Preston.
Instituto Coreografico: Inside the Studio with George Céspedes
Filmmaker Danny Mendoza, with guidance from mentor Gerrit Vooren, submitted this wonderful footage from the first week of Instituto.
Enjoy!
Instituto Coreografico: Thoughts from Eduardo
On the first day of Ballet Hispanico’s Instituto Coreografico there was a moment when choreographer George Céspedes posed a question to the Ballet Hispanico dancers. The room stood still. The question, rather personal, was not used to break the ice but rather to totally unhinge the dancers expectations as well as challenge their “dancer” mindset.
Mr. Céspedes, who has just finished his first American tour with Danza Contemporanea de Cuba, is a Cuban dancer and choreographer who described himself to me as an accidental dancer but a born choreographer. And move he does! He is constantly on the move and so full of energy that it feels like we may have discovered a new powerful strain of ADD in his being. He is non-stop, whimsical and bold with a natural Cuban touch of arrogance.
Four days after his bold opening statement, George has taken the dancers through a series of Laban exercises: improvisation and “honest” movement exploration that challenges the dancer’s every move and intention. These exercises have allowed the dancers to move towards George’s philosophy of movement flow. To me it a looks like a free association of muscle and bone that naturally takes a dancer from point A to B without strong-arming the movement. This does not mean that the movement has no intention or power. These dancers are being invited to harness their power in a very natural and personal way.
It is clear that George is guiding our dancers towards his preferred form of movement poetry, more “dance slam” than haiku.
More to come,
Eduardo
Instituto Coreografico: Session 4
This week we welcomed Georges Céspedes to the studios to kick off the fourth installment of Instituto. George comes to us from Danza Contemporánea de Cuba and his engagement with with Ballet Hispanico follows Danza Conteporánea’s first tour in the United States in its 52-year history, with two weeks of sold-out performances earlier this month at The Joyce Theatre.
Photos from this studios can be found here.
Join us here on the blog as we explore the culmination of Mr. Céspedes’ first work on an American contemporary dance company.
About the choreographer: GEORGE CÉSPEDES was born in Holguín, Cuba, in 1979 and studied dance and choreography at Havana’s National School of Dance. Upon graduation he joined Danza Contemporánea de Cuba and has performed as a principal dancer in more than nineteen of the company’s repertoire works. Céspedes is also a prolific choreographer, having created more than eighteen works for his own company, for the National Ballet of Cuba, the school of the National Ballet, and for the National School of Dance. Céspedes’s many achievements include the Luna Prize (Mexico, 2009) for his production of “Carmina Burana,” the Vigna le Youth Dance Prize (1997), and a finalist placement at the 23rd Wettbewerb International Competition for Choreographers in Hannover (2009). “La Ecuación,” which he choreographed, won the Villa Nueva Prize (2004) and the Alicia Alonso Ibero-American Choreography Competition (2002). Céspedes’s work for Ballet Hispanico will be his first with an American dance company.
