American Dance Festival - Ballet Hispánico

Program: House of Mad’Moiselle, Buscando a Juan, 18+1
Running time: ~105 minutes
Tickets: $40–$70

*Post-Performance Discussion

Ballet Hispánico, the largest Latinx/Latine/Hispanic cultural organization in the United States, returns to ADF this summer with their recent reconstruction of House of Mad’Moiselle, unveiling the electrifying transformation of gender expressions in Latin America. In this piece, the visionary choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa deconstructs norms, and the pulsating rhythms take the audience on a provocative dance journey. Buscando a Juan is a layered and immersive work inspired by the life of the Afro-Hispanic painter Juan de Pareja, who was enslaved by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez for over two decades before becoming an artist in his own right. Choreographed by Eduardo Vilaro, artistic director and CEO of Ballet Hispánico, the work explores sancocho, or a mixed soup of cultures and diasporas, considering the assumptions experienced when witnessing people of color in white spaces in relation to the exoticized body. 18+1 celebrates Gustavo Ramírez Sansano’s 19 years as a choreographer and the vulnerability, care, and hope that comes with each artistic endeavor. In a subtle humor and electric choreography display, the movement merges with the playful rhythms found in Pérez Prado’s mambo music.

“The members of Ballet Hispánico are 12 of the most technically accomplished and musical dancers you’ll find in the contemporary sphere.”
– The Washington Post

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