DDP Talks To Ana María Alvarez (Founding Artistic Director)
CONTRA-TIEMPO Activist Dance Theater
CONTRA-TIEMPO’s website explains that “community engagement and artistic production are inextricably linked.” How do the unique needs of Los Angeles inform this community-minded mission and in what ways has the company already accomplished this goal?
Los Angeles is a powerful ecosystem of coalition building and organizing work happening across racial, cultural & economic divides. Although our city often identifies as geographically divided – folks stay in their neighborhoods – we have found that our work will often invite and encourage Los Angelenos to move past their neighborhood boundaries. Our company is a reflection of our city, we are a diverse group of artists from various lived experiences, geographically, culturally, and racially, to gender identity, economics, and education. As our work has continued to evolve we are engaging more deeply in movement work ranging from issues such as housing rights, economic justice, voting rights, foster care, and adoption. We work closely with community partners across the city such as CPC (Community Power Collective) and CoCo (Community Coalition) to name a few. We have made a conscious effort over the last 5-6 years to focus our work with partners in South Los Angeles, East Los Angeles, and Culver City. I view choreography as community organizing, and therefore our creative process for the last 3 evening-length works has involved the practice of choreographic laboratories (choreo labs). Through these choreo labs, we invite participants to take part in the verbal and physical conversations of the work. This engagement of artistic practice and the practice and sharing of culture (specifically dance) as an organizing tool, has become central to the work we are doing locally and across the country.
You provide a series of unique engagement opportunities, including your choreographic labs, designed for “community art-making,” to build “deep and meaningful connections through creative and generative practice.” How do you track the effectiveness of these types of initiatives? What concrete examples of impact have you seen within the community as a result of them?
Originally we began the choreographic labs as a way to link the work and participants of the work from across LA, connecting us from across the large span of LA County. We found (through a check-in process and evaluation forms) in this first round of labs that many of the people who participated only took part in labs close to their homes or workplaces. The final performance premiere of the work did draw folks from across the city, but this 1st iteration of the choreography labs moved us towards working deeper, not wider. After this first iteration, we decided to focus on South LA as the location of our engagement process, and for 2 years we led weekly free community workshops called Sabor Sessions. Every Friday we gathered to move, dance, and practice embodied ancestral technologies with those who showed up. Through the weekly workshops, check-ins, evaluation forms, and visible anecdotes, we found that the impact on the community and on our own company members who led and participated in these weekly sessions was profoundly moving. There are participants who were regulars during these weekly sessions, and still attend our local events, classes, and performances. We built a community of support and other partnerships for this work that is continuing to grow. One of the high school students in South LA, who we worked with through a choreographic lab partnership with Foshay Learning Center, just attended our 2 week Futuro Summer Dance Intensive and is now auditioning for the company. These choreo labs play an important role in planting seeds of connection in our community.
Much of your current repertory incorporates actual participation by community members. For example, your ongoing piece “joyUS justUS” incorporates community feedback, sound bytes from local participants, and live audience participation. Tell us more about how the community not only informs and inspires your performance work, but actively engages in it.
We don’t think of community engagement and artmaking as separate areas of focus, but treat both as critical elements of our work, and both equally as important. This sets us apart from many other dance companies. Often you hear other folks in our field speak of “outreach” work. None of the work we do is “outreach”, but instead we think of the work we do to encourage and invite participation as intentional engagement work. The work is reciprocal and as artists and makers we learn as much as our students, community participants, and audience members do. Our community cast is an example of this reciprocal relationship inside of our artistic work. Whenever and wherever we share a mounted performance work, (we are currently touring “joyUS justUS” and “azucar!”) we always engage a paid group of local dancers who learn parts of the repertoire and perform along side the company. This includes a Zoom call (if we aren’t local) for a preliminary meeting, several in-person rehearsals, and all of our performances. It is a powerful way to quickly and authentically connect with local folks who are aware of the dynamics, politics, and pertinent local issues, and through the community cast process, we are able to hear and learn about some of those from local sources. For “joyUS justUS” we also have a community altar that is a way to create partnerships with local organizations. Through these connections, we usually sell a block of tickets for these audience members sitting onstage. We have also been encouraging venues to present “joyUS justUS” in the round. It often cuts out audience members, but engaging in these practices means our audiences are full! Again the purpose is to go deeper, not wider and we are continuing to find ways in which our rehearsal process, teaching work, and engagement conversations can all deepen as a result of this intention.
Manager of Education and Engagement Heather Myers leads an Ageless Dancers Workshop, Photo by Peter Smida