BALAM Dance Theatre Opens 45th Season With FIESTA ODALAN 45!

BALAM Dance Theatre will open its 45th anniversary season with the opulent spring showing, Fiesta Odalan 45!, in New York City.  The company presents the showing at Gibney Dance Center, located at 53A Chambers Street, Studio H, New York, New York, on Sunday, May 19 from 3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. EST.  The program is free and open to the public, with donations appreciated.  BALAM, a professional, non-profit dance company, offers a vision of contemporary cultural dance by combining ballet, modern and diverse cultural dance styles and historic periods. 

Fiesta Odalan 45! presents solos, duets, trios, and a quartet spotlighting a range of music, dance forms and movements from Indonesia, Peru, Spain and the United States from the 18th century to the present.  These mesmerizing works are featured:

• Oleg Tambulilingan (Love Dance of the Bumblebees duet), a playful traditional Balinese duet performed to Keybar gamelan music. 

• El Barreño, a charming folkloric dance duet from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala;

• Huicho, an 18th Century Peruvian bird dance with live Baroque guitar and singing;

• Mariones, a Baroque guitar solo;

• Caballo de Rejoneo, a premiere evoking a Sevillanas duet with castanets and live singing;

• Harp and Butterfly, Isadora Duncan solos; and

• Ramayana: Abduction of Sita, the company’s action packed signature Balinese fusion story ballet inspired by the Hindu epic.  This piece portrays several violent scenes using culturally specific movements and vocalizations that may be disturbing to preteen children and senior audiences.

The program presents a cast of ten diverse artists spanning two generations.  BALAM Dance Theatre’s company’s dancers include Robin Gilbert, Yumiko Niimi, Toshinori Hamada, Barbara Romero, and Carlos Fittante.  Returning artists are musician Ryan Closs on Baroque guitar, mezzosoprano Eugenia Forteza, and dancer Steven Jeltsch.  As the world's only Flamenco stand-up comedian, entertainer Inma Heredia from Seville, Spain brings her salero (charm) to perform with the company.

Guest dancer Marie Carstens, LCAT, LMT, BC-DMT, CMA, an Isadora Duncan dance specialist, performs with BALAM for the first time.  Carstens, the co-creator of Putnam County Dance Project, is also a dance/movement therapist and a performer with Dances by Isadora/NYC.