Rocha Dance Theater to Present CAUTION:HOT at HERE Arts Center

Caution:HOT incorporates theatricality, outlandish, original costuming, projection, and dance in an often surreal ode to womens' reproductive bodies. Through a series of linked vignettes, Rocha Dance Theater delves into the unmentionable and taboo, forcing the hush-hush, murky world of reproductive stages into the spotlight in this compelling world premiere. From tampon wigs to the proverbial biological clock, Caution:HOT puts it all out there, unabashed and unashamed.

"When are you going to have a baby?" "Are you gonna freeze your eggs?" "Aren't you running out of time to get pregnant?" Two women entangle in an athletic duet, one firing questions as the other tries to escape, finally crumpling under metaphorical and literal weight.

In the waiting room of a 50s-style clinic, dancers move in a stilted, dreamlike way, each occupied by some form of reproductive duress: A woman undergoing an implied miscarriage, denoted by a long, mournful train. A menopausal woman in the throes of a hot flash, fanned by onlookers. Another is indecisive about seeking an abortion, while her counterpart is determined to cut the line to receive the procedure.

Once admitted to the clinic, dressed now in paper gowns and little else, they stomp their feet and slash the air with the garments in anger, frustration, triumph and defiance in the face of a medical system that often denies their humanity.

After multiple solos and duets featuring everything from menstruation to menopause to a cheeky pregnancy dance, the show culminates in a scintillating, driving group section. The women, dressed in red, showcase Rocha's signature jazzy style mixed with her more grounded, contemporary floorwork, owning their sexuality in a way that is more personal than presentational, though still caught in a race against themselves and others.

Caution:HOT is choreographed by Jenny Rocha of both Rocha Dance Theater and lauded neo burlesque troupe, The Painted Ladies, and showcases a percussive, nuanced score by husband and long-term collaborator, Joseph Rivas.

Featuring dancers Alex Bittner, Dervla Carey-Jones, Nikki Ervice, Jamie Graham, Nicole Lemelin, Corinne Shearer, and Rocha herself, Caution:HOT is sure to shock, delight, and destigmatize.

Jenny Rocha is a multi-disciplinary artist with a focus on dance and costume design. She is the artistic director of Rocha Dance Theater, a Brooklyn-based dance company. She is also a nightlife producer and director of The Painted Ladies, a cabaret group that was admitted into the Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. Rocha's choreography has been presented by esteemed venues such as The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Boston Center for the Arts, Danspace Project, La MaMa ETC, The Gerald W. Lynch Theater, Teatro Ribieragrandense Portugal and more. Jenny has created hundreds of original costumes for her own work as well as having designed for Heidi Latsky Dance, The Raving Jaynes, Lesley Garrison and multiple seasons for Rutgers University and Lehman College. As a teaching artist, she has taught residencies at Roger Williams University, Connecticut College, Rhode Island College, West Virginia University and is in her 12th year as a teaching artist at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. jennyrocha.com

Rocha Dance Theater presents a hybrid of dance theater and costume design. The company's performances utilize movement and visual storytelling to address women's issues and social structures, challenging attitudes towards the feminine by presenting an alternate reality that is at once dream-like and relatable. RDT's mission is to create art that contributes in dismantling the patriarchy, gender norms and stereotypes.

HERE has been one of New York's most prolific producing organizations since 1993, and today, it stands at the forefront of the city's presenters of daring new hybrid art. HERE supports multidisciplinary work that does not fit into a conventional programming agenda. Their aesthetic represents the independent, the innovative, and the experimental

This production is a part of SubletSeries@HERE: Co-op, HERE's curated rental program, which provides artists with subsidized space and equipment, as well as a technical liaison

The creation of Caution: HOT! was also made possible in part by the CUNY Dance Initiative Residency in partnership with John Jay College

Photo by Mark Shelby Perry