CUNY Dance Initiative and Rovaco Dance Company Present KAMA

Rovaco Dance has announced the company's third evening length production, consisting of their first evening length work. Titled after the Sanskrit word for "desire, wish, longing," KAMA explores taboo in sex and addiction. An initial merging of abstract concert dance with movement and imagery stemming from contemporary clubbing develops and distorts, representing casual sex with mechanical movement, and the tweaking phase of a high with pathological abandon as two individuals find a brief, profound tenderness that devolves into toxic heartbreak. Drawing from perspectives across sexual identities, KAMA portrays honest and inclusive physical narratives of our universally human quest for pleasure in a capitalist system that desensitizes us to humanity itself.

Featuring a cast of Nico Gonzales, Alden Henderson, Jihyun Kim, Elise Paccico, and Anna Pinault, KAMA is additionally a multimedia collaboration:

Saúl Guanipa, originally from Caracas, Venezuela, and a graduate of Berklee College of Music, has created an original score of house-inspired music that provides an aural manifestation of the choreography's thematic research. His work has been featured by the David Lynch Foundation, AOL/Cambio, SONY, and has been widely used in television promos for HBO, Showtime, ABC, and CNN. Currently a staff composer at VideoHelper Music + Sound Design Library, for KAMA he has provided deep electronics that speak to the looming dangers within ecstatic experience.

Additional contributions include original costumes by Barry Doss (resident costume designer and costume department chair at Sam Houston State University), and lighting by Ted Boyce-Smith.

Thursday's premiere will culminate in a reception, and Friday's closing will be followed by a talk back with the artists.

Tickets available here.

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