World Premiere of BACH DANCE PROJECT to be Presented as Part of Cervantino International Festival

The world premiere of Bach Dance Project, inspired by Paul Taylor's modern dance and Johann Sebastian Bach's music, will take place on October 25th as part of the 50th anniversary of the Cervantino International Festival in Guanajuato, Mexico. The work, created between the Mexican American Choreographer Francisco Graciano, former dancer, teacher, and repetiteur of Paul Taylor Dance Company (PTDC), and six dancers from Guanajuato, can be seen on the Teatro Principal, at 6pm.

Bach Dance Project is coproduced by the Cervantino Festival and the State Institute of Culture of Guanajuato (IEC), under the international management of Contenidos Artísticos with the Taylor Company.

"I am trying to cocreate something with the dancers, Bach (1685-1750) and Paul Taylor's (1930-2018) heritage that feels authentic, but also represents this time and this place and works with harmony. One of my main goals for this project is to highlight each individual and their background, specifically who they are in Mexico and give them a space to shine, to feel unique, heard and seen," says Graciano.

Proud of his Mexican roots-the family of his father, a mariachi musician, came from Coahuila in the north part of Mexico-Francisco thinks it is important to take actions and spotlight voices that have been marginalized in the United States and give more artists more opportunities according to the policies of racial equity, diversity, and inclusion, as in the Bach Dance Project.

The artistic residency of Francisco in the Mexican city of Guanajuato started on June 22 and will finish during October of this year. It involves both the creation of the performance and the artistic training of six dancers chosen by an open call: Pryska Vargas, Estíbaliz Córdova, Ada Janett Tovar, Dayana Márquez, Carlos Sebastián Delgado y Paola González Garza.

Bach's music will be played live and on stage by a chamber orchestra with Adalberto Tovar as a conductor. It was selected because of the influence it has in modern dance. The case of Taylor is unique because he worked more with this baroque German composer.

Six of his dances were choreographed to Bach scores: Junction (1961), Esplanade (1975), Musical Offering (1986), Brandenburgs (1988), Cascade (1999) and Promethean Fire (2002). They amass a collection of works with marvelous variety, choreography invention, and critical acclaim. They showcase Bach's complexity, nuance, and poignancy.

Francisco had the opportunity to witness that when he danced Taylor's master works like Promethean Fire and Esplanade.

A work in progress of Bach Dance Project was shown during the closure of the fourth edition of the Guanajuato Bach Festival, on July 10 in the Teatro Cervantes. As part of the opening ceremony of this festival it took place, in the Museum Palacio de los Poderes, the talk "Bach: from music to movement" with Michael Novak, the artistic director of the PTDC, and the Dutch Erik Bosgraaf, who plays the flute and is also a conductor.

It doesn't exist a professional dance school, not even a steady dance company in Guanajuato. This scenario encouraged the quest of this type of projects because they can promote the development and growth of this performing art in the state.

"The Bach Dance Project responds to the need of educating and training, deeply and rigorously, dancers and choreographers in Guanajuato. We want dance to be in the forefront of the cultural sector and we are surrounded by many possibilities to achieve this goal", in opinion of Adriana Camarena, general director of the institute of Guanajuato.

Dancing a powerful message about today's society

Tania Pérez-Salas is the first Mexican and Latin American female choreographer that collaborates with the Island Moving Company (IMC), a contemporary ballet company founded in 1982 in Newport, Rhode Island who is looking forward to strength cultural exchange, since the population of this city is becoming more diverse.

Pérez-Salas (Mexico City, 1970) will be working for two weeks, from September 19th through September 30th, with the 13 dancers of the company to stage her most recent piece Run Echo, where she proposes different points of view about borders and migration, while reflecting today's society and questioning human nature and its condition.

"Though we live in the era of communications and technology, and the distance between persons is shortening, the free movement of people is far from becoming a reality because the walls tend to grow every day", says Tania.

The show premieres on October 6th in the Newport Congregational Church, an old building with beautiful architecture and stained-glass windows where the Island Moving Company created a whole theatre but intimate space.

Run Echo marks the beginning of the 41st season of the company and of the first program dedicated to female choreographers named Points of departure, explains Danielle Genest, the new artistic director of the IMC.

"We have brought a mix of choreographers, but a lot of the guests that have ended up coming in are male, so I thought to focus on women", says Genest, who believes it is important to give female choreographers a platform.

Danielle first came across Tania's work with the Ballet Hispánico, premiered in April 17, 2017 at The Joyce Theater in New York. Then she started to discover more of her choreographies and got in contact with Contenidos Artísticos.

"I just love the texture of her work, the passion. It is theatrical but sensual, really technical but also free. I was immediately drawn to it and the more I watched the more I was interested", recognizes the former dancer, teacher and associate artistic director of the Island Moving Company.

Tania Pérez-Salas is a renowned dancer and choreographer in the Mexican scene with a high international impact. She founded her own company 28 years ago and she has received several grants from important cultural institutions in her country. Her work, such as Biography of desire, Visitor and The Waters of Forgetfulness, is based on universal topics from a unique perspective.

She has been invited to La Biennale de la Danse in Lyon, the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Shanghai International Dance Festival, Galway International Arts Festival and Tel Aviv Dance Festival.

Since 2006, Tania Pérez-Salas Company has dance in important venues in the United States like Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., and The Music Center in Los Angeles.

Celebrating 10 years of existence

Bach Dance Project and Run Echo were born as part of the celebration of the 10th anniversary of Contenidos Artísticos, cultural enterprise based both in Mexico and in the US founded by the cultural manager, producer, and programmer Cristina Vázquez.

Contenidos Artísticos focuses on the performing arts field and the bicultural work between the two countries, and its purpose is to generate spaces for artists to present on one or other side of the border, while fostering cultural exchange of high quality from an inclusive approach. Interculturality and a gender perspective.

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