Performances Added to La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival Featuring Compañía Cuerpo de Indias & More

La MaMa has added performances to the La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival. The final week of the festival will now run through Thursday, May 5, with upcoming performances by Compañía Cuerpo de Indias, John Scott Dance, and Valetango Company. This annual three-week festival, now in its 17th season, is curated by Nicky Paraiso. Performances will take place at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre and The Downstairs Theatre, 66 East 4th Street (between Bowery and Second Avenue), in Manhattan.

The first two weeks of the festival included premieres by Pele Bauch, Marina Celander, Gerald Casel, Johnnie Cruise Mercer, Tiffany Mills Company, and Jesse Zaritt.

Tickets for La MaMa Moves! are $25 in advance/$30 day of show. Students/Seniors: $20 in advance/$25 day of show. Tickets for Compañía Cuerpo de Indias's Flowers for Kazuo Ohno (and Leonard Cohen) are free (reservations required), but donations to Caring for Colombia are encouraged. Caring for Colombia builds bridges and mobilizes resources between US donors and organizations to empower high-impact social projects in Colombia. It fosters strong relationships with local leaders and institutions, including Compañía Cuerpo de Indias (the professional company of El Colegio del Cuerpo-The School of the Body) that inspire transformation in the most vulnerable communities. Tickets are available at www.lamama.org.

Schedule of Performances

Compañía Cuerpo de Indias

(Professional Company of El Colegio del Cuerpo/The School of the Body)

Flowers for Kazuo Ohno (and Leonard Cohen) (US Premiere)

Thursday and Friday, April 28-29, at 7pm

Added performances: Wednesday and Thursday, May 4-5, at 7pm

Ellen Stewart Theatre

Compañía Cuerpo de Indias, from Colombia, will present Flowers for Kazuo Ohno (and Leonard Cohen), a contemporary dance piece conceived and directed by Álvaro Restrepo. Choreographed by Marie-France Delieuvin, Ricardo Bustamante, and Álvaro Restrepo with music by Leonard Cohen, it is a "six hands" homage for one of the creators of Butoh dance: Kazuo Ohno. Without using Butoh language, the piece is an offering made by its creators through their choreographic and poetic universe. A way of returning the flowers that Kazuo Ohno and his son Yoshito sent Compañía Cuerpo de Indias in Tokyo during a performance for some members of the Japanese imperial family and special guests at the celebration of 100 years of diplomatic relations between Colombia and Japan. Stage design, props, and wardrobe by El Colegio del Cuerpo. Lighting design by Alexander Gümbel.

John Scott Dance

Cloud Study (US Premiere)

Friday and Saturday, April 29-30, at 8:30pm; Sunday, May 1 at 4pm

The Downstairs Theatre

John Scott returns to La MaMa with his newest work Cloud Study. Called "powerful and mesmerizing" (The Arts Review), the work uses the idea of clouds as a traveling, dreamy mass that floats above everything, witnessing, dissolving, and carrying storms. Two compelling dancers, Mufutau Yusuf (who performed in Scott's Fall and Recoverat La MaMa), an Irish dancer born in Nigeria and Taryn Griggs, are running to somewhere or from something, speaking English and Yorùbá, communicating with their bodies, hand signs, and dance. Music by Ryan Vial, costumes by Justine Doswell, lighting design by Eric Würtz.

Cloud Study was commissioned by Galway International Arts Festival. John Scott Dance is funded by the Arts Council of Ireland.

Valetango Company

Confianza (Trust) (World Premiere)

Saturday, April 30, at 7pm; Sunday, May 1, at 2pm

Added performance: Monday, May 2, at 7pm

Ellen Stewart Theatre

In Confianza four performers investigate how to listen deeply and open a door to transformation. They ask when trust is a burden and when it is a gift, when well grounded and when elusive, if it's possible to love powerfully without compromising one's own center. Confianza, which means trust in Spanish, highlights tango's main legacy, the radical lead-flow interdependency, and expands it beyond embrace. In tango, even the smallest shift of weight is a step. There are no set counts and no set patterns. There is only a communication of weight, direction, intensity, and timing. The company translates tango improvisation to a broad dance vocabulary imbued with theatrical intent. Confianza delves into the fragile balance of trust and distrust negotiated in ambivalent relationships and explores the impact of trust as a source of meaning and growth. Conceived and created by Valeria Solomonoff, and collaboratively choreographed by performers Rodney Hamilton, Orlando Reyes Ibarra, Alondra Meek, and Solomonoff. Dramatic direction, stage design, and text by Orlando Pabotoy. Lighting design by Charlotte Seeling, costume design by Gail Baldoni.

About La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival

The 17th season of the La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival has been made possible with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, with special thanks to City Council Speaker Corey Johnson; New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; Ford Foundation; Howard Gilman Foundation; Mertz Gilmore Foundation; the Harkness Foundation for Dance; the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; the Jerome Robbins Foundation; the Shubert Foundation, and the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.

About La MaMa

La MaMa is dedicated to the artist and all aspects of the theater. La MaMa's historic 60th Season is committed to Radical Access, a comprehensive access that includes physical and economic accessibility, opportunity, representation, and relevance. La MaMa celebrates its 60th season with the reopening of its first permanent home at 74A East 4th Street after extensive renovation ensuring new generations of artists a space to create work and change how we think about and experience art, and ultimately transform our cultural narrative. La MaMa's vision of nurturing new artists and new work remains as strong today as it was when Ellen Stewart first opened the doors in 1961 and has presented more than 5,000 productions by 150,000 artists of all nations, cultures, races, and identities.

A recipient of the 2018 Regional Theater Tony Award, and more than 30 Obie Awards and dozens of Drama Desk, Bessie, and Villager Awards, La MaMa has been a creative home for thousands of artists, many of whom have made lasting contributions to the arts, including Blue Man Group, Ping Chong, André De Shields, Adrienne Kennedy, Harvey Fierstein, Diane Lane, Warren Leight, Michael Mayer, Tadeusz Kantor, Bette Midler, Meredith Monk, Peter Brook, David and Amy Sedaris, Julie Taymor, Kazuo Ohno, Marc Shaiman, and Scott Wittman.

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