Baryshnikov Arts Center Presents The Digital Premiere Of Omar Román De Jesús's CIELO ELENA

The Baryshnikov Arts Center presents the digital premiere of Cielo Elena, a new dance film by Omar Román De Jesús, created in part during a residency at BAC this March. The program also features Jesús's 2021 film Los Perros del Barrio Colosal. The online presentation is free and available to watch on demand from Monday, April 25, at 5pm ET, until Monday, May 9, at 5pm, at bacnyc.org.

Created by choreographer Omar Román De Jesús with cinematographer Xhon Dang, sound designer Jesse Scheinin, and lighting designer Christopher Chambers, Cielo Elena is a performance film that takes viewers through six movements celebrating individual and interpersonal relationships to the human body. It splays intimacy open, posing questions about ecstasy, kink, queerness, vulnerability, and risk while participating in an ongoing effort to liberate concert dance from moral rigidity, here through the durable medium of film. Performers: Michael Arellano, Rafael Cañals, Lake Escobosa, Spencer Everett, Bailey Jo Harbaugh, Margaret Jones, Rachel Secrest, and Ian Spring. Running time: 15 minutes.

Los Perros del Barrio Colosal (2021) takes us on a wild romp through the challenges of creative decision-making. Diving dramatically into the adventure of an imagination yet to be physicalized, it asks us to consider the far side of the moments when our ideas threaten, with disjointed urgency, to swallow us whole. Choreographed by Omar Román De Jesús. Cinematography by Drew L. Brown. Performers: Rafael Cañals, Carlos Sánchez Falú, Rachel Secrest, Ian Spring, Christian Warner, and Spencer Weidie. Running time: 12 minutes.

Omar Román De Jesús (Bayamón, Puerto Rico) is a Queer LatinX choreographer and artistic director of the New York-based company Boca Tuya. De Jesús creates rhythmic narratives through contemporary dance forms, improvisation, and dance theater techniques. De Jesús is a recipient of the 2020 Jacob's Pillow Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellowship. He has been commissioned twice by Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña to create work for the International Dance Festival of Puerto Rico, where he was awarded the Ambassador of Dance medal. De Jesús has won choreographic competitions including the Joffrey Academy of Dance's Winning Works Choreographic Competition and the Whim W'Him's Choreographic Shindig. He has received such awards as the Audience Award at The Dance Gallery Festival, first place prize at the Reverb Dance Festival and the Parsons Dance GenerationNOW Commission for its 2017 Joyce season. He has also created work for Bruce Wood Dance, Jacob Jonas The Company, and educational institutions such as the Ailey School, Kennesaw State University, James Madison University, and Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. This past fall, his work was presented at PRISMA International Dance Festival (Panama), Encuentro ENDANZANTE (Colombia), the Chop Shop: Bodies of Work Contemporary Dance Festival (Seattle), and it will be presented at the upcoming Jerusalem International Choreographic Competition. De Jesús is the recipient of 2022 commissions with Ballet Hispánico Instituto Coreográfico, the Limón Second Company, the Joffrey Ballet Concert Group, MOVE NYC, the Baryshnikov Arts Center, and the Paul Taylor Dance Company. He is currently teaching as faculty at the Ailey School. He is fond of education and has experience teaching workshops and master classes all over the world for dancers, special needs communities, people with physical disabilities, and marginalized communities.

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