PUBLIC EVENTS
Choreographing The Last Layer
Workshop/Demo with CARAS El Puente Dance Ensemble
Tuesday 6/15, 7-9pm
$10 general admission/$5 students/low income
Artistic director Rozz Nash and young ensemble members address and demonstrate the group's choreographic process; how culturally specific dances and backgrounds of the troupe members inform the creation of contemporary works such as their most recent, The Last Layer.
CARAS EL PUENTE DANCE ENSEMBLE:
Located in the Los Sures community of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, CARAS El Puente Dance Ensemble is a component of El Puente Center for Arts and Culture. The center's legacy dates back 30 years, to its mother association, Williamsburg Arts and Culture Council for Youth (WACCY) founded by Frances Lucerna in 1980 and integrated into El Puente, five years later.
El Puente and its CARAS ensemble have made a tradition of reinvigorating engaged arts practices in North Brooklyn, in line with El Puente's mission of fighting for social justice, human rights and community building in North Brooklyn.
CARAS strives to empower young artists to express themselves through dance, and to create innovative works that explore social and political issues and spark dialogue for change. Diversity in culture, race, gender, sexuality, and thought figures prominently in the Caras repertory. The group has performed at venues such as BAM, Dance Theatre Workshop, many community events and most recently, Summerstage.
ABOUT DANCE IN THE HOOD: WILLIAMSBURG TRADITIONS
Presented as part of CPR's series, New Voices in Live Performance, and curated by Nicole Macotsis, Dance in the Hood: Williamsburg Traditions is a week of workshops, performances and discussions recognizing neighborhood dance traditions and expert local artists - from the late '60 to today.
For many New Yorkers, North Brooklyn's Williamsburg embodies the waves of gentrification that have transformed parts of the city in the last decade. As its neighbors, geography and prices changed, the area began to be represented by media and developers as trendy, hip and creative.
But despite its recent recognition as an "artistic center," the creation of art, and especially dance, in Williamsburg isn't new: hipsters in the hood were dancing long before it was safe to ride the L train. From Los Sures to the North Side, generations have made a tradition of innovating dance genres, such as Brooklyn rock dance, reviving older ones, such as bomba, and mixing culturally specific dances and neighborhood narratives into contemporary forms, as does CARAS El Puente Dance Ensemble.
Dance in the Hood: Williamsburg Traditions week-long program is only able to highlight a few dances, but many others not included, such as Dominican, Polish, and Italian social dances, have a long history in the neighborhood and are still performed today.
The purpose of Dance in the Hood: Williamsburg traditions is three-fold: to draw attention to the legacy of dance artistry in the neighborhood; to get neighbors talking about changes in cultural expressions due to social and economic changes; and finally, to stimulate collaborations between CPR's modern dance regulars and other neighborhood dancers who have been performing and perpetuating vernacular and formal forms for generations - each with their own story to tell from the hood.
The New Voices in Live Performance Series is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; The Mertz Gilmore Foundation; and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
