New York Latin Contemporary Dance blends ballet, modern, jazz and African Diaspora traditions into all sorts of fusions.
Thank you for sponsoring contemporary dance at New York Latin Culture Magazine!
- Ballet Hispánico 🇨🇺🇲🇽🇵🇷
- Ballet Nepantla 🇲🇽
- Dzul Dance 🇲🇽
- Joyce Theater
New York Latin Contemporary Dance Features
nora chipaumire “ShebeenDUB” World Premiere Tryptich Radio Opera, Dance Performance, and DUB Dance Party at Harlem Stage
HARLEM STAGE, Manhattanville, West Harlem, Manhattan 🇿🇼 🇺🇸
New York Latin Contemporary Dance News
January 2023
The 7th American Dance Platform, is an African American dance showcase, curated by Ronald K. Brown; that features Les Ballet Afrik, B Moore Dance, and Waheedworks; at the Joyce Theater in Chelsea, NYC; from January 10-15, 2023. 🇺🇸
Baye & Asa “HotHouse” is a new commission of African and hip-hop dance; at Pioneer Works in Red Hook, Brooklyn; Saturday, January 14, 2023 at 8pm (7pm doors), and Sunday, January 15 at 6:30pm (5:30pm doors). $36. 🇺🇸
Grammy-winners Third Coast Percussion Movement Art, featuring Cameron Murphy and Lil Buck, premiere new work in “Metamorphosis” to contemporary classical music by Philip Glass, Jlin and Tyondai Braxton; in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall; on Friday, January 20, 2023 at 7:30pm. 🇺🇸
February 2023
Complexions Contemporary Ballet performs “Woke” (2019), and “Love Rocks” (2020) to Lenny Kravitz; at the Purchase College Performing Arts Center in Purchase, New York (next to White Plains); on Saturday, February 4, 2023 at 8pm. From $14. 🇺🇸 🇨🇴 🇮🇹
March 2023
Maurya Kerr (Alonzo King LINES Ballet, ODC) from the Bay Area, brings her contemporary dance to the 92nd Street Y Buttenwieser Hall in Manhattan’s Upper East Side; on Thursday-Friday, March 9-10, 2023. From $20. 🇺🇸
July 2023
Ballet Nepantla’s 4th Annual Gala is at 26 Bridge in DUMBO, Brooklyn; on Friday, July 14, 2023 at 7pm. 🇲🇽
New York Latin Contemporary Dance Companies
- Ballet Hispánico 🇨🇺🇲🇽🇵🇷
- Ballet Nepantla 🇲🇽
- Complexions Contemporary Ballet 🇺🇸 🇨🇴 🇮🇹
- Les Ballet Afrik voguing joyce.org 🇺🇸
- Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE 🇺🇸
About New York Latin Contemporary Dance
Contemporary dance traces its roots to Isadora Duncan (ca 1877 – 1927), an American dancer from California, who charmed Europe’s elite with her fluid, naturalistic movement at the turn of the 20th century. She actually influenced ballet, modern, and contemporary, but her freedom from structure places her in the contemporary frame.
The evolution of dance mirrors the evolution of art and music. Compared to ballet’s strict classical narrative, modern dance is more freely romantic, and contemporary dance is more abstract.
In 1940s New York, Merce Cunningham was one of the first choreographers to step away from modern dance traditions.
Another way to look at this is that modern dance was the experimental transition from traditional dance (ballet and folkloric) to contemporary dance.
Now it’s all mixed together, and African Diaspora traditions are being recovered in the mix. That gets interesting because by Indigenous and African tradition, dance is how we pray.
