The Transformative Power of the Choreographic Process

Often the choreographic process is a transformative experience for the artists involved, moving through a journey of research, discovery, and uncovering personal connections to the content of the work. During the creation of CONTRA-TIEMPO's evening-length work, Agua Furiosa, in 2016, Artistic Director, Ana Maria Alvarez, decided to begin the creative development process with a series of interactive, site-specific art performances and creative laboratories rooted in the themes of the work.

The Birth of CONTRA-TIEMPO's Creative Labs

This practice evolved into what we now call our choreographic labs, and from the beginning were always planned in partnership with local community organizations. The experience of sharing and play was inspired by Alvarez's desire to engage a larger community of participants in this experience of art-making and her belief that these experiences of exploration and sharing would build meaningful relationships and resilience across geographic and economic divides. 

Engaging Communities Through Art and Movement

For Agua Furiosa, the labs were open to the public and connected to specific bodies of water in Los Angeles. Participants witnessed work in progress, created their own movement/theater-based work around themes explored in the piece (race, exile, injustice, water, drought, and upheaval), and shared their own stories connected to those themes in council circles.

The Role of Council Circles in Artistic Collaboration

Council is an age-old practice that involves bringing people together in a circle to bear witness and share authentically. The company was trained to lead council by the Center for Council. The labs provide a rare opportunity for community art-making and for "holding space" to hear each other’s stories. Many of the stories and movements in the final production of Agua Furiosa came directly out of these choreographic labs, so they were extraordinarily rich for our creative process.

From Community Stories to Stage: The Making of Agua Furiosa

Most importantly, they were rich in community-building. When Agua Furiosa's development process came to an end, we knew we had to continue the labs. We have adopted the choreographic lab process as one of our core community engagement practices.

Expanding the Reach of Creative Labs in joyUS justUS

In CONTRA-TIEMPO's newest work, joyUS justUS, we have begun to share the choreographic lab experience while on tour and have found that it continues to help us evolve and grow the work as well as engage local community in the work itself.

Supporting Community-Based Art Initiatives

CONTRA-TIEMPO was honored to have received a Dance/USA Engaging Dance Audiences grant to develop our choreographic lab engagement work. Later we received the California Arts Council's Artists Activating Communities grant to continue to develop this work in partnership with Community Coalition. 

The Ongoing Impact of Community-Engaged Art Practices

We are excited as we continue to grow and deepen this work. We look forward to documenting and sharing our findings with other organizations, practitioners, and community members as we continue to build the powerful practice of community-engaged art-making. 

Never miss when a Choreographic Laboratory is near you! Sign up for our mailing list here, or view our most recent events here!

Summer 2022

Spring 2022

FUTURO Artivist Leadership Intensive (HYBRID)

April 1-3, 2022

• 3-7pm Fri. 4/1

• 9am-3pm Sat. 4/2

• 9am-3pm Sun. 4/3

An Immersive 3-Day Experience

A 3-day intensive where artistry and activism are one. During our time together you will be challenged creatively, artistically, and physically. Movement classes will be taught by CONTRA-TIEMPO artists and a roster of incredible leaders and guest teachers from the field. In this program, you will have the space to develop your artivist voice, discuss socio-political history and current events, and explore how Art as Social Action can guide us to a more just and loving future.

2021

FUTURO: EMBODIED REVOLUTION

CONTRA-TIEMPO Futuro is a space that we have grown over the last decade, to foster the next generation of CONTRA-TIEMPO, to collectively create a future of more love and justice, and as a space to support the development of the leaders of the presente. The NOW. It is critical that we build with our bodies, collective spaces of radical imagination and joy-making: revolution embodied! 

Spring 2021 Virtual Futuro Event

Join us this Spring 2021, for a four-day, virtual Futuro event. Together we will train rigorously and become grounded in the techniques and rooted forms of CONTRA-TIEMPO's work: salsa, afro-cuban, afro-modern, improvisation, hip-hop grooves, and breaking. We will also develop a daily practice of art as social action, incorporating leadership development, community-building strategies, historical/political grounding, and delve into the body as a space of healing and power building.  Participants and company members will come away with a greater sense of our power and energized as artists and leaders! 

2019

Snapshot of the 2019 Summer Dance Intensive 

The 2019 theme was Joy as a Form of Resistance. We explored social dances of the US and Afro-Latin Diaspora: hip-hop, samba de roda and samba reggae, LA-style Salsa, Salsa Rueda, Rumba, Comparsa, Festejo, and modern. In our Art-as-Social-Action workshops, we looked at critical race theory, intersectionality, alternate models of wealth and capital, and the power of practicing gratitude.  

Participant Demographics 2019

• Gender: 78% women | 10% men | 3% non-binary | 6% other genders

• Location: Hailed from CA, DC, TX, FL, CT, NY, and AZ

• Ethnicity: Were 35% Latinx | 28% Black/African-American | 10% mixed-ethnicity | 10% White | 7% Asian | 3% Haitian American

• 100% were POWERFUL! :-)

Testimonies from 2019 SDI participants:

 “It’s a beautiful celebration of community, love & joy and we ALL need that!”

“It’s more than a “dance intensive.” This program is designed for anyone who is seeking to do some self growth/development.”

“I think that artists (dancers, movers, art-makers) should have the grounded awareness that Futuro cultivates in its participants to channel our art into our communities and social issues that we are surrounded by!”

“If you want to learn to make a change. Come to Futuro.”

“I recommend Futuro to others because it’s empowering, life-changing, and unique. There are not many places where you can be free to be who you are and learn from incredible, gifted dancers Afro-Latin dance and also learn how to use art as activism What you learn here will be very important for the rest of your life. You heal and you get to experience what a just, equitable country can look like.”

2016

Past testimony from 2016 SDI participants:

Because of Futuro... I am REBORN!!...I've learned what my "powers" are...I can embrace my voice and the voice that is created through my movement...I am more of an unapologetic dancer...

I was angry a lot before realizing how powerful dance could be in the movement for change. It has been a blessing to find peace through Futuro.

Before Futuro I'd lost hope in action-oriented community-building. But I have seen what community healing is capable of.

I am now more trusting of myself, confident in who I have become as a dancer, scholar, artist, activist, and lover to all.