{"id":3833,"date":"2025-04-15T01:52:23","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T01:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/15\/la-mama-moves-dance-festival-returns-with-radical-new-works-for-2025\/"},"modified":"2025-04-15T01:52:35","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T01:52:35","slug":"la-mama-moves-dance-festival-returns-with-radical-new-works-for-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/15\/la-mama-moves-dance-festival-returns-with-radical-new-works-for-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival Returns With Radical New Works for 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Vicky Shick in Tides<\/em>. Photo by Rachel Keane<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New York City\u2019s East 4th Street between the Bowery and 2nd Avenue has been taken over by dance. The 2025 La MaMa Moves!<\/i> Dance Festival, which runs through May 4 in the venue\u2019s four performance spaces, presents eleven shows featuring twenty emerging and veteran, local and international artists ranging in age from their 20s to their 80s. There will be dance-theater works and a mobile dance opera, post-modern, percussive, ballet, Indonesian and contemporary dance styles. There will be poetry and A.I. and karaoke and a car. There will be beer.<\/p>\n

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The La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club<\/a> is best known for its history of avant-garde theater and performance art, but over the past two decades, it has become a haven for experimental contemporary dance as well. For the festival\u2019s 20th anniversary season, aptly titled Resistance & Transformation<\/i>, the curators wanted to lean into what has made the festival so \u201cLa MaMa\u201d for so long: its communal atmosphere, diverse and inclusive programming and works that break open perceptions of what dance and performance can be.<\/p>\n

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SEE ALSO: Shadow, Light and Lemons \u2013 Catch Ella Kruglyanskaya in London <\/a><\/em><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n

La MaMa\u2019s founder, Ellen Stewart<\/a> (1919-2011), supported playwrights and experimental theater throughout her career. But as Mia Yoo<\/a>, the artistic director since 2011, told Observer, Stewart became increasingly interested in communicating across cultures and languages. \u201cAs she continued her journey at La MaMa, she realized that sometimes words got in the way of communication.\u201d So she started bringing in more movement-based works and invited Yoo and multidisciplinary artist Nicky Paraiso<\/a> to curate the first La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival in 2005.<\/p>\n

Since taking over the role of artistic director after Stewart\u2019s passing, Yoo has stepped aside from the curation, but Paraiso has happily remained the curator since the beginning. \u201cEvery year, I feel really lucky to obtain the availability of the choreographers who are doing the most interesting work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Keith A. Thompson\u2019s danceTactics performance group. Photo by Steven Pisano<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the festival\u2019s 20th anniversary, Yoo and Paraiso decided to bring on guest curators\u2014Martita Abril<\/a>, Blaze Ferrer<\/a> and Adham Hafez<\/a>\u2014to deepen their dedication to a diverse, intergenerational dialogue. The collaboration was seamless.<\/p>\n

Hafez, artistic director and curator of the New York Arab Festival, took charge of its \u2018festival within a festival\u2019 program<\/a> (May 1-4), which focuses on experimental Arab and Arab American choreography, theater and performance.<\/p>\n

Paraiso curated several shows, while artist and producer Abril and interdisciplinary performer and choreographer Ferrer\u2014who already knew each other because New York City\u2019s experimental contemporary dance scene is tight-knit\u2014chose to work together to curate the others. \u201cMartita and I share an interest and a desire for counterculture,\u201d Ferrer told Observer, \u201cfor works that are weird, that have a rhizomatic logic, that are sort of maintaining the radicality of contemporary dance in a way that transcends form. And I think that echoes the history of this institution and this festival.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abril, who is from Tijuana, Mexico, added that she wanted to focus on marginalized communities that don\u2019t have a platform. \u201cComing from a border and seeing the way that folks are treated here, how I\u2019ve been treated, it\u2019s super important now more than ever to bring those voices to La MaMa.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Xin Ying in Paper Dragon: Five Elements Matrix<\/em>. Photo by Isabella Pagano<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When asked what themes have emerged in the festival\u2019s line-up, the curators agreed the shows are all pushing some kind of boundary. \u201cI think a lot of the works are unapologetically queer,\u201d Ferrer said. \u201cI think they\u2019re interdisciplinary and in sort of a border space between dance and theater and performance art that I find really interesting\u2026 I think they\u2019re the coolest thing in the room whenever they perform.\u201d Paraiso added that this kind of \u201cintuitive curation\u201d has led them to many overlapping themes and \u201cplaces that you wouldn\u2019t expect, but it\u2019s serendipity.\u201d<\/p>\n

What to see at this year\u2019s La MaMa Moves!<\/i><\/h3>\n

Resistance & Transformation<\/i> is expansive, spanning weeks and styles and moods. Sadly, some works have already come and gone.<\/p>\n

John Jasperse<\/a>\u2014perhaps the most well-known choreographer in the festival\u2014presented the world premiere of his 20th evening-length work, Tides<\/i><\/a>. The piece centers on three real-life, intergenerational mentor-proteg\u00e9 relationships, featuring a cast of legends from the downtown dance scene (Vicky Shick<\/a>, Jodi Melnick<\/a> and Cynthia Koppe<\/a>) with younger, emerging dance artists.<\/p>\n

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Alex Romania and Stacy Lynn Smith in fame hOle<\/em>. Photo by @elijacobson<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Keith A. Thompson<\/a>, a former member of the Trisha Brown Dance Company and frequent collaborator with Liz Lerman<\/a>, presented the world premiere of Love Alone Anthology Project<\/i><\/a>. The work for four men is inspired by the writings of AIDS activist Paul Monette<\/a> (1945-1995), specifically the 1988 volume of poetry Love Alone: 18 Elegies for Rog<\/i>. \u201cI\u2019m happy that Keith is bringing this material to us,\u201d Paraiso said, \u201cbecause it\u2019s very important that we remember. Period.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking forward to what\u2019s coming, here are our recommendations of what not to miss:<\/p>\n

As part of the Hunter College MFA in Dance and MFA in Dance: Interdisciplinary Research at New York University shared program<\/a> (April 18-20), the incredible Martha Graham Dance Company principal dancer Xin Ying<\/a> will perform in her ritualistic, interdisciplinary group work Paper Dragon: Five Elements Matrix<\/i>.<\/p>\n

In another shared program<\/a> (April 25-27), up-and-comer and Bessie Award-nominated dance artist Jordan Demetrius Lloyd<\/a> will present a new solo work alongside a duet by more veteran contemporary choreographers Pamela Pietro<\/a> and Jesse Zaritt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Percussive dancer Nic Gareiss and fiddler Alexis Chartrand. Photo by Juan Manuel Lobato\u0301n<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Maybe the most family-friendly show is a shared program<\/a> (April 25-27) featuring percussive dancer Nic Gareiss<\/a> and fiddler Alexis Chartrand<\/a>\u2019s joyful collaboration alongside the U.S. premiere of Berlin-based ballerina and filmmaker Megumi Eda<\/a>\u2019s moving solo Please Cry<\/i>. About the performers, Paraiso said they are all \u201cvirtuosos in their own right.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most boundary-breaking works in the festival is Psychic Wormhole \/ Alex Romania<\/a> and Stacy Lynn Smith<\/a>\u2019s fame hOle<\/i>, a mobile dance opera and \u201cexistential roadshow\u201d that is set inside their 2014 Toyota Prius v, performed in a shared program<\/a> (May 1-3) alongside Jesi Cook<\/a>\u2019s experimental solo Wedge<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Closing out Resistance & Transformation<\/i> is El Club MEG<\/i><\/a> (May 4), the show that most fully captures the festival\u2019s spirit and history. In a setting meant to evoke the casual, BYOB Brooklyn house performances in the 2010s, five emerging performance artists will show works-in-progress, followed by a karaoke session led by Le Papi Shiitake<\/a>. \u201cThere will be beer and buckets,\u201d Ferrer announced excitedly. Abril nearly shouted, \u201cAnd mezcal! Mezcal from Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be really fun,\u201d Yoo added. \u201cI feel like this is that moment of us thinking about how art can function beyond just the presentation of artists.\u201d<\/p>\n

For those who aren\u2019t in NYC, La MaMa\u2013always community-oriented and forward-thinking\u2013will be streaming three of the performances live: the Hunter\/NYU MFA showcase on April 19 at 7:30 p.m. and the shared program of Nic Gareiss & Alexis Chartrand with Megumi Eda on April 27 at 3:00 p.m.<\/p>\n

The <\/b>La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival 2025<\/b><\/a> runs through May 4 at La MaMa\u2019s Ellen Stewart Theatre, The Downstairs Theatre, The Club and Community Arts Space.<\/b><\/p>\n

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Francesca Dominguez\u2019s The Nearly, Barely, Just<\/em>. Photo by Becca Vission<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\t\t\t\t\"La<\/p><\/div>\n