Dance
Dreaming of Lions
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BAM and The Joyce Theater present
Dreaming of Lions
Malpaso Dance Company
Arturo O’Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble
Choreography by Osnel Delgado
Music by Arturo O’Farrill
Four years after Osnel Delgado was told that founding an independent dance company in Havana would be un malpaso, or “a misstep,” his sure-footed (and defiantly named) ensemble has been firmly established as the reigning standard-bearer of Cuban contemporary dance. In their newest work, Delgado and company collaborate with Grammy Award-winning composer Arturo O’Farrill and his Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble, finding inspiration in the classic tale The Old Man and the Sea. With balletic precision and muscular, grounded floorwork, Malpaso’s dancers channel Hemingway’s timeless themes of pride, loss, and perseverance, performing inventive phrases that ripple like waves across the formidable sea.
This project is produced by Joyce Theater Productions, a joint venture of The Joyce Theater Foundation, Inc. (New York) and Sunny Artist Management, Inc. (Toronto). Co-commissioned by the Luminato Festival and Joan and Jerry Lozinski from Toronto, Canada. The work is dedicated to Ronald Feiner.
Additional commissioning support provided by Con Edison, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and Jerome L. Greene Foundation in honor of Karen Brooks Hopkins.
Osnel Delgado and members of Malpaso Dance Company teach the basic contraction-and-release technique of Cuban modern dance, combined with the spine undulation of Afro-Cuban styles, paying special focus to rhythm and musicality.
