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Erotic Dance from the Desert of Mexican Cowboys: The Tragic Love of La Lágrima’s Commissioned Duet in Queens A World Premiere at the JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival

“Every relationship is charged with eroticism,” says choreographer Adriana Castaños, who with David Barrón has been commissioned by the Queens Theatre in the Park to perform an original dance piece on August 4th, 2004 at 8:00 p.m. for the JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival.

The piece, titled Canciones para el Camino (Songs for the Road), began with research into the tragic love stories of Tristan and Isolt, Beatrice and Dante, Abelard and Heloise, and Calixto and Melibea—characters from history, opera, and literature. “The historical figures are a point of departure,” Castaños explains. “David and I sort of downloaded everything and then put it in terms of our experiences. How can we relate to those couples? What is our experience and expectations of love? We do a lot of research and then throw everything away. We don’t talk about it. Then we start with who we are. We start with the bodies. That is our method.”

Insecurity, boredom, sexual desire, and admiration stood out as Castaños and Barrón reviewed the lexis of love. They took these concepts, experimenting with their physical representations. “Through this process, we realized that there are things you learn in your body, that you aren’t allowed to learn socially. Your body learns all the time how to put love on the surface,” continues Castaños.

“We work with improv. Everyday gestures and posture,” says Castaños. “I like to see people on stage not dancers. I don’t think you will find one specific technique, because both of us have very diverse dance backgrounds. We use a trained body, but we try to rediscover movement in our bodies. For me, to dance is to find out things about you. About who you are, about how you relate. It’s a discovery.”

“I am not intellectual about dancing,” says Barrón. “I dance mainly because I love to move. On the other hand, I rely on movement when I have problems as it helps me find solutions, answers about life, or possible solutions to situations. Generally, movement is where I start in order to create dance. More broadly, movement positions me in this world. It balances my body and emotions, and provides me with creativity.”

Castaños and Barrón co-founded Producciones La Lágrima in 1997 to open new venues for artistic expression and dance creation. Their work has been seen from India to Ecuador. They emphasize the importance of the dancer in the creative process and it is apparent through the company’s work.

When Festival Director Claudia Norman first saw La Lágrima—the dance collective that Castaños and Barrón direct in the Mexican border-city of Hermosillo—she was impressed with how much their desert terrain made it onto the stage and into their choreography. “It was very minimalist,” Norman recalls. “With the yellow and orange hues of the desert.”

“We have a lot of space where we live. We are kind of loud. And I think that reflects on the way we use space and gesture. We don’t feel crowded,” says Castaños. “We bring our climate and geography to our choreography.”

Although Castaños and Barrón have been working together for 15 years, the International Movements Project (IMP) gives them the opportunity to join each other on stage for the first time in five years. Now in its second year, IMP commissions a Latin American choreographer, composer, and dance company to present an original piece at the Festival.

Castaños and Barrón have enlisted the help of Mexican composer Ramón Astrain to create original music for the piece. Astrain is working with a phrase from Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde as their leitmotif. Astrain is currently attending rehearsals and is a part of the discovery process, proposing his own ideas as well as responding to those of the two dancers.

The JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival—which runs ten days from July 28 to August 8—is becoming recognized as an international springboard for many performers’ careers. It is also breaking new ground as a serious presenter of performance in Queens and as a significant steward of performance for the burgeoning Latino community. The Mexican population in Queens has grown three-fold in the past decade, but Castaños does not make assumptions about the community’s reception of their performance. “Being from Hermosillo, we are not the prototype of ‘the Mexican.’ There is another stereotype for the people who live in the northwest: the cowboy stereotype. So we may have a different perspective of how we see our own country. And how we expect to be seen outside,” says Castaños.

“One time we performed in Mexico City,” explains Barrón, “and one of the guys in the audience said ‘You are good, but you don’t look Mexican.’ Even in Hermosillo, we have audiences with different expectations depending on where we perform. Every audience is different.”

“Usually when we travel in the US, we have to compete with people’s expectations about Mexican dance; then with the reaction that we do not look Mexican. In a way it is great for us to be with an audience in Queens that we share cultural things. We have roots together; common roots. But we also have to keep recognizing our differences. Even as Latinos and as Mexicans.”

Canciones para el Camino will be performed alongside two other dance works by La Lágrima: Frágil Paraíso by Barrón and Azul Cobalto by Barrón, Castaños, and Desimone. Ticket prices will be $20 in advance, $25 day of the show, and $16 when purchased with 3 or more Festival events.

On August 5, 2004 at 7:30 p.m., the performance will be repeated at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center at LaGuardia Community College, Van Dam Street at 47th Avenue in Long Island City. Also La Lágrima will be offering a free contemporary dance workshop for professional dancers and graduate dance students on August 3 from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The event is hosted by Topaz Arts and will be conducted at their dance facility in Woodside, Queens. For more workshop information, call 718-505-0440 or visit www.Topazarts.org.

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