To listen to audio on Rock Paper Scissors you'll need to Get the Flash Player

Sample Track 1:
"Peru Negro; "Carnaval Negro"" from JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival Sampler
Sample Track 2:
"Peru Negro; "Como Cantan, Como Bailan los Negros"" from JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival Sampler
Sample Track 3:
"Contramano; "Checking U"" from JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival Sampler
Sample Track 4:
"Contramano; "Pretending"" from JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival Sampler
Sample Track 5:
"Illapu; "A mis Paisanos"" from JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival Sampler
Sample Track 6:
"Illapu; "Carnaval de Chiapa"" from JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival Sampler
Sample Track 7:
"Karimbo; "Juan Travolta"" from JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival Sampler
Sample Track 8:
"Karimbo; "El Mundo"" from JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival Sampler
Sample Track 9:
"Sofrito; "The Beat of my Heart"" from JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival Sampler
Sample Track 10:
"Sofrito; "Leyendas Latinas"" from JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival Sampler
Sample Track 11:
"Ray Castro; "Guillate"" from JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival Sampler
Sample Track 12:
"Ray Castro; "Ven Vacila Ven"" from JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival Sampler
Sample Track 13:
"Joseito Mateo; "La Boda Chiva"" from JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival Sampler
Sample Track 14:
"Joseito Mateo; "Tiririri"" from JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival Sampler
Sample Track 15:
"The 40's; "If You Go Away"" from JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival Sampler
Sample Track 16:
"The 40's; "Rock en el Milenio"" from JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival Sampler
Layer 2
View Additional Info

Dancing With Tiempo in Queens:Dario Vaccaro Debuts Dance Company at JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival

When Dario Vaccaro was sixteen he had to choose between dance and family. I love my family, but in life you have to choose things. I chose dance,” exclaims Vaccaro, who launches his dance company with a commissioned work titled Tiempo at the JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival on August 3, 2005 at 8:00 p.m.  For the past five years, the Festival has commissioned new works by Latin American choreographers and dance companies, introducing these artists to New York’s dance audiences and critics. 

It is not surprising that—after a whirlwind of performances in Argentina (earning the title of Cultural Ambassador by the state of Cordoba, Argentina) followed by globe-hopping as a solo dancer in the Julio Bocca Dance Company Ballet Argentino, then as a member of Twyla Tharp Dance, and currently performing with Cedar Lake Ensemble, always dancing eight to ten hours a day—his Company’s debut focuses on the concept of time or tiempo.

“At this point in my life, I am living this craziness of tiempo,” Vaccaro explains. “Since I live in New York, I am always running. Sometimes I work too hard, sometimes I work too slow. In music and dance, time is always present. I read a lot from different philosophers about their ideas of tiempo. It is a big question mark. But I found a parallel between time in dance and time in general.”

“The piece starts in a state of no time,” says Vaccaro, with original  music composed by Luciana De Oto of Razorhead Music. “For me this is like what happened before life; before I was born. There was no time.” Then, after birthing, the piece springs into life.  Clocks ticking at different speeds combine to create the score. Time accelerates and so do the movements.

“When I was little, an hour seemed like a long time,” explains Vaccaro. “And now an hour is so quick. Before you know it, another month passes by. As you get more responsibility and experience, you are not as aware of time. And at the same time it accelerates until you are running all the time.”

“The supporting characters in Tiempo wear suits to show the structure that we experience,” says Vaccaro. “As your parents teach you things, that becomes structure and removes some of your freedom. As the main character grows, she starts wearing a suit like the others. It becomes very industrial with everything getting faster and faster.

Festival director Claudia Norman first came across Vaccaro when he performed a duet titled Genesis with Kitty Lunn, a dancer who developed a wheelchair dance technique after slipping on ice and breaking her back. In Genesis, the wheelchair is nowhere to be found, and much of the dance finds Vaccaro supporting Lunn in ways the audience is not aware of. “The sensibility and intelligence of such a young dancer to use the rest of the body to express the same power was very meaningful to me,” Norman says. “His capacity to work with elements of the human body to maximize their use was amazing. He is carrying her, but you do not see the effort. She appears to be walking on her own and it is not until they come out to bow that the audience even realizes what they have just seen.”

Each year the JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival commissions a new dance work. Last year’s commissioned work by Mexico’s La Lágrima, titled Canciones para el Camino (Songs for the Road) was a “wickedly funny take on lovers' roles and misalliances” (New York Times). This year’s Festival—which takes place at the Queens Theatre in the Park in Flushing Meadows Corona Park—runs from July 27-August 7, 2005. Dance audiences will also be interested in Perú Negro’s brightly costumed Afro-Peruvian dance and music. Other offerings include musical legends, an art exhibit, Rock en Español, film, and family programming. The multi-disciplinary extravaganza expresses the wide diversity of Latino culture, and provides  Latino and Latin American artists the opportunity to perform in a theater setting.

The JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival 2005 is sponsored by JPMorgan Chase, Delta Air Lines (the official airline of Queens Theatre in the Park) and Con Edison. The Media Sponsors of the Festival are Time Warner Cable of New York City and New Jersey, NY1 Noticias, New York Times Community Affairs, & el diario/La Prensa. Additional funding for the JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival 2005 has been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. The Latino Cultural Festival was founded in 1997 by The Latin American Cultural Center of Queens and Queens Theatre in the Park.     



Additional Info
Queens Theatre in the Park’s JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural ...
Sponsors of the JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival
JPMorgan Chase Festival Schedule
International Springboard: Past USA or NY Premiers
The Changing Face of Queens: A Demographic Context...
JPMorgan Chase Latino Cultural Festival de Queens Theatre en su ...
Dancing With Tiempo in Queens:Dario Vaccaro Debuts Dance Company at ...

Top of Press Release