Agua Furiosa challenges audiences to confront the harsh realities of race in our country. The work was inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Oya, the Afro-Cuban deity of wind and storms. Led by artistic director and choreographer Ana María Alvarez, the work utilizes the company’s unique, unapologetic movement work rooted in the Afro-Latin Diaspora. Through her choreographic style rooted in dance as protest, Afro-Latin social dance, Dunham and improvisation, and a deeply collaborative process of generating movement in relationship to the company members’ unique skill sets and personal narratives, Alvarez and the company create a visually stunning and thought-provoking evening of dance theater performance. Agua Furiosa merges call and response, a live vocalist, storytelling, water themes, and fierce physicality. Audiences walk away from Agua Furiosa, impacted, and inspired to locate themselves inside the complex and transforming conversation of race in America. Creative collaborators include the original cast of Agua Furiosa in addition to sound designer d. sabela grimes, vocalist Pyeng Threadgill, lighting designer Masha Tsimring, costume designer Rosalida Medina and dramaturg Michael Garces.

Founded and directed by Ana Maria Alvarez in 2005, the company brings to life voices that are not traditionally heard on the concert stage. Rooted in Salsa and Afro-Cuban styles and drawing movement from Hip-Hop, urban, and contemporary dance-theater, the company blends these styles to create a unique movement vocabulary. Ana Maria Alvarez was recently named a 2020 Doris Duke Artist.

DANCECleveland has never presented CONTRA-TIEMPO before.

For more information on CONTRA-TIEMPO, visit https://www.contra-tiempo.org.