Adam Castaneda Presents Things Left Behind
Contact:
Adam Castan͂eda
adamluis.castaneda@gmail.com
(281) 979-4982
Dance Source Houston Artist-in-Residence Adam Castan͂eda will present Things Left Behind on Program B of the 2019 BarnStorm Dance Fest. Rooted in his experience with literary narratives, Things Left Behind explores the emotional weight of inanimate objects and the personal stories that hide in the moments, or years, of liminal space.
Date: June 20 at 8pm & June 22 at 5pm
Location: Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston, Matchbox Two
Tickets: $20 presale; $25 at-the-door
Beginning with an autobiographical proposal, Adam Castan͂eda’s project evolved to include his original art form of fiction writing. To develop the three sections of Things Left Behind, he created a series of character sketches, vignettes, and short stories that were brought into the rehearsal process to generate movement. These small literary drafts reflected the thematic concerns of the objects that provided the impetus for the proposal: friendship, saying goodbye, and the act of loving.
Over the course of the past year, the tone and mood of the dance has shifted to reflect significant moments in his life trajectory, including the death of his paternal grandmother, the attempted suicide of a close friend, the reconciliation with his estranged mother of five years, the injustice of a friend’s possible incarceration, and a renewed understanding of his childhood and teen years spent in a Millenialist cult. And through it all, the residency has coincided with his discovery of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the magic of icon Manila Luzon. As the finale of this abstract dance work suggests, in a world of incessant malevolence, sometimes ball gowns and the goddesses, both male and female, that inhabit them are needed for deliverance.
Things Left Behind will be performed by some of Adam’s favorite dancers, including Dorianne Castillo, Lindsay Cortner, Ashley Horn, Lindsay Longacre, Eva Jin, Nicole McNeil, Tory Pierce, Amy Phillips, Kristina Pratts, and Ruben Trevin͂o with an original score by SPIKE the Percussionist.
This twenty-five minute piece is part of an evening-length work that will premiere at MATCH in March 2020.
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About the Choreographer:
Adam Castan͂eda is a dancer and arts administrator living in Houston, Texas. He is the Executive and Artistic Director of the Pilot Dance Project, a non-profit arts organization with the mission of transforming and empowering communities through innovative dance, theater, and visual art. His programming has been funded by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, Houston Endowment, Texas Commission on the Arts, the Morales Foundation, HoustonFirst, the Midtown Management District, and Dance Source Houston. As a company member of the Pilot Dance Project, he has performed in evening-length work by Ashley Horn, jhon r. stronks, Jennifer Mabus, Jaime Frugé-Walne, Heather VonReichbauer, Lori Yuill, and Brother(hood) Dance (Brooklyn, New York). He was recently awarded a Let Creativity Happen! grant from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance to further investigate the intersection of narrative and dance-making with partner organization Writespace. In 2018, he was a graduate of the second class of Houston’s Artist Inc., and was one of 15 dance presenters selected from a national pool of applicants to participate in the Jacob’s Pillow National Dance Presenters Forum. He was recently chosen as one of Dance Source Houston’s 2018-2019 Artists-in-Residence, which will culminate in the presenation of Things Left Behind at the 2019 Barnstorm Dance Fest. When not dancing with his own company, he often appears onstage with Suchu Dance/Jennifer Wood.
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