Adam Castañeda is a dancer and arts administrator in Houston, Texas. He is the Executive and Artistic Director of the Pilot Dance Project, a non-profit arts organization with the mission to empower and transform communities through innovative dance, theater, and visual art. With his company he has performed in evening-length works by Ashley Horn, jhon r. stronks, Jennifer Mabus, Jaime Walne-Fruge, and Heather VonReichbauer. When not with the Pilot Dance Project, he
enjoys performing with Suchu Dance/Jennifer Wood.
On June 7, 2024 at the Miller Outdoor Theatre, Silambam Houston presented a curious and intriguing theatrical thesis in mining the commonalities of South Indian and Baroque dance and music. I was eager to see Artistic Director Lavanya Rajagopalan’s vision come to life in The Baroque-Carnatic Connection, as both worlds live as disparate entities in […]
When Lauren Serrano moved to the Houston area to pursue an MFA from Sam Houston State University, the city and its arts scene were shuttered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Much of her early Houston dance experience was through the lens of a community navigating new dancemaking and dance presenting processes while balancing social distancing protocols. […]
I have been thinking a lot about personal history lately. I have been interested, not so much in genealogy, but the architecture that goes deeper than bone, the family myths that make everyday life extraordinary. When you live in the same community your entire life, you understand that the past, present, and future often exist […]
There is a moment in Faces of Sun and Wind where the quartet of dancers whirl in one direction, then the other. There is a fleeting snapshot of connection through the hands, in pairs, before each digs into the space around them, upper bodies swaying side-to-side. Their arms propel them into repeated high releases before […]
In “Jezebel,” one of Loren Holmes’ early works, an anxious, unnerved woman in black negligee gathers herself in front of a vanity before putting on a red dress and dancing in a flirtatious, suggestive manner to an unknown audience. When she is done, she returns to the vanity. She is disturbed again, appearing to console […]
6 Degrees Artistic Director Toni Leago Valle explores the three-ring circus that is contemporary politics in her latest show, POP DEMO, which runs through September 23 at the MATCH (3400 Main Street). The show’s characters are rendered as political cartoons who inhabit a 1920s-style speakeasy; Travis Prokop as Monsieur Ballista preening at the entrance reinforces […]
Dr. Lindsay Gary, founder and artistic and executive director of Dance Afrikana, started her company with the simple objective of protecting the work of her fellow dancers. “We were not being advocated for,” she says, recalling her early years as a backup dancer for Afrobeats and Afro-Caribbean music acts. “There were situations where we weren’t […]
Everyone needs a helping hand, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned after ten years in the non-profit producing world, it’s that artists very often need more than that. We need lifelines – a grant, a commission, a gatekeeper’s favor – something to propel us to the next stage of our artistic careers, and, by […]
The great Indian subcontinent celebrated seventy-five years of independence from British colonial rule on August 15, 2022. To commemorate this significant milestone, Silambam Houston, under the executive and artistic direction of Lavanya Rajagopalan, presented Waking Up Free: India’s Journey, on March 31, 2023. The evening-length production, created in collaboration with Shri Silambam Academy in Chennai, […]
Speaking with the eloquent and worldly Nao Kusuzaki about her new ballet, Genji, it occurred to me that I had experienced this quiet, yet, charged presence before. As our conversation progressed, I remembered that I had written about Kusuzaki’s performance in Stanton Welch’s Madame Butterfly more than a decade ago. As a young dance writer, […]
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