¡FLACC! press, Reviews, Previews and more...
Piñata Dance Collective at Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts/
Photo: Kara Cooper 2015
48Hills: Dance festival honors 5700 indigenous people once buried in Dolores Park (2021)
...a small group gathered around a spot marked by a deep orange marigold and some burning incense. They are members of FLACC (Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers) Community Dance, a collection of like-minded performers who have been developing their own contribution to FLACC’s eighth (and first outdoor) celebration, sii agua sí: Remembering the Waterways in Yelamu Continue Reading Rita Feliciano's story
QueeQueg's Left: Tiempos Desmadrosos: Dancing Latinidad to the Beat of Grief(FLACC 2019)
Time is always breaking, but sometimes we can feel it, the rip and tear, profoundly. Time is always breaking, and we are always grieving it. Time is always. And when we do feel it, take the time to grieve it, care for the endless weight, wait and texture of time, its rupture in space, its… Continue reading Tiempos Desmadrosos→
SF Chronicle: Dance festivals find creative ways to cultivate community (2019)
...Miguel Gutierrez, one of contemporary dance’s golden boys, used old home videos, power ballads and shattered Plexiglas to bring to life a complicated and shockingly heartwarming duet with his dead dad. Gabriel Mata and Kelisha Gardeen enlivened the legacy of a midcentury modern dance icon, José Limón, with a restaging of his 1950 duet, “The Exiles.” And, Primera Generación Dance Collective’s Nepantla somehow cavorted through and clapped back at a huge range of Latin stereotypes, archetypes and social crises with equal measures of charm, humor and gravitas. Continue Reading...
Life as a modern dancer: A personal reflection by our founder (2018)
"Catching Fruit Where they Fall": A Personal Reflection by Liz Duran Boubion in Jill Randall's blog "Life as a Modern Dancer" As the artistic director of the Piñata Dance Collective, the first few years presenting the only Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers (FLACC) in the U.S. felt like I was balancing a huge bowl of fruit on my head while wearing my big sister’s party dress that was falling off my shoulders and tripping me up everywhere I went. Read essay...
The Guardian: 'It's about surviving turmoil,' Latinx dance troupe explores racial trauma (2018)
"Even before Donald Trump was using the presidential pulpit to create division, David Herrera was battling racism from a seemingly unusual place – choreography in modern dance. Before 2016, Herrera’s company dancers were calling out the idiocy of racial profiling: at one point they physically tagged audience members with ready-made name tags denoting their perceived race.
But for this weekend’s fifth annual Festival of Latin American Choreographers (Flacc) in San Francisco, the California native has changed tactics." Continue Reading Jose Fermoso's story.
But for this weekend’s fifth annual Festival of Latin American Choreographers (Flacc) in San Francisco, the California native has changed tactics." Continue Reading Jose Fermoso's story.
Bay Area Dance Watch: FLACC, A Dynamic umbrella (2018)
"Dance Festivals are like Umbrellas - they gather together performances, movement artists and celebrations - all the while protecting them and giving them a dynamic place to create.
The Festival Latin American Contemporary Choreographers (FLACC) is as good an example of that, as you'll find in the SF Bay Area -- FLACC is really the Umbrella. As they enter their 5th year, FLACC is bringing a lineup that's a Who's Who in local dance and visitors from afar." Continue Jim Tobin
The Festival Latin American Contemporary Choreographers (FLACC) is as good an example of that, as you'll find in the SF Bay Area -- FLACC is really the Umbrella. As they enter their 5th year, FLACC is bringing a lineup that's a Who's Who in local dance and visitors from afar." Continue Jim Tobin
In DANCE: 4th Annual ¡FLACC! 2017
Hot off the Press!!! Article by Liz Duran Boubion and Juan Manuel Aldape InDance Magazine October Issue!
REST/UNREST: Latina/o/x Choreographers Provide Community and Craft to Strategize, Recover & Resist.
Read full article...
REST/UNREST: Latina/o/x Choreographers Provide Community and Craft to Strategize, Recover & Resist.
Read full article...
Daily California, 2017 http://www.dailycal.org/2017/11/16/indigenous-latinx-choreographers-cultivate-rest-unrest-flacc-2017/
RADIO Interview: http://kalw.org/post/choreographers-liz-boubion-and-catherine-marie-davalos-celebrate-experimental-latino-dance#stream/0
3rd Annual ¡FLACC! 2016
Dance Card: Showcase for contemporary Latin American choreographers
PUBLISHED: November 29, 2016 at 5:00 pm, Mercury News, Eastbay Times.
By ANDREW GILBERT, CORRESPONDENT
Though run on a shoestring, the 3rd Annual Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers presents 17 choreographers — from Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Venezuela, New Mexico, Southern California and the Bay Area — Dec. 9-11 at Dance Mission Theater. Each performance will be followed by a 20-minute panel discussion.
The performances are organized around three themes....
Continue Reading...
PUBLISHED: November 29, 2016 at 5:00 pm, Mercury News, Eastbay Times.
By ANDREW GILBERT, CORRESPONDENT
Though run on a shoestring, the 3rd Annual Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers presents 17 choreographers — from Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Venezuela, New Mexico, Southern California and the Bay Area — Dec. 9-11 at Dance Mission Theater. Each performance will be followed by a 20-minute panel discussion.
The performances are organized around three themes....
Continue Reading...
Contemporary Dance Through a Latin American Lens
Published Dec. 5, 2016
By Emmaly Weiderholdt, Stance on Dance
The Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers answers the question: What is the value of contemporary dance to the Latin American community?
"...As artists, it is easy to say this has tremendous value for us personally, because it affirms that a huge part of our identity (Latinx) has value within the dominant culture of contemporary dance, which has historically given limited access to our people. Ballet, modern dance, aerial dance, and “high art” performance in general is expensive and requires compromise and sacrifice for the working class, or undocumented, to train and/or attend shows.
For Latinos who are educated, privileged and do have access, I would say tradition, and in this case traditional dance, is one of the highest values as a way to preserve our culture, which presents a bit of a challenge for ¡FLACC!." Liz Duran Boubion
Continue reading...
Published Dec. 5, 2016
By Emmaly Weiderholdt, Stance on Dance
The Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers answers the question: What is the value of contemporary dance to the Latin American community?
"...As artists, it is easy to say this has tremendous value for us personally, because it affirms that a huge part of our identity (Latinx) has value within the dominant culture of contemporary dance, which has historically given limited access to our people. Ballet, modern dance, aerial dance, and “high art” performance in general is expensive and requires compromise and sacrifice for the working class, or undocumented, to train and/or attend shows.
For Latinos who are educated, privileged and do have access, I would say tradition, and in this case traditional dance, is one of the highest values as a way to preserve our culture, which presents a bit of a challenge for ¡FLACC!." Liz Duran Boubion
Continue reading...
Un artículo en Guatemala! This article in PrensaLibre.com highlights one of our featured choreographers, Sabrina Castillo, and her company members of Momentum. Momentum is one of Guatemala's leading contemporary dance companies among only a handful of recognized choreographers. Momentum was the only contemporary dance company in Guatemala for at least a decade before now, partially because of Sabrina's teacher training program.
http://www.prensalibre.com/vida/escenario/momentum-participa-en-festival-flacc
http://www.prensalibre.com/vida/escenario/momentum-participa-en-festival-flacc
2nd ANNUAL ¡FLACC! 2015
¡FLACC! Celebrates Latin Americans in Contemporary Dance Posted in SF Weekly, By Jessi Phillips on Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 12:00 PM
Every artist needs space. In a city where physical space for the arts is becoming scarce, having space might mean finding acceptance in a community or feeling your identity represented within the artists in your field.
¡FLACC!, the Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers, will present its second annual program this weekend at the Mission Cultural Center of Latino Arts in an effort to provide that space for a segment of the contemporary dance world that doesn’t always see itself clearly represented.
Continue reading »
¡FLACC!, the Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers, will present its second annual program this weekend at the Mission Cultural Center of Latino Arts in an effort to provide that space for a segment of the contemporary dance world that doesn’t always see itself clearly represented.
Continue reading »
¡FLACC! 2015 Review
Poetry and Politics
¡FLACC! 2015
By Katherine Orloff, Writer, Dancer, Historian
As part of the 2015 Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers (¡FLACC!), festival organizers presented a free panel discussion a week prior to the performances. Hosted by the Center for Art and Social Justice at the California Institute for Integral Studies, the panel brought together five of the seven ¡FLACC! choreographers who discussed their creative processes, dominant themes in their work, and the importance of ¡FLACC! – the only annual festival of its kind on the West Coast that celebrates contemporary choreographers of the Latino/a Diaspora. In the discussion’s closing statement, ¡FLACC! Artistic Director Liz Boubion remarked that the festival is simply about supporting Latinos and good contemporary dance work. While the festival is indeed driven by these notions of community and innovative work, ¡FLACC! inevitably runs much deeper than these motivating forces.
Continue Reading...
Poetry and Politics
¡FLACC! 2015
By Katherine Orloff, Writer, Dancer, Historian
As part of the 2015 Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers (¡FLACC!), festival organizers presented a free panel discussion a week prior to the performances. Hosted by the Center for Art and Social Justice at the California Institute for Integral Studies, the panel brought together five of the seven ¡FLACC! choreographers who discussed their creative processes, dominant themes in their work, and the importance of ¡FLACC! – the only annual festival of its kind on the West Coast that celebrates contemporary choreographers of the Latino/a Diaspora. In the discussion’s closing statement, ¡FLACC! Artistic Director Liz Boubion remarked that the festival is simply about supporting Latinos and good contemporary dance work. While the festival is indeed driven by these notions of community and innovative work, ¡FLACC! inevitably runs much deeper than these motivating forces.
Continue Reading...
¡FLACC! 2015 and Piñata Dance Collective article feature in Dance Anywhere
Choreographer Liz Boubion of the Piñata Dance Collective created a dance anywhere® event at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts. The performance included dancers Liz Duran Boubion, Stephanie Sherman, Dominique Nigro, Livier Ayon, Janine Trinidad, Afia Walking Tree with a cameo by Adrian Arias. Together, the dancers performed a structured improvisation, exploring space, environment and the experience of passersby.
Continue Reading...
Choreographer Liz Boubion of the Piñata Dance Collective created a dance anywhere® event at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts. The performance included dancers Liz Duran Boubion, Stephanie Sherman, Dominique Nigro, Livier Ayon, Janine Trinidad, Afia Walking Tree with a cameo by Adrian Arias. Together, the dancers performed a structured improvisation, exploring space, environment and the experience of passersby.
Continue Reading...
1st Annual ¡FLACC! 2014
