DanceReviewCurve, Leicester
The New York company makes a long-awaited English debut with a colourful and lively triple bill that interrogates Latinx stereotypes while celebrating self-actualisation
It’s 52 years since Tina Ramirez founded Ballet Hispánico in New York as a haven for marginalised Latinx artists. Now it’s the largest Latinx cultural organisation in the US, run by Cuban American Eduardo Vilaro, but surprisingly making it’s very first appearance on an English stage as part of Leicester’s Let’s Dance International Frontiers festival.
Despite the name, this is actually a versatile troupe of contemporary dancers also drawing on Latin, jazz and ballet. This triple bill can only serve as a taster to their extensive rep, but it suggests a company with a proud sense of heritage, and an accessible approach to dance, questioning identity and society with bite and humour.
The choreographer on the bill best known to British audiences is Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, who’s previously made a Frida Kahlo work for English National Ballet and A Streetcar Named Desire for Scottish Ballet. She’s a strong dancemaker with often a feminist spin. Her piece here is Tiburones, which means “Sharks”, tackling representation of Puerto Ricans in the media (Ochoa herself is half-Colombian). Sounds heavy, but it’s not. The title is just one nod to West Side Story, probably the most famous depiction of Puerto Ricans on screen. She gives us finger clicks and 50s style alongside tropes of hyper-machismo and super-sexy women, but different pictures break through – two men in a tender duet, men catwalking and vogueing in heels (the Latinx community were a big part of New York’s ballroom scene) and, ultimately, emancipation from the tyranny of the white male gaze.
Con Brazos Abiertos by Michelle Manzanales takes a different country – Mexico – and explores some similar themes, the cliches of Mexican culture in American eyes: saturated colours, a sombrero routine, a Cheech and Chong skit. You get a sense of Manzanales’s awkwardness stuck between cultures, but via thoughtful solos, that grows to dignity and self-actualisation. You connect with the central character, although choreographically it stays pretty safe.
The most interesting movement comes in Gustavo Ramírez Sansano’s 18+1: busy staccato semaphore, cartoonish, meticulously organised gestures, tight to the rhythms of the cheery mambo music of Perez Prado. An upbeat end to an enjoyable debut.
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