contra-tiempo

CONTRA-TIEMPO is a Los Angeles-based activist performance ensemble founded in 2005 by choreographer Ana María Alvarez and a dynamic group of community artists. The company fuses Salsa, Afro-Cuban, West African, Hip-Hop, and abstract dance-theater, to create an invigorating blend of physically intense and politically astute performance. While their performances are consistently electrifying, what sets the company apart most is its unique relationship to its own community. CONTRA-TIEMPO is, much like the community it reaches, a tapestry. CONTRA-TIEMPO is an active and uncompromisingly radical take on the ways in which artists function within communities. Its members are immigrants, teachers, activists, organizers, artists and movers of all types living and working in Los Angeles. Each member lives and struggles within the varied and infinitely complex political and personal landscapes, which Ana María seeks to address in her work.

Resident composer, César Alvarez is a founding member of the company and also Ana María's brother. He has collaborated with his sister on CONTRA-TIEMPO since its earliest incarnations and approaches the music for the group as if it were a new genre. CONTRA-TIEMPO's movement narrative calls for a complete rebuilding of "dance music" using a sonic vocabulary as far-reaching and diverse as the company members' backgrounds. In contra-tiempo's performances César deconstructs salsa, collaging Americana with hip-hop, poetry with clave, industrial and found sound with the powerful rhythmic traditions of the African Diaspora.

The company has several large-scale performance pieces as well as community arts workshops for adults and young people that have been and continue to be presented in and around Los Angeles. CONTRA-TIEMPO recently completed their second New York tour, August 2006, where they were invited to present their work as part of the 10th Annual NYC International Fringe Festival.

For teens and pre-teens, the company's workshops address social, political and race issues through movement and through traditional cultural dance forms. For younger audiences workshops focus on how the body can be used as a tool for communication. It is CONTRA-TIEMPO's interest to create work that can be meaningful and enjoyed by a broad range of audiences regardless of age, class, race or politics. The company is dedicated to working with underserved populations of young people, in particular communities of color. CONTRA-TIEMPO's mission as a company is to create dialogue and greater understanding across populations, in particular around issues of resistance and power. By doing this, CONTRA-TIEMPO is contributing to the development of more self reflective, socially and politically engaged and culturally responsible artists and communities!

"…un espectaculo que mas alla de ser solo danza expresa con sus movimientos la fuerza de la comunidad Latina en su lucha por vivir en un pais que no es el suyo." - Nelly Apaza, La Opinion, LA, CA

"Alvarez is a rising star of the dance world." - Leonard Jacobs. Backstage, NY, NY

Watch Video of the Company