Malpaso Dance Company, Arturo O’Farrill & the Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble
Dreaming of Lions
DUKE PERFORMANCES PREMIERE: FRI, FEB 24 & SAT, FEB 25, 2017
Thanks to thawing relations between the U.S. and Cuba, the prodigiously talented Malpaso Dance Company of Havana has started to appear more frequently on American stages. Central to Malpaso’s rising profile is their relationship with the New York-based Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, which has won two GRAMMY awards under bandleader Arturo O’Farrill. The ten-piece Afro Latin Jazz Ensemble (ALJE), featuring members of the Orchestra, “embraces music from across the Americas, playing all of its diverse material with the same precision and fire it brings to a mambo workout” (The New York Times).
Malpaso and the ALJE came to Duke with the U.S. premiere of Dreaming of Lions, in which ten musicians and ten dancers present an evening-length evocation of Ernest Hemingway’s classic 1952 novella The Old Man and the Sea.
Choreographer Osnel Delgado draws on ballet and Cuban dance in depicting the tale of a fisherman’s quest to catch an elusive marlin, using a different movement vocabulary to delineate each character in the story. The work, performed on February 24 and 25, 2017 at Reynolds Industries Theater, wrestles with themes of honor, determination, and loss through one man’s crusade for victory in the unrelenting sea.
GALLERY
Photos by Alex Boerner
CREDITS
CHOREOGRAPHY
Osnel Delgado
DANCERS
Dunia Acosta
Maria Karla Araujo
Michel Avalo
Fernando Benet
Daile Carrazana
Osnel Delgado
Manuel Durán
Beatriz García
Claudia Molinet
Abel Rojo
Lisbeth Saad
MUSIC COMPOSITION AND CONDUCTING
Arturo O’Farrill – published by MADACAZ (BMI)
MUSICIANS
Jim Seeley, trumpet
Carly Maldonado, percussion
Reinaldo De Jesus, percussion
Vince Cherico, drums
Alon Yavnai, piano
Alejandro Avilés, reeds
Rafi Malkiel, trombone/euphonium
Carlo DeRosa, bass
Travis Reuter, guitar
COSTUME DESIGN
Reid & Harriet Design
LIGHTING DESIGN
Al Crawford
EXECUTIVE DIRECTORAND CO-FOUNDER
Fernando Sáez
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND CO-FOUNDER
Osnel Delgado
ASSOCIATE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND CO-FOUNDER
Daileidys Carrazana
BALLET MASTER
Dailys Bacallao
STAGE MANAGER
Diana Rosa Hernandez
PRODUCERS
Ilter Ibrahimof, Sunny Artist Management, Inc.
Barbara Frum, Sharing Spaces, Inc.
Joyce Theater Productions
PRODUCTIONAND COMPANY MANAGER
Steven Carlino
LIGHTING SUPERVISOR
Manuel Da Silva
This project is produced by Joyce Theater Productions, a joint venture of The Joyce Theater Foundation, Inc. (New York) and Sunny Artist Management, Inc. (Toronto). Co-commissioned by the Luminato Festival, Joan and Jerry Lozinski (Toronto), and The Yard. Additional commissioning support provided by Con Edison; Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; and Jerome L. Greene Foundation in honor of Karen Brooks Hopkins, Todd Gordon and Susan Feder, Lisa and Richard Witten, and Diana and Dick Beattie. This work is dedicated to Ronald Feiner.
Technical residency for the U.S. premiere provided by Duke Performances.
Made possible, in part, with a grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts & the North Carolina Arts Council, & support from the Dance Program at Duke University.
Malpaso Dance Company is an Associate Company of Joyce Theater Productions.
PRESS
- Amsterdam News, Malpaso Dance Company: Cuban dance comes to Brooklyn
- BAM Blog, A Moveable Hemingway