Rachel here, as part of my personal research project, I organized a contact jam with some of the students of El Barco. Over all, there were positive discoveries made on both ends. It was said that there was no need for verbal communication to have taken place before dancing together – enough information was being…
Norah gave us the concept of inconspicuous dances borrowing from Ralph Lemon. Here is my video culmination of our inconspicuous dances at Volcan Poas. It was interesting to try to find when the dances were happening, as some were truly inconspicuous. Personally, I enjoyed the care and decision process that the attentive observer was able…
Over the course of our ten-day trip, I was struck with how uniquely interesting each experience was. Leaving Columbus, I couldn’t have possibly anticipated the sensory overload that awaited me.
Technique Class with Jimmy Ortiz and 40 other dancers! The studio was full that week my friends! We were relieved (and later banged up and tired – but happy) to find that Jimmy’s classes were as energetic as we remembered. In fact, even more so. Aside from a few dancers from El Barco and OSU,…
Here are some clips from “Opulpos”, a piece choreographed by Jimmy Ortiz in collaboration with the students at El Barco. We were able to watch them rehearse this piece and perform it at the Festival Nacional de Las Artes in Siquirres. After watching them rehearse in the studio, we were able to have a question…
The intention of my research project was to research how the people of Costa Rica express their identity and how the landscape of their surroundings informs said identity. I interviewed Katia Morena, the “homestay mom” I stayed with, her mother-in-law and her four-year-old son, Fabian. I videotaped all of these interviews. Family was a resounding…
During Winter quarter, Norah arranged to have Jimmy Ortiz and Jose Andres Alvarez Sanou come to The Ohio State University Department of Dance to share their contemporary dance technique with us. It was hard. Over spring break, we traveled to San Jose to take classes with them at their home base, Taller Nacional de la Danza: Conservatorio del…
Since returning from Costa Rica, Alyssa LeRose and I have been playing around with some movement. Together, we came up with phrases that were inspired by the videos of my movement conversations in Costa Rica and my experience of that embodiment. Our structure was informed by Alyssa’s research surrounding communication and relationship development with the…
This video highlights our adventure home, plenty of sad faces and frustrations as we all missed everyone from El Barco and Costa Rica the moment we got in the van to leave for the airport…
On the last Friday after a week of studying and creating with Jimmy and El Barco students we all had the opportunity to show what we had been working on to guest choreographers, El Barco employees and friends. The following video contains the first four pieces that were choreographed by students within the week at…
OSU DANCE IN COSTA RICA 