We Have Iré CD Release Livestream!

PAUL S. FLORES Shaped by his experiences growing up near the Mexican border, Paul S. Flores (Christian) creates plays and oral narratives that touch on the immigrant story and spur societal movements. Flores’ recent play On The Hill: I Am Alex Nieto brought San Francisco communities together divided by gentrification and police violence. He performed for the first time in Cuba in 2001 and has presented multiple times in Havana, Mexico and El Salvador. His plays include REPRESENTA!, You’re Gonna Cry, PLACAS, Pilgrim Street, and We Have Iré.

YOSVANY TERRY Since his arrival in New York in 1999, Cuban saxophonist, percussionist, composer Yosvany Terry has been making a difference in contemporary music. His innovative work, a unique confluence of Cuban roots music and jazz. He recently received the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival Commission for Noches de Parranda and the Harlem Stage commission to write the music for the opera Makandal. His albums include the Grammy Nominated New Throned King, Today’s Opinion, Ancestral Memories, and We Have Iré Original Cast Recording.

DJ LEYDIS Born and raised in Cuba, DJ Leydis combines contemporary hits with a distinct fusion of Latin flavors, R&B classics and roots reggae. She was involved in the inception of the Cuban Hip-Hip Movement and has organized some of Cuba’s most respected events and programs. She co-founded Omegas Kilay, a Havana based Hip hop Theater Collective and co-created Cuba’s first all-female DJ Mixtape. She has worked with Erykah Badu, Questlove of the Roots, and other iconic US artists.

RAMÓN RAMOS ALAYO Ramón Ramos Alayo (Monchi) is a dancer, teacher, choreographer, and the founder and artistic director of the Alayo Dance Company and CubaCaribe. As the principal dancer with Danza del Caribe and Narciso Medina Contemporary Dance Company, he has performed in Cuba, Europe, Canada, Belize and the United States. Ramos was selected by the Cuban government to study dance in Santiago de Cuba at age eleven, which led him to earn a masters degree in contemporary and folkloric dance and dance education from the Havana’s National School of Art. He was. Since moving to California, he has performed with Robert Henry Johnson, Kim Epifano, Sara Shelton Mann, Joanna Haigood/Zaccho Dance and Robert Moses’ Kin.

CHRISTIN EVE CATO Christin Eve Cato (Nené) is a native New Yorker with a background in performing arts and production. Christin received her MFA in Playwriting at Indiana University. She is also a graduate of Fordham University, and Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School for Music and Art and the Performing Arts. Cato is affiliated with the New York theater companies, Pregones/PRTT (ensemble member and current Resident Dramaturg); INTAR Theatre (UNIT 52 ensemble member); Hip-Hop Theatre Company, Rhymes Over Beats (producing member).

DENMIS SAVIGNE BAIN Denmis Savigne Bain (Jony) is originally from Santiago de Cuba. He has expertise in Afro-Cuban dance, folklore, ballet, jazz, modern dance, contemporary ballet, hip-hop and singing. He is a principle dancer for Havana Nights Dance Company and has choreographed for Kenny Ortega, Siegfried and Roy, Emilio Estefan, Manuel Mendive, Havana Nights Dance Company and the Latin Grammy’s. He is the owner of Cuban Rhythm and Rumba Dance Studio in Vallejo, CA.

ROSALBA ROLÓN Rosalba Rolón is Artistic Director of Pregones / Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, a New York company focused on the creation and performance of original musical theater and plays rooted in Puerto Rican/Latino cultures. With Pregones, she has toured more than five hundred US cities and eighteen countries. Favoring the art of stage adaptation in ensemble settings, her work includes The Harlem Hellfighters On A Latin Beat, Dancing In My Cockroach Killers, The Red Rose and ¡Guaracha!, among numerous others.

CD cover art by Adrián Arias. CD photography by Michael Palma, Tom Ehrlich, and Diamela Cutiño.

We Have IRÉ is a National Performance Network/Visual Artist Network (NPN/VAN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by Pregones/PRTT in NYC, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Fracisco, GALA Hispanic Theatre in Washington-DC, MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana in San Jose, Miami Light Project, MECA Houston, and NPN/VAN. The Creation & Development Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information: www.npnweb.org.

This program also made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

Artist international travel to Cuba for creative development of We Have IRÉ generously provided by Southwest Airlines, the official airline of Pregones/PRTT.

For a full list of our funders, visit www.pregonesprtt.org.