Bringing Copper & Sunflowers

ARTIST BIOS 

CARIDAD DE LA LUZ (she/her), aka La Bruja, is a multi-faceted performer named in the “Top 20 Puerto Rican Women Everyone Should Know” (La Respuesta). Known as a “Bronx Living Legend,” Caridad received a Citation of Merit from the Bronx Borough President and The Edgar Allan Poe Award from The Bronx Historical Society. She has performed at The Apollo, Lincoln Center, Gracie Mansion, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, City Hall in New York City and international venues. Since her 1996 debut performance at the famed Nuyorican Poets Café, she hosts Monday Night Open Mics, and was a lead in the successful Off Broadway musical I LIKE IT LIKE THAT. Caridad is a 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, and is cultivating her own art space in the Soundview area of The Bronx called “El Garaje,” and creating a new full-evening length work, From Poor to Rico. caridaddelaluz.com 

OLIVIA C. DAVIES is a dance artist, choreographer, community-arts facilitator and emerging curator of Anishinaabe, French-Canadian, Finnish and Welsh heritage. Davies’ works often explore the emotional and political relationships between people and places. Her first full-length work Crow’s Nest and Other Places She’s Gone (2017) blends Contemporary dance, theatre, and street culture through an Indigenous lens.  Her recent choreographic explorations are driven by a desire to explore neo-traditional aspects of her Indigeneity. Originally from Algonquin Territory, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Davies work is currently based in Vancouver, BC, Canada on the ancestral and unceded Coast Salish territories of the ʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. She’s the Artistic Director of O.Dela Arts. oliviacdavies.ca/odela/

JESSICA McMANN is a Cree (Cowessess, SK) musician, contemporary dancer and choreographer. She is also a classically trained flutist, with a Bachelor of Music from the University of Calgary. Her research focus has been contemporary music, jazz, and improvisation. She has successfully defended her thesis for her MFA  – Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University.  Her recent compositions and soundscapes explore Indigenous identity and history.  She has been dancing fancy shawl, jingle and hoop dance for 17 years, and has had the opportunity to present contemporary and traditional work at festivals across western Canada, and tour northern Europe. Currently her personal experience, Two-Spirit identity, Cree and Blackfoot language, and the strength of Indigenous women guide her current contemporary dance work. jessicamcmann.com   wildmintarts.com

CYNTHIA PANIAGUA is a dancer, choreographer, and educator whose work reflects her Peruvian and Puerto Rican ancestral heritage. She was raised in New York City where she earned a B.A. in Dance at Hunter College and a M.A. in Performance Studies at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.  She is a Fulbright scholar who studied at Peru’s two leading folkdance institutions Jose Maria Arguedas and Universidad de San Marcos. Her dance research led her to journey along the Peruvian coast, Andes and Amazon, where she lived and studied with living masters of Peruvian dance.  Her experience was filmed in the PBS aired documentary Soy Andina. She then returned to Peru with the movie, dance performances and workshops as part of the biggest cultural exchange tour ever organized by the U.S. Embassy.  Her full length works Nawpakuna, and Despierta Perú were performed throughout Peru and the U.S. and has aired on NBC, Univision, PBS, NatGeo and Peruvian national TV. Cynthia has choreographed for Circo Etno’s El vuelo del cóndor and Paukartanpu, Peruvian theater spectaculars based on Andean ritual dance and heritage. In 2019, her choreographic work was commissioned  by the UN Symphony Orchestra as for the musical El Cóndor Pasa – Andean Hope by Dante Valdez.   Her choreographic style interweaves contemporary movement and Peruvian traditional dance, highlighting Andean cosmovision and history.  This dance language goes beyond traditional boundaries and explores the heart of her ancestral past and its relationship with present day Latin American cultural realities. Cynthia now divides her time between NYC and Peru, where she performs and teaches her signature contemporary style and Peruvian folkdance workshops at various universities, dance institutions and cultural events. She is launching her company KAYPACHA Dance in 2020 and is honored to continue this amazing ancestral dance journey.  “The journeys are part of my quest in order to respect the legacy my ancestors through dance and share that energy with my audience.”

This international Indigenous Women Artists 2020 gathering is supported, in part, by The Jerome Foundation, and public funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and administered by the Bronx Council on the Arts, and the generosity of individual donors to Pepatián, pepatian.org. Additional support provided by Made in BC – Dance On Tour, madeinbc.org.

This program is also made possible by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Our Stage Garden Rumba initiative is generously funded by Con Edison. Southwest Airlines is the official airline of Pregones/PRTT. For a full list of our funders, visit www.pregonesprtt.org.