Dancing La Botánica: La Tierra Vive!

LEENDA BONILLAis an interdisciplinary artist integrating visual arts with interactive performance and creative placemaking. Born in NYC and raised in the Bronx and Puerto Rico, she balances her art practice as an arts/cultural producer and advocate. As an administrator, her work plays a pivotal role in oversight and administration of a variety of programs at various arts/cultural nonprofits. Recently as the Special Project Curatorial Consultant at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, she oversaw the collaboration with the Dept. of Transportation’s Weekend Walks program on the Grand Concourse, which revived a popular Grand Concourse tradition for the first time in 20 years of car-free Sundays of the late 80’s. She introduced and/or reunited 88 civic/health agencies, art/cultural orgs and independent artists/workgroups to the Bronx community as a coalition participating in the three pedestrian Sundays in August.  She attributes her new founded Coro connections from the various Coro programs as a part of her success for a well-rounded Community Change Project. She works with creative groups and organizations for projects, advisory boards and panels like the National Association for Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC), Pepatian, Bronx Council on the Arts, The Joan Mitchell Foundation, El Museo del Barrio, the Social Justice Artists’ Collaborative, Scholastic and En Foco as examples. Her activism focuses on policies affecting new immigrant and migrant artists, cultural workers and educators with an effort to build relationships with artists, businesses and political officials to implement initiatives that will promote sustainable and creative communities. Her motto is “bridging communities with the arts.” Ms. Bonilla graduated with a Masters in Arts/Cultural Management with distinction and merit at the Pratt Institute, and is the alumni from the most recent cohort of the Coro Leadership NYC’s 2014 Immigrant Civic Leadership Program. She earned a dual BA in International Studies/Political Science at Manhattan College. Her unorthodox arts education included intensive programs at Parsons, School of Visual Arts and the International Center for Photography. Leendabonilla.com

BEATRICE CAPOTE is a Cuban American Artist trained at The Alvin Ailey School, graduated from University of North Carolina School of the Arts and received her BA and MFA in dance at Montclair State University focusing on contemporary dance and traditional Afro-Cuban dance narratives. Performing Companies: INSPIRIT, Mavericks, The Wells Performance Project, Areytos Performance Works, Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In. Motion and Camille A. Brown and Dancers. Solo Choreography Presented: ASHA Dance, the Eric Dolphy Jazz Festival, WestFest Dance Festival, BAAD!, Pepatián, Amherst College, Pregones Theater, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Brooklyn Dance Festival, City Parks Summer Stages 2018, Vision Festival 2019, and Battery Dance Festival. Ms. Capote is faculty at the Ailey School, and Montclair State University.

ALICIA DÍAZ is co-director of Agua Dulce Dance Theater with movement artist Matthew Thornton, creating works for concert dance, museums, and site-specific locations. As a Puerto Rican contemporary dance artist in the diaspora, her choreographic work speaks to issues of migration, colonialism, and the legacy of slavery. Her artistic research is rooted in the premise that the body is a site of knowledge, and on questions of memory and identity. Alicia performed professionally with Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Andanza: Puerto Rican Contemporary Dance Company, Donald Byrd/The Group (The Harlem Nutcracker), Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre, dANCEpRoJECt, and the Maida Withers Dance Construction Company amongst others. Her own choreographic work has been presented in the United States, Spain, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Argentina, and Mexico. Alicia is dance faculty at The University of Richmond where she teaches contemporary dance, improvisation, and choreography and engages in decolonizing and inclusive pedagogies. Together with Beatrice Capote, she is a lead artist of Pepatián’s Dancing La Botánica: La Tierra Vive!

MELANIE GONZALEZ is an innovative multi-media art photographer and filmmaker. As a youth in The Bronx with Caribbean roots, she was immersed in theater, music, nature, art, and history. Gonzalez holds a bachelor’s in Studio Art from The City College of New York (2014). Her prolific lens-based art practice has taken her to sites all over the world to interview, document and illustrate adverse cultures that weave the commonalities of places and people that make us one. Gonzalez is a 2020 artist-in-residence at ChaShaMa Space-to-Connect, and a 2019 En Foco Photography Fellow. [email protected] mga-studio.com

BEVERLY LOPEZ is a dancer, choreographer and educator. She is the Artistic Director of REDi Dance Company. She earned a BFA in Multi-Media/Performing Arts at Herbert H. Lehman College. Recent performances: Mo Nife Re by Beatrice Capote, I Am Pulse by Sekou Mcmiller at Hostos Community College, Move to Change at Oberia Dempsey Theatre, Collective Thread at Dixon Place, Land of Concrete at the Hudson Guild Theatre, Monopoly: The Land Lord’s Game at Mark Morris Dance Center, Harlem Voices at the Harlem school of the Arts, and Bountiful by Luis Salgado at Manhattan Movement & Arts Center. Beverly founded the Dance Bridge Workshop for teen artists in 2015 and REDi Dance Company’s Junior Co. in 2020. She currently works as a teaching artist at the DreamYard Project and Get Empowered. In past years she worked as the Dance Education Associate at the AATT Academy at BAAD! and as the Program Manager for Daniel Fetecua Production’s youth program at iD Studio Theatre. beverlylopez.com

This free online program is made possible, in part, 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. Southwest Airlines is the official airline of Pregones/PRTT. For a full list of our funders, visit www.pregonesprtt.org.