May 21 Performance and Opening

Leonard Cruz Tanztheater
Saturday, May 21, 2022 at 4:00pm
Tickets: free with registration

at TOPAZ ARTS, 55-03 39th Avenue, Woodside, Queens
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Leonard Cruz Tanztheater presents a new work “Amihan: Moon Warrior of Miracles” on Saturday, May 21st at TOPAZ ARTS, performed by Leonard Cruz with a new collaboration with live music by composer Will Simbol. This solo dance work is Filipino inspired and focuses on the themes of de-colonization, gender fluidity, and animist beliefs that all things are alive. The artist collaborates with space, time, energy and is influenced by music, props used in Filipino Dances that allow for possibilities of transformation of being, embodiment, and empowerment. Cruz explores “Contemporary Embodied Indigeneity” – bringing his Filipino Indigenous ancestry into the forefront of contemporary performance.

Dr. Leonard Cruz (PhD in Urban Education with a focus on the Performing and Creative Arts) was born in Pampanga, the Philippines, raised in San Antonio, Texas (USA), and has lived in Germany the past 25 years. He started dancing at the age of four learning Filipino and Hawaiian Folk Dances. He successfully defended his PhD dissertation on, “Laban Movement Analysis as a Methodology for Promoting Creativity and the Arts Across the Curriculum,” in 2013 from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Cruz has performed for many internationally renowned choreographers including Robert Wilson, Kei Takei’s Moving Earth, Shapiro and Smith Dance, Sally Silvers, and five years with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane and Co. In Germany, he was a guest with Pina Bausch in Wuppertal and a member of the Folkwang Tanz Studio in Essen-Werden. From 1994-2001 he was a soloist at the Bremer Stadttheater under the Directorship of Susanne Linke and Urs Dietrich. He has directed his own dance company, “Leonard Cruz Tanztheater” the past 20 years. Leonard specialises in Civic and Community Engagement through the creative and expressive arts and believes in life long performing and learning.

photo by: Nina Alexis Padilla

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