Silweta Premieres Jan 19-20, 2024

Pioneers Go East Collective/Out-FRONT! Festival presents
Paz Tanjuaquio / TOPAZ ARTS Dance Productions 
Silweta (World Premiere)
Fri, Jan 19, at 7pm, and Sat, Jan 20, at 6pm, Abrons Arts Center Playhouse
Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand St, New York City

Ticketing info > Free with reservation. Suggested donation of $25

TOPAZ ARTS Dance Productions premieres a new evening-length dance, Silweta, choreographed and performed by Paz Tanjuaquio performed with dancer Chia-Ying Kao, created in collaboration with sound and visual artist Todd B. Richmond. In development since 2021, Silweta is based on silhouette images of traditional dance forms of the Philippines, Tanjuaquio traces a distant dance in her ongoing process of creating new movement. Behind the silhouettes, Tanjuaquio explores cultural connections, migration, and displacement. Inspired by various texts by Luis H. Francia, including Dead Stars, a short story by her namesake Paz Márquez-Benítez, in which the idea that light from dead stars still shine can be a metaphor for lives lost and a presence of culture that resonates within our bodies. Silweta brings to light edges of a distant dance, tracing the outer limits of our connected lives. The work includes Petroglyph by Indigenous composer Brent Michael Davids, a digital dance of silhouettes made with Onome Ekeh are incorporated within the performance.

About Pioneers Go East Collective/Out-FRONT! Festival 2024:
A Radical Queer Art + Dance festival championing the voices of LGBTQ and Feminist artists for a lively exchange of art and culture. Curated by Gian Marco Riccardo Lo Forte, Daniel Diaz, Hilary Brown-Istrefi, and Philip Treviño. The festival features performances by Arthur Aviles and Collaborators, Joey Kipp with Pioneers Go East Collective, Christopher Unpezverde Núñez, Jason Anthony Rodriguez, Paz Tanjuaquio, Ogemdi Ude, and Annie MingHao Wang, as well as films by Fana Fraser, Omega X, and Tourmaline.

Photos by Julie Lemberger

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