East 4th Street between Bowery and Second Avenue in New York City has been taken over by dance. 2025 La Mama move! The Dance Festival will be played on May 4 in four performance spaces on the venue, showing 11 performances, including 20 emerging and senior, local and international artists, ranging in age from 20s to 80s. There will be dance opera works and mobile dance opera, postmodern, percussion, ballet, Indonesian and contemporary dance styles. There will be poetry, AI and Karaoke and a car. There will be beer.
La Mama Experimental Theater Club is well known for its history of avant-garde theater and performing arts, but over the past two decades it has also become a paradise for experimental contemporary dance. During the 20th anniversary season of the festival Resistance and transformationthe curator wanted to rely on such a long time to tilt the event: its public atmosphere, diverse and inclusive programming, and breaks the public perception of dance and performance.
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Ellen Stewart (1919-2011), founder of La Mama, supported playwrights and experimental theater throughout his career. But, as Art Director Mia Yoo told Observer since 2011, Stewart is becoming increasingly interested in communicating across cultures and languages. “As she continued her journey at La Mama, she realized that sometimes words can hinder communication.” So she began to introduce more movement-based works and invited Yoo and multidisciplinary artist Nicky Paraiso to curate La Mama’s first move! The 2005 dance festival.
Yoo has been out of curator since taking over as artistic director after Stewart’s death, but Paraiso has been happy to continue as curator since the beginning. “Every year, I’m lucky to get the most interesting job of choreography.”
On the 20th anniversary of the festival, Yoo and Paraiso decided to bring guest curators (Martita Abril, Blaze Ferrer and Adham Hafez) to deepen their dedication to a diverse intergenerational dialogue. Collaboration is seamless.
Hafez, artistic director and curator of the New York Arab Festival, is responsible for his “Festivals in the Festival” program (May 1-4), which focuses on experimental Arab and Arab American choreography, drama and performance.
Paraiso curated several shows, while artist and producer Abril and interdisciplinary performer and choreographer Ferrer have known each other because New York City’s experimental contemporary dance scenes are closely linked – picking together to curate others. “Matita and I have an interest and desire for counterculture, for strange works with ways beyond form, there are strange works that can keep the radical nature of contemporary dance. I think that echoes the history of this institution and this festival.”
Abril, from Tijuana, Mexico, added that she wanted to focus on marginalized communities without a platform. “From the border, seeing the way people treat people here, the way I treat them, now more than ever, is bringing those voices to La Mama.”
When asked what topics appeared in the festival’s lineup, the curators agreed that the shows were pushing some kind of boundaries. “I think a lot of the work is queer in words,” Ferrer said. “I think they are interdisciplinary, and in the boundary space between dance and drama and performing arts, I find it really interesting…I think they are the coolest thing in the room whenever they perform.” Paraiso adds that this “intuitive curation” makes them a lot of overlapping themes and “where you won’t expect it, but it’s by chance.”
What this year’s view La Mama move!
Resistance and transformation is extensive, spanning weeks, style and emotions. Sadly, some of the works have come.
John Jasperse, perhaps the most famous choreographer at the festival, shows off the world premiere of his 20th night production tidal. The work focuses on three real-life, intergenerational mentor relationships, including legends from downtown dance scenes (Vicky Shick, Jodi Melnick and Cynthia Koppe), as well as young emerging dance artists.
Keith A. Thompson, a former member of Trisha Brown Dance Company, introduced the world premiere with frequent collaborators of Liz Lerman Love a person’s selection project. The works of the four were inspired by the works of AIDS activist Paul Monette (1945-1995), especially the poems of 1988. Alone: Roger’s 18 show. “I’m glad Keith brought this material to us because we remember it’s important for the period,” Palaiso said.
Looking forward to what’s coming, here are some tips we can’t miss:
As part of the Hunter College of Dance and in Dance in Dance: New York University Sharing Program Interdisciplinary Research (April 18-20), the incredible Martha Graham Dance Company principal dancer Xin Ying will perform in her ceremony, interdisciplinary group work Paper Dragon: Five Element Matrix.
In another shared program (April 25-27), emerging and Bessi Award-nominated dance artist Jordan Demetrius Lloyd will present new solo work with more senior contemporary choreographers Pamela Pietro and Jesse Zaritt.
Perhaps the best family-friendly show is a shared show (April 25-27), which includes a joyful collaboration between percussionist Nick Gareiss and violinist Alexis Chartrand and Berlin ballerina and filmmaker Megumi Eda’s Moving Solo at the U.S. premiere Please cry. Regarding the performers, Paraiso said, they were all “weapons of their own.”
One of the most boundary works in the festival is Psychic Wormhole/ by Alex Romania and Stacy Lynn Smith Fame caveIt’s a mobile dance opera and “a roadshow of existence” inside its 2014 Toyota Prius V, which was performed on a shared show (May 1-3) with Jesi Cook’s experimental solo wedge.
closure Resistance and transformation yes El Club Meg (May 4), a program that best captures the spirit and history of the festival. In an environment designed to evoke leisure activities designed to evoke the Byob Brooklyn House performances in the 2010s, five emerging performing artists will showcase the work in progress and then hold a karaoke conference led by Le Papi Shietake. “There will be beer and buckets,” Ferrell announced excitedly. Abril almost shouted, “And Mezcal! Mezcal from Mexico.”
“It’s really fun,” Yoo added. “I think this is the moment when we think about how art works outside of the artist’s introduction.”
For those not in New York City, LA MAMA – who has always been community-oriented and forward-looking – will play three shows along with the co-programme of Megumi Chartrand on April 19 at 7:30 pm on April 19 at 7:30 pm Megumi Chartrand shared with Megumi Eda’s co-programme:
this La Mama move! 2025 Dance Festival May 4 at the Ellen Stewart Theater, downstairs theatre, clubs and community arts fields in La Mama.
