![\"photo:](\"http:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/DSC_0708_insta_blog.jpg\")
photo: Kara Cooper<\/p><\/div>\n
Choreographer Liz Boubion of the Pi\u00f1ata Dance Collective created a dance anywhere\u00ae<\/span>\u00a0event at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts. The performance included dancers Liz Duran Boubion, Stephanie Sherman, Dominique Nigro, Livier Ayon, Janine Trinidad, Afia Walking Tree with a cameo by Adrian Arias. Together, the dancers performed a structured improvisation, exploring space, environment and the experience of passersby.<\/p>\n Adrian Arias, Kara Cooper Photography 2015<\/p><\/div>\n The Pi\u00f1ata Dance Collective is familiar with performing in outdoor and alternative spaces.\u00a0<\/span>Liz believes dance anywhere\u00ae<\/span> is a great way to break out of the predictable and into the unpredictable. It allows the community to join in, in a playful and improvisational way.<\/span>\u00a0During their performance,\u00a0a passerby named Walter happened upon the dancers and loved what he saw. <\/span>Stephanie says h<\/span>e \u201c…was so moved…that he jumped in and stayed with us till the end\u201d. People in cars and buses peered out of their windows while passersby stopped to watch, some even clapped. Contemporary dance can be an expensive and inaccessible art form unless one is connected to the community.\u00a0<\/span>For Liz, dance anywhere\u00ae<\/span> acts as an art intervention that exposes the general population to contemporary dance, an opportunity for both the performer and viewer.<\/span><\/p>\n Dancer, choreographer, and performance studies scholar Stephanie Sherman says her\u00a0performance was very much inspired by the site. The sidewalk in the heart of the mission district offered urban fixtures such as industrial beams across the front of the building and doors to dance with and to dance upon. The street became Stephanie\u2019s partner, \u201cthe bike rack, the parking meter, and the people who passed by.\u2026It was a mobile, transient audience\u2026\u201d.\u00a0As Stephanie danced, she felt how the environment shaped her visceral experience. \u201cI danced such a satisfying tango with a parking meter that for a moment I considered it a very eligible partner… I rolled around on a street …my knees were scratched. \u00a0I let the space move me, and getting dirty was the only way to do that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Site-specific performance intrigues Stephanie and is the subject of much of her research on movement and site in Mexico City. \u201cArchitecture is not neutral- it is structured by and structures access to power, so when specific bodies move differentially in certain spaces, the nature of those spaces are necessarily questioned or brought to light. Dance might turn an in between space like a street into a place, a border into a center, a center into a passageway.\u201d<\/p>\n photo: Kara Cooper<\/p><\/div>\n For Liz, site-specific dance is about the challenge of working with what materials that are available.\u00a0The Pi\u00f1ata Dance Collective was intentionally located in front of Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (MCCLA) for dance anywhere\u00ae<\/span> this year.\u00a0Liz’s goal was to bring visibility to a space that accepts and caters to Latin American contemporary dancers, a small subculture with a specific community and audience.\u00a0<\/span>Stephanie shared her love for the MCCLA and everything that it stands for: \u201ca historic, artistic cultural center based in and for the Latino community of the Mission\u2026 This space speaks to a powerful, strong legacy of Latino artists and activists that made and continue making the Mission a rebellious, beautiful, alive space\u201d. The combination of location and reputations reinforced the strength and presence of their performance that day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n MCCLA will be the location for this year’s\u00a0Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers\u00a0<\/a>(FLACC) that takes place this weekend from the September 25th to the 27th.<\/strong>\u00a0This ethnic festival\u00a0highlights the unique voices and perspectives of Latin American contemporary choreographers and offers the opportunity to show experimental and nontraditional work.<\/p>\n Pi\u00f1ata Dance Collective \/ photo: Kara Cooper<\/p><\/div>\n As the Artistic and Executive Director of FLACC, Liz sees a number of intersections between the festival and dance anywhere\u00ae<\/span>.\u00a0Both organizations aim to build community and\u00a0inspire creativity.\u00a0The festival begins with an opening performance on the corner of 24th and Mission. Like dance anywhere\u00ae<\/span>, FLACC promotes the idea of\u00a0reconsidering art and community by making the stage of the performance a public street corner.\u00a0FLACC’s mission states their\u00a0support for emerging and established dancers\u00a0who create ‘non-traditional, border-crossing, rule-breaking, queer, avant-garde, curious, experimental, abstract, sensitive, hybridized, neo-classical, or revolutionary varieties’.\u00a0With FLACC as a platform, choreographers are able to share work that confronts subjects of modern relevance or reflections on culture and society that may be deemed to cutting-edge for the usual contemporary dance stage.\u00a0<\/p>\n Liz Boubion \/ Pi\u00f1ata Dance Collective \/ photo: Kara Cooper<\/p><\/div>\n For Stephanie, dance anywhere\u00ae<\/span>\u00a0is a yearly event that celebrates how she approaches daily life. She dances waiting for the Bart. She dances in her room. She dances where she claims she shouldn’t, whether it is a meeting or a seminar. \u201cI dance because I can’t be contained by the social and spatial constraints that attempt to hedge me in. I am just fidgety or mischievous or something. I have been disregarding \u2018proper\u2019 movement in public since I was born.\u201d The idea of dancing in a public space is not new for Stephanie, yet dance anywhere\u00ae<\/span> unites her with people around the world who also understand the beauty of this notion.<\/p>\n Stephanie Sherman \/ photo: Kara Cooper<\/p><\/div>\n For more information on the Pi\u00f1ata Dance Collectives performance at MCCLA\u00a0check out their\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>dance anywhere page<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n For more information on Liz Boubion view her website<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Adrian](\"http:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/DSC_0705_blog.jpg\" "\\"Adrian")
![\"Stephanie](\"https:\/\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/7MgHlzIsJER3Dde-TB4fLx3KEaPICxsSgsTTsoxkOfgP-LgvV8WJjyNc1u1u_jixHR3brOw7NbvdRmxoCH0LkDGO_UjoUSCPPyE0WyYZDdcSnVi-VNj0iA_dOe2qlU7Bb-gZ0w\")
![\"Kara](\"http:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/DSC_0917_blog.jpg\" "\\"Kara")
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![\"Liz](\"http:\/\/www.danceanywhere.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/DSC_0897_edited.jpg\")
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