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El Beso del Diablo examines Goethe’s Faust;
focusing on one man’s choice to embrace the power of the
devil in order to experience the sensuality of love. Dzul uses
his native Mayan mythological beliefs and ritualistic movement
style as a foundation to explore the Faustian themes of dualism
and mystic romanticism. These central ideas are used to form
complex physical and sensual relationships that delineate good
and evil while blurring the boundaries between real and imagined.
Artistic Director/Choreographer: Javier Dzul
Lighting Designer: Stephen Petrilli
Set Designer: Sarah Lambert
Costume Design: Javier Dzul
Dancers: Ruth Kaltenbach Arena, Ji-Hyun Bang, Ji-Young Bang, Robin
Taylor Dzul, Val Loukiano, Sarita Radley, Naomi Relnick and Javier
Dzul
Dzul Dance fuses ritual, modern, ballet, and
the aerial arts – transforming bodies
into earthbound and airborne forces of nature. The Company is
an exciting and unique intermarriage of forms using intense
physicality, innovative partnering, and daring aerial work to
examine the ever-changing relationships between human beings,
nature and culture. Artistic Director Javier Dzul’s versatile
choreography illuminates, both spiritually and psychologically,
the vast array of drama and beauty inherent in universal human
existence.
Javier Dzul grew up in Mexico performing the ritual dances
of his Mayan tribal community. His formal dance training began
in 1986 at the Universidad de Veracruz, at which time he also
became a member of Ballet Nacional de Mexico and Ballet Folklorico.
While in Mexico, Javier received a scholarship to study at Ballet
Nacional de Cuba, where he spent two years. In 1989 Javier won
a scholarship to study at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary
Dance, where he became a principal dancer with the Martha Graham
Dance Ensemble. Javier has also worked with the Pearl Lang Dance
Theater, Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble, American Indian Dance
Theater and Battery Dance Company. In 1995 the Mexican Fondo
Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes awarded him a scholarship
to continue his studies in America, and he began his study of
classical ballet, first under the late Vladimir Dokoudovsky
and now with Patricia Dokoudovsky at The New York Conservatory
of Dance. Javier also studies with former Cirque Du Soleil aerialist
Chelsea Bacon and gymnast Hector Salazar, and performs aerial
arts as a guest artist with the touring productions Acroback
and Firedance.
In addition to performing, Javier has brought the artistry
and vocabulary of Dzul Dance to others through workshops and
ongoing classes. He began by teaching Graham master classes
and repertory at universities throughout the United States while
touring with the Martha Graham Dance Ensemble. Since then Javier
has continued to teach a variety of classes in modern technique,
aerial technique, and Dzul Dance repertory. He has taught extensively
at several international workshops and dance institutes, including
Colegio Nacional de Danza and Universidad de Veracruz in Mexico
and Emproart in Brazil.
Javier founded Dzul Dance in 1997. The ethnically diverse
eight member company has performed in New York and abroad and
Dzul’s numerous works have been presented at many esteemed
venues including The Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse, El Museo
del Barrio, Tribeca Performing Arts Center (Mexico Now Festival
2004) and Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian,
garnering reviews along the way that laud Dzul’s “strong
presence” with “conscious use of theatricalized
ritual,” (Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times),
his “electrifying” creations of “tumultuous
psychological echoes of a socio-cultural past and emotional
maps of a possible human future” (Suzanne K. Walther, Magazine.Art),
as well as his ability to turn his dancers of “remarkable
elasticity” into “creatures of the air as well as
of the earth” (Jack Anderson, The New York Times).
Dzul has collaborated with several artists on various projects,
among them Colombian singer Lucia Pulido, Guatemalan composer
and musician Sergio Reyes, and internationally acclaimed vocalist
Sussan Deyhim. In addition to performing, the Company is also
actively involved in an ongoing community outreach initiative
with the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House CARE program bringing
dance to Alzheimer and Dementia patients.
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