Situated in the heart of Boyle Heights, down the street from the historic Mariachi Plaza, stands CASA 0101 Theatre. CASA 0101 Theatre is dedicated to providing arts, cultural, and educational programs in order to engage, inspire, and highlight the Boyle Heights community. The theatre was founded in 2000 by Josefina Lopez, playwright and co-screenwriter of “Real Women Have Curves”. Originally born in Mexico, Lopez was raised in Los Angeles where she continued to grow as an artist. She created CASA 0101 Theatre as a way to give back to her community and create opportunities for young people that she wished she had when as a young Chicana living in Los Angeles.
CASA 0101 has served the Boyle Heights community for 19 years by providing programming and a space for photography, theatre, and other art forms. However, on Friday, September 27th, Casa 0101 opened its doors to welcome audience members to its first ever dance performance, Finding HOME, choreographed by Deborah Rosen and Myra Joy Veluz. As a dancer and choreographer, Rosen focuses on creating work that reflects deep emotion and expression. She relies heavily on the collaboration and input of her dancers as a part of her process and encourages them to embrace vulnerability. Myra Joy Veluz is a California native who studied dance since a young age and continues to contribute to the LA dance community through teaching, performing, and choreographing.
Deborah Rosen and Dancers – Photo: dm Lemattre
Finding HOME is a new dancework inspired by migration, the fears, loss, and hopes of leaving one’s homeland, assimilation, and how this shapes identity. The night also included excerpts from Drifting…A Suit of Dreamscapes and Slichot, from the evening length worth, Tashlich. Finding HOME, had an elegant and minimalist approach to costumes and lighting (designed by Eileen Cooley). The piece was performed by Jacqueline Buckmaster, Diana Hula, Matt Lara, Myra Joy Veluz, and Monilade Walker. The dancers varied in age and complexion and I am sure identity and personal history. The choice in diversity in the cast seemed to be an intentional choice and unique ensemble of dancers showed strong throughout the piece as each performer engaged with the work.
The night was a series of vignettes all tying to the theme of Finding HOME. The first piece opened with the dancers slowly moving through the room and taking turns to stand facing the audience. Their stares were confident and gazed at the audience with assurance in their story. In this first piece, the choreographers established a strong sense of individuality for each dancer that really created the fabric for the remainder of the performance. I appreciated the amount of time that Rosen and Veluz gave each performer to face the audience. Often the moments we are face to face with performer are fleeting, however, Rosen and Veluz really took the time for each performer to engage with the audience, developing a genuine sense of identity for each performer throughout the performance.
Deborah Rosen and Dancers – Photo: dm Lemattre
Rosen and Veluz did not hold back when it came to assembling the music for this performance. It ranged from Otis Redding to Bon Iver, creating feelings of beauty and nostalgia. The pieces seemed to touch on themes of migration and gratitude for the sacrifices that families have made in order to establish a home for themselves and future generations. A piece performed in vintage dresses seemed to pay homage to the great grandmothers, grandmothers, and mothers who struggled to create homes for their children. The piece displayed powerful and repeating movement from the performers alluded to a story of hardship.
Although the sense of individuality was appreciated throughout the piece, there did seem to be a lack of blending between pieces which muddied the very strong foundation that the performance opened with. Occasionally there was a lack of grounding and connection with the floor and theme that lost the connection between the performers and the piece. However, this was not true for every work and the choreographers did an outstanding job of creating paths for the performers to display their strengths and for the story to be exposed, whether using solos, musical accompaniment, or spoken word. The performance reached a turning point when they began to perform a piece set to the soundtrack of music specifically composed for the independent film, Beasts of the Southern Wild, which explores a young girl and her father struggling to keep their home in the Bayou of New Orleans. The music is beautifully composed, however the choreography seemed to be an obvious rather than evolved interpretation of the film’s story. The performance could have used more continuous conversions between music and movement to create a thread that carried through the message from start to finish.
Deborah Rosen and Dancers – Photo: dm Lemattre
What was most appreciated about this piece was that unique exploration of the performer as a person, which I felt the choreographers fearlessly tackled. Too often dancers are built into a piece to be seen only as bodies rather than people. There is nothing more interesting and thought provoking than the exposure to one’s story and sense of self. After this performance I felt that I had an intimate glance at every single one of the performers that night. I hope that Rosen and Veluz continue to develop the work they have created in order to make dance a core part of the CASA 0101 Theatre community. The performance also seemed to be intentionally tied to community and themes that CASA 0101 continues to showcase through various artistic mediums. However, we know that dance brings something unique to any artistic community and hope that it is something we can see more of at the CASA 0101 Theatre.
Written by Corrina Roche for LA Dance Chronicle, October 9, 2019.
To visit the Casa 0101 Theater website, click here.
To read about Deborah Rosen, click here.
Featured image: Deborah Rosen and Dancers – Photo: dm Lemattre
