top of page

cuerpalatina

2020 - ongoing
movement installation

Ongoing piece by Impropias Collective.
 

cuerpalatina* is a dance installation that takes audiences on a journey from separateness into a celebration of togetherness. What starts as a dance without interaction between performers and audiences becomes a collective and ephemeral fiesta. Facilitated by a host and three dancers, it lasts about thirty minutes.  Through this work we aim to deconstruct popular dances from Latin America and reinterpret them through dance improvisation, challenging the strict gender-coded movements of traditional pair dancing. We strive to make these dances more accessible, foster creativity and disseminate the joy at the core of several beats from the region.

Concept & direction: Mercedes Balarezo Fernández. Performers: Yes Escobar, Paola Nieto Paredes, Daniela Pascual Esparza. Costume design: Yes Escobar. Images: Vitali Gusatinsky. Supported by: The Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike).

About Impropias Collective

 

Founded by Mercedes Balarezo Fernández, Yes Escobar, Paola Nieto Paredes, and Daniela Pascual Esparza in 2021, Impropias Collective researches Latin American identities from an embodied, situated, and feminist standpoint. In Spanish, “impropia” is the female form for inappropriate, for something inadequate, or untimely. It is also a play of words between “improvisation” and “propio”, which means cool and street-smart in Ecuadorian slang. cuerpalatina is their first collaboration.

*In Spanish, a gendered language, the word for “body” (cuerpo) is a “male” word. Cuerpa is a symbolic reappropriation of the word in the “female” form. 

​Finland Through Other Eyes Festiva -  2021 / Maunula, Helsinki, Finland 
Theatre Academy - Uniarts Fest / 2022 / Helsinki, Finland 
AmosRex - World Cities Culture Forum / 2022 / Helsinki Finland 
Tiivistämö - Y-festivaali / 2022 / Helsinki, Finland 
Svenska Teatteri - Hew Theatre Helsinki / 2023 ( Helsinki, Finalnd 

bottom of page