Meet Ana Maria Alvarez | Choreographer, Director, Educator, Dancer, and Movement Artivist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ana Maria Alvarez and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ana Maria, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
I didn’t set out to create a company – I knew I wanted to use dance as a way to transform the world – I went into graduate school knowing that – and my thesis concert “CONTRA-TIEMPO / Against the Times”, took on immigration as a site to explore resistance. During the Bush era, there was a lot of conversation in the public sphere that was rooted in this idea of “with us or against us”. Bush and his supporters were suggesting that to be supportive of immigrant rights, or against his immigration policy, that you were somehow ‘not american’. Looking back at this, it was much less violent than the conversations and actions of now… but I was fascinated by how ‘resistance’ was being framed in such a negative light. Resistance is a critical part of partner dancing and an incredible metaphor for how dysfunctional its absence can be. I wanted to make a work that engaged my love and embodiment of Salsa as a mechanism to express my ideas of social justice and resistance. I also wanted to make a work that fully encompassed all of me as a dancer – since all of the work I had witnessed and been a part of up until then felt very compartmentalized style-wise. Artists were working very genre-specific – or there was ‘fusion’ which felt like just a mix of everything. I wanted to make work that fully embodied the sabor of my ancestral dance practices with the nuance, storytelling, and rigor of theater and contemporary dance making. After sharing my thesis project I decided I wanted more people to experience the work and engage with this metaphor of resistance and struggle- not as a negative but as a fundamental tool for building a more loving and just world – and so CONTRA-TIEMPO was born.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
CONTRA-TIEMPO’s values are very much grounded on the social impact we want to create through our performances, community engagement projects, and the overall running of the company. Dance becomes a passport that allows us to navigate multiple worlds and perspectives, strengthening relationships across and within communities. Each of us lives and expresses within the varied and infinitely complex political and personal landscapes of our lives, oftentimes resisting against injustice and inequity. We live and express those struggles as authentically as possible and celebrate them as points of opportunity, learning, growth, and community. Art and action are two sides of the same coin, as they both require the ability to imagine new possibilities and then create what does not yet exist. Our dance is steeped in a tradition of activism and resistance. We believe that social impact comes from action and we must be an example. Showing up to protest, using our performances as a way to spread joy and awareness and leading community events are only a few examples of how we work on impact.

As a company, our social dance practice is so deeply connected to the performing art and concert dance work – which gives us the unique ability to enter into spaces with interpersonal connection at the forefront. Connection is my jam, even named one of our embodiment practices “Connection Jam”. We don’t drop into places and share our work and leave. When CONTRA-TIEMPO tours – nationally or internationally – we BE with people – from the attendants on our flights, to our rideshare driver, to the individuals working at the bodega. We meet, connect, go out dancing, and make it our commitment to engage in community as an integral part of our work. This allows us to build relationships beyond the performance event but to meaningfully connect human-to-human feeling the ripples of joy that can come into us when art is a collective sharing, witnessing, and reflecting of our interconnectivity.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Porto’s…eat all things Porto’s!
El Floridita for Cuban Cuisine, drinks, and Monday night live salsa music and dancing!
Kati Hernandez’s rumba, salsa, and Afro-Cuban classes at Nate Holden on Wednesdays, Saturday, and Sundays
The Victorian on Thursday for some salsa and bachata dancing

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My parents, my ancestors, my children, my partner, my CONTRA-TIEMPO family, my UCSD theatre and dance family. Quetzal Flores of Quetzal music for his wisdom and for deepening our understanding of restorative justice as a lived practice of personal and organizational transformation. And holly johnston of Responsive Body for her continued support in creating a culture of love and care inside the labor of social justice.

Website: www.contra-tiempo.org

Instagram: instagram.com/contra_tiempo

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/contra-tiempo-5ab4a1265/

Facebook: facebook.com/CONTRATIEMPOActivistDanceTheater

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXFkl8pVZcxGFocu2j8drjw

Image Credits
Photos by Bobby Gordon Steve Wylie Steve Wylie Tyrone Domingo Farah Sosa Farah Sosa