2018 Binational Residency Artist: Ana Maria Alvarez

Ana Maria Alvarez is an award-winning dancer, choreographer, teaching artist and founder director of CONTRA-TIEMPO Urban Dance Latin Theater. Inspired by her upbringing as a Cuban American, her work boldly traverses the world of social dance, political activism, community organizing and art making. She has studied with master artists Katherine Dunham, Idalberto Bandera Sidó (Ballet Folklórico Cutumba, Santiago de Cuba), Jawole Willa Jo Zollar (Urban Bush Women, NY), Ann Cooper Albright, Julio Jean and Dr. Eleanor Gwynn. She has also travelled extensively in South America and the Caribbean, studying, practicing and performing Tango and Afro-Cuban secular dances (Timba, Rueda, Rumba and Gaga). Alvarez received a Bachelors of Arts in Dance and Politics from Oberlin College and a Masters in Fine Arts in Choreography from UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures. There, her thesis work explored the abstraction of “Latin Dance”, specifically Salsa, as a way to express social resistance within the US immigration battle, and in 2005 became the impetus for founding CONTRA-TIEMPO Urban Latin Dance Theater.