Limón Dance Company is the legacy of modern dance pioneer José Limón, founder of the influential Limón technique. His technique uses breath work and the Earth’s own gravity to express emotion. Bet you didn’t know that one of the modern dance pioneers was originally from Mexico.
His choreography is a connection to that vibrant moment when modern dance bloomed in Post-War New York. But it also carries el Lamento Boliviano, the stirring cry of Latin peoples for justice and acceptance, ever since the Europeans came in 1492. For most of us, it’s not dance, it’s life. We just want the same opportunity to dance in peace that everyone else has. That’s what you will find at Limón Dance Company, modern dance con sabor (with flavor). There is nothing abstract about it. It’s our life. 🇲🇽
Limón Dance Company in New York City
Chelsea, Manhattan
Limón Dance Company’s 78th season includes Doris Humphrey’s solo “Two Ecstatic Themes,” Limon’s “The Traitor,” the return of his drumming quartet “Scherzo” after 45 years, his “Missa Brevis” about the destruction of war, and a Kayla Farrish world premiere that reimagines two lost Limón works. It’s at The Joyce Theater in Chelsea, Manhattan; from November 5-10, 2024. 🇲🇽
This is visionary curation for several reasons that may not be obvious to many New Yorkers:
- “The Traitor” and “Two Ecstatic Themes” ~ The Colonial Era violently imposed European culture on the Indigenous Peoples, Africans, and Asians. Being colonized is an apocalyptic hell, and the “conquistadors” only conquered through betrayal. But given enough time, the Latin Peoples turned that mess into many beautiful cultures, admired around the world. We dance to turn pain into joy.
- “Missa Brevis” ~ Most Americans don’t realize that like it or not, war has returned to the world. There are probably connections between the troubles in Europe, Asia, and even the Caribbean and South America. Lately, young people and especially young people of color, have been joining protests against war, because we know the horror of being colonized. Colonizers steal or destroy everything ~ including your identity. It’s part of our heritage, and part of what it means to be American Latin. We’re recovering ourselves now.
- Kayla Farrish Premieres ~ Being a person of color in a “Euro-centric” world is a trip because you can be assaulted at any time, for no reason, in ways great and small. It’s quite shocking when it happens because you didn’t do anything to deserve it, but the danger is constant. It’s so constant, it starts to make you suspicious. Being rejected by the dominant cultural identity forces you to question your own identity. The reality is that where we live defines us more than anything else. Regardless of our heritage, we are Americans and New Yorkers. Our struggle is not about fighting, it’s about unity. When you learn to love all peoples, your world grows exponentially. Diversity is a sign of a healthy ecosystem. Full color isn’t just good for television. It is the most beautiful possible life.
There is really a lot here. That is part of this Company.
Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
Limón Dance Company brings modern dance to the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College, in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan; on May 17, 2024 at 7pm. From $13. The venue was changed from Aaron Davis Hall at City College.
Upper East Side, Manhattan
Dancing the 92nd Street Y celebrates 92NY’s 150th Anniversary with a program of modern dance companies who formed there: Limón Dance Company, Ailey II, and Martha Graham Dance Company, paired with choreography by former Ailey dancers Omar Román de Jesús, Jamar Roberts, and Hope Boykin; in Kaufmann Concert Hall at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan’s Upper East Side; on Tuesday, March 12, 2024 at 7:30pm. From $30. 🇺🇸 🇲🇽 🇵🇷
New York City Venues
- 92nd Street Y, New York
- Aaron Davis Hall at City College Center for the Arts
- Bryant Park
- Joyce Theater
- New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC)
- New York Live Arts
- Purchase College Performing Arts Center
Limón Dance Company
José Limón is from Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico. He moved to the United States in 1918, and first started performing on Broadway in 1930. He was known for his emotional expression and later his Limón technique which uses breathing and the falling nature of gravity. It’s very natural movement.
It gets even more interesting when you consider the contemporary notion that space and time are one thing. Objects with great mass distort space/time so that an object that seems to be moving in a straight line is actually spiraling. Somehow Limón understood this intuitively, and it lives on in his work and legacy.
Limón founded the Company in 1946 with Doris Humphrey, one of the second generation of modern dancers. She also worked with gravity. That made them a great creative pair. You can see it in the choreography.
The stars are far away and we perceive them to be single points of light, like our own sun star. Actually, the star pair is by far the most common form. The distortion of space/time should bring them together into a violent collision. They maintain a stable balance through the centrifugal force created by spinning on their own axis. This is a metaphor for both of these artist’s work, and for their relationship in the dance.
One of the venues where Limón and several important modern dance companies got their start was the 92nd Street Y in the Upper East Side.
It’s worth noting that modern dance was a transition from the classical structure of ballet, to the free form of contemporary dance. Limón was an important part of that transition.
Like all choreographers, Limón turned stories from his Mexican heritage culture into modern dance mixed with European heritage traditions. This cultural blending is uniquely American. The Company’s signature work is “The Moors Pavane” (1949), which is based on Shakespeare’s “Othello.” The Moors were a mixed Berber and Arab people who created one of the three great European civilizations in Spain from 711-1492. This mix is one of the reason Spanish culture is so rich. From a European Diaspora perspective, Latins are basically the Moors of the Americas. “Othello” is great Shakespeare about a Moorish general who is manipulated by a jealous officer into mistrusting his own wife. That’s how the Americas were “conquered,” through dishonesty and betrayal. There is a lot more than just dance here.
José founded the José Limón Dance Foundation in 1968 to carry on its work. It manages the dance company and the Limón Institute.
Information
Tickets are usually sold through presenting theaters.
José Limón Dance Foundation
466 West 152nd St #2
(between Amsterdam and St. Nicholas)
Hamilton Heights, Upper Manhattan
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