Press

" Forget the safety of distance; this is the palpable sensation of art – up-close and personal."
Deborah Gibroff, Encore Magazine
>full article (PDF)

"Choreographer Castro's upcoming duet takes voyeurism to a precipice.”
Lori Ortiz, Gay City News
>full article (PDF)

"Castro’s work is intellectual. Her movement is quirky; remarkably polished performances propel her unexpected stutters and awkward positions…Castro’s smart, kooky shenanigans captivate…"
Chris Dohse, The Village Voice

"Yanira Castro has found an individual voice."
Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times

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Ranging from stark, minimalist movement pieces to multimedia projects, the work explores abstract images that evoke emotional landscapes. Movement is at the center of Castro’s work, and with each composition the company develops a specific vocabulary for each piece. The result is a diverse and eclectic body of work. From two dancers moving in strict unison within an all-white room glowing in fluorescent light, to the performer prancing in a field of translucent plastic sheets hung in a vast warehouse, each performance creates its own distinctive world.

Yanira Castro + Company is committed to increasing and diversifying the audience base for dance through lecture/ demonstrations, workshops, question and answer sessions and a variety of other outreach programs. The company has had the pleasure of teaching at New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida; Amherst, Massachusetts; Middlebury and Mount Holyoke Colleges; the Youth Performing Arts High School in Kentucky; and the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts High School in Massachusetts. The Company also seeks opportunities to bring the work to public and non-traditional spaces where new audiences can be reached. Castro’s work has been performed at such sites as Grand Central Station, the Times Square subway station, the West Side 96th Street Basketball Courts, The Mall at Central Park, Bronx River Art Center and the Old American Can Factory.

Known for her exquisitely rendered and visually provocative works, Castro’s artistic excellence has been recognized by The Rockefeller Foundation, The MAP Fund, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts, among others. She has recently been awarded a grant by the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation to attend Internationale Tanzmesse NRW.

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Repertory

Wilderness

Wilderness is a site-adaptable performance installation in which the audience and performers occupy a field of black rubber mulch containing all elements of the piece: seating, piano, crew. A stark emotional solo for an older man begins the piece and is then translated to abstract, technical movement for four dancers. The audience provides the structure for the choreography and sound: their movement determines a set of performance rules for the dancers and is captured by microphones to compose a musical score for piano. Wilderness will have a videogame component created by game designer and artist Jason Rohrer. >full description

Dark Horse/Black Forest- 45 minutes

Dark Horse/Black Forest is intensely performed love story presented in the most intimate space, a bathroom. Set in public bathrooms or an individual’s private bathroom, the audience is privy to an emotional and private exchange between a man and a woman that ends in a formal, sensual ballet… pristine and stark.

Dark Horse/Black Forest expands Yanira Castro + Company’s exploration of audience environments: how an observer and a performer connect to the work, how they participate, how a space influences, and how the performance addresses this meeting place. The performers and audience inhabit the bathroom together. There are no theatrical divisions, allowing the audiences close proximity to the action. The performers’ emotional interactions are palpable and evolving right next to you throughout the performance. The experience is not one of distance, of an image framed, but of action and breath living and working beside and around you.

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