Director BIO: Anabella Lenzu (OUT OF THE FOLDS OF WOMEN)

Originally from Argentina, Anabella Lenzu is a dancer, choreographer, writer and teacher with over 30 years experience working in Argentina, Chile, Italy, London and the USA.

Lenzu directs her own company, Anabella Lenzu/DanceDrama (ALDD), which since 2006 has presented 390 performances, created 14 choreographic works and performed at 100 venues, presenting thought provoking and historically conscious dance-theater in NYC.

As a choreographer, she has been commissioned all over the world for opera, TV programs, theatre productions, and by many dance companies. She has produced and directed several award-winning short dance films and screened her work in over 50 festivals both nationally and internationally, including London, Ireland, Norway, Switzerland, Portugal, Argentina, and Mexico.

Anabella’s work has been seen at La Mama, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Movement Research at Judson Church, Draftworks at DanceSpace project/ St. Mark Church, 92nd Street Y, HERE Arts Center, Abrons Arts Center, DUO Multicultural Arts Center, Queens Museum, Bronx Museum, Gibney Dance, Center for Performance Research, Triskelion, Chez Bushwick, Roulette, Chashama, Dixon Place, Sheen Center, The Consulate of Argentina in NYC, NYU/Casa Zerilli Marimo, University Settlement, Baruch Performing Arts Center, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Instituto Cervantes, 3LD Center for Art & Technology, Kumble Theater/Long Island University, among many others. She has received grants from Brooklyn Arts Council, Puffin Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Edwards Foundation, The Vermont Community Foundation, and the Independent Community Foundation.

She holds a MFA in Fine Arts (concentration in Choreography) from Wilson College, PA. Classically trained at the renowned Teatro Colòn in Buenos Aires, Lenzu studied the modern dance techniques of Humphrey/Limòn and Graham in New York. Her studies of Tango and the folkdances of Argentina, Spain, and Italy, further inform her work.

Lenzu founded her own dance school L’Atelier Centro Creativo de Danza in 1994 in Argentina, and as an educator for more than 30 years, she has been teaching in more than 50 institutions, including universities, professional dance studios, companies, festivals, and symposiums in the USA, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, London, and Italy.

Lenzu has written for various dance and arts magazines, and published her first book in 2013, entitled Unveiling Motion and Emotion. The book contains writings in Spanish and English on the importance of dance, community, choreography, and dance pedagogy. Her second book, Teaching Dance through Meaningful Gestures, is expected in 2020, and explores basic exercises, visualization exercises, active imagination and artistic application. The book explores how technique is a philosophy and a theory, and how the body is an instrument for expression.

Currently, Lenzu conducts classes at NYU Gallatin, Wagner College, Peridance Center, and is Artist-in-Residence at CUNY Dance Initiative, 2019-2020.

Director Statement

Art is a political act.
Dance is discipline and revolt.
My body is my country.

I react to my environment and use the body as a receptacle and messenger of the multiple realities that we are immersed in.

My work reflects my experience as a Latina/European artist living in New York and comes from a deep examination of my motivations as a woman, mother, and immigrant.

Performance is a conduit for examining cultural identity through form and content, as well as relationships between people and society.

Sharing my point of view of life with others is my duty and my pleasure.

I investigate the interior logic of performance and the role of a dancer in our culture today, redefining the parameters of dance and theater.

My works live inside and outside of the theatrical traditions and venues.

My art is about celebration and criticism of socio-political and cultural barriers. It is a ceremony of awareness.

I explore rituals to document intimacy and organize layers of character driven drama, and break apart quotidian social gestures.

I am creating a living vocabulary of meaningful movement that springs directly from emotions with visceral strength.

By using movement, spoken word, sounds, music, photographs, video projections, masks and props as tools, I create a dialogue to provoke a cathartic experience in the audience.

The principle that drives my work is that Motion creates Emotion, and Emotion creates Motion.

I love to work and collaborate in an atmosphere of creativity, respect, responsibility, honesty, independence and freedom.

Motion creates Emotion, Emotion creates Motion.

This is the principle that drives my work. This goes hand in hand with the concept “Every gesture is expressive of something…It is preceded by and given birth by a thought, a feeling, an emotion, a purpose, a design or a motive.” -Delsarte

Just as I aim to integrate mind + body + spirit, I write + choreograph + teach.

It is my hope that in the works I choreograph, artists and audience find themselves walking in the same direction – to integrate mind + body + spirit .