Collaborating partners Isabel Umali and Dustin Carlson
Isabel, Dustin and Artists create works wherein movers and sound makers are essential to each other. We perform experiences that can transform space, expand time, and engender deep emotional response.
Our events are structured to offer interconnection of performance and audience, strangers and neighbors. We invite community engagement with an egalitarian mission to share art with sliding scale tickets, and without front rows or VIP sections.
Isabel and Dustin began making work in 2016 and have been presented by KODA Lab, CreateArt, NoOSPHERE ARTS, FIVEMYLES, STUDIO 210, FIDCDMX (Mexico City) among others.
Read Dance Informa's in depth interview with The DanceBands' founders on their series and mission
Shift//Loss
video coming soon!
I began this work reading about trees, depth psychology, indigenous wisdom and, of course, myth and archetype. It has become a 20-minute piece about internal transformation from a deeply feminine perspective. Music is, as always, composed and performed by Dustin Carlson. This showing will include my work along with fellow resident, Preethi Ramaprasad, who is a brilliant scholar and artist. The showings are followed by a group discussion and I am so excited to listen/learn from Preethi, Deborah, and all of you.
Watch the film HERE
Focusing on carbon emissions and governmental changes to stop global warming often feels out of our hands. Earth Day, 2021 invites us, individually and collectively, to become more mindful of our actions, as this mindfulness can ripple out into how we participate at systemic and organizational levels in the climate awareness fight. Often causes such as gender equality or climate awareness are used as moral licensing to dodge racism. Our ongoing work as people and artists is to incorporate the intersectionality of racism, environmentalism, sexism, and any other “-ism”.
“They have a gift of moving the crowds and shifting energy levels to help us reconnect with our bodies and selves.”- KODA
Wandering
a dance film
New music and dance celebrates collaboration within the pandemic.
Wandering is a four movement dance film set to a guitar suite composed by Dustin Carlson and performed by Andrea Gonzalez Caballero. The film and movement are the result of a collaboration between Angelo Vasta and dancers Yeman Brown, Isabel Umali, Ashley Menestrina, and Justin Daniels. The music was commissioned by The Gabriela Lena Franck Creative Academy of Music and because of the current challenges with live performance, Dustin and Andrea agreed that a dance film would make an excellent debut.
"Both jazz and flamenco are musical embodiments of struggle and transcendence of oppressive forces; both are instances where intuitive genius overrides formalism. Both are musics whose foundational practitioners had to endure racism and bigotry, a fact which for me, being a white, male US citizen, was an additional motivation to reflect on my feelings regarding privilege, disappointment, and shame. The final project is a true collaboration between commissioner, composer, performer, dancers, and filmmaker. The result is a celebration of artists and of creative resilience. "
-Dustin Carlson, composer & producer
#GLFCAMGigThruCOVID initiative
