Farewell 2017

This Spring RHDT performed as part of the United States Artists Assembly in Chicago where I was honored to recieve the Sarah Arison Choreographic Fellowship.

In April we were in residence at Dance Place in DC, performing my solo show Cookie’s Kid and an excerpt from Dining Alone. We fell in love with the diverse and welcoming DC audiences and especially Christopher K. Morgan who hosted an artists’ lunch where we were able to connect with local DC dancers in a very interesting and lively conversation. Congratulations to Christopher for recently being named the new executive artistic director of Dance Place!

With carillonneur extraordinaire Sam Hammond 200 feet high in the Duke University Chapel Bell Tower.

In July I made my yearly dance pilgrimage to the American Dance Festival where I had the opportunity to connect with two Duke University scholars as part of my research for my newest work Make Believe. They introduced me to carillonneur Sam Hammond, who invited me into the bell tower at the Duke University Chapel for a mini recital. I cannot express with words what an incredibly moving experience it was to be in the bell tower amongst 50 bells, some as large as 11,200 pounds, which rung with such power that my bones seemed to be vibrating. Needless to say I left NC with an incredible amount of inspiration and energy to create this new work.

Also in July, I was lucky to teach as a part of the Youth Artist Leadership Program at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center in Miami. Started by Tarell Mc Craney in 2015, the program is an intensive arts excellence program that matches gifted inner city students with mentors who will engage the students community mindfulness, enhance their leadership skills and nurture their artistic ability. 

In August I traveled to Alabama to participate in an artists’ forum to celebrate the Alabama Bicentennial Dance Project. Led by the Alabama Dance Council, this project aims to celebrate and honor Alabama’s different cultural perspectives. What a joy to brainstorm with such a phenomenal group of artists! I will be back in Alabama in January to teach at the Alabama Dance Festival and I look forward to how the collaborative project will unfold in 2019.

In September I was commissioned by the Jose Limon Dance Company in New York to create a duet entitled Querida Herida (Beloved Wound). The female trio premiered in Miami at the South Miami Dade Cultural Arts Center and later at the Aaron Davis Hall in NYC. Tilt magazine said of the performance that “Its unpredictability sent the house roaring with laughter.” Click here to read the full review

In October RHDT traveled to the O’Shaughnessy Theater at St. Katherine’s University in Minneapolis for a short residency where we continued to workshop our newest work Carne Viva.Our performances of both Carne Viva and Cookie’s Kid were met with an enthusiastic audience and was described by Sheila Regan of The Star Tribune as “riveting” and “enchanting.” Click here for full review

In December we traveled to LA for a unique performance as part of The Music Center’s immersive late night event Sleepless. This special edition of Sleepless was created to celebrate Cuban artists both in Cuba and throughout the diaspora. Referencing the forbiddance of Cuba and utilizing the unique restraints of the stunning Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, I created a series of “peep shows” that pulled strongly on Cuban iconography. Working in such an intimate space felt like going back to my cabaret roots and I look forward to continuing to develop this material with my company back in Miami. 

Although this year has been complicated and at times difficult, I am grateful to have received many encouraging messages that have motivated me to continue to believe in the limitless possibility of a life in dance. This year I was blessed to receive the Miami Dade Choreographic Fellowship and generous support from the New England Foundation for the Arts and the MAP Fund for the creation of my newest work Make Believe, which is set to premiere this summer at ADF. I hope to be able to leverage this support to make a radical shift in my creative process and to broaden my horizons in terms of collaborations and fundamental administrative support.

2017 Newsletter

Hello beloved friends!
In a time when there is such negativity in the world, I've learned to fortify my faith by leaning on the friendships that have brought me so much inspiration and laughter throughout the years. Friendships like yours! I wanted to send you this note to catch you up on what I have been up and to hopefully reconnect with you.

This summer was capped off with three amazing performances of Various Stages of Drowning: A Cabaret and Carne Viva presented by The American Dance Festival at The Joyce in NYC. Broadway.com called the performance "a multi-media romp that celebrates the choreographer's deliciously bizarre sense of humor tinged with melancholy."  and Criticaldance.com found the work to be "visually stimulating, iconoclastic, at times shocking and at times hilarious, and conceived with intelligence and considerable choreographic capability.... Herrera has undeniable choreographic competence coupled with a biting, sophisticated, and irreverent sense of humor that alone is sufficient reason to see her company." .

Also in August I was lucky to be selected as an artist in residence with Broadway Dance Lab in NYC where I was free to follow whatever creative tangent I might suggest to a phenomenally versatile, talented and eager cast. It was a choreographer’s paradise. I was able to work-shop material for my newest company work as well as for my subsequent work with Houston Met Dance in October.

Here I am with the beautiful dancers of Houston Met Dance and the future star Evy Doyle.

While in residence with The Houston Met Dance Company I created a new work entitled Opening Number. Inspired by the notion that vulnerability breeds intimacy, this work is a dynamic exploration of relationships and the shifting nature of proxemics.

In November, I was honored to be announced as a United States Artists Sarah Arison Fellow. The honor recognizes the country’s most accomplished and innovative artists working in the fields of Architecture & Design, Crafts, Dance, Literature, Media, Music, Theater & Performance, Traditional Arts and Visual Arts.

In February, RHDT toured to The Maui Arts and Cultural Center to present my solo work Cookie’s Kid alongside an excerpt of Dining Alone. We will performing this program closer to home April 8-9 at Dance Place in DC. Click here to buy tickets. Would love to see you there!

In March, six original short musical films that I created in collaboration with Clyde Scott were premiered as part of The New World Symphony’s immersive music series Pulse. We were invited to join the Symphony on stage for the world premiere of composer Sam Hyken’s newest work Danze Moderne alongside Miami’s own Spam All Star’s. 

I hope your past 6 months have been filled with joy and that the next 6 months bring many opportunities for our paths to cross. Thank you for your continued support in all that I do. I look forward to hearing back from you and I send an immense bolt of love to you wherever you are.

With unending faith in the power of love and art,
Rosie

NEWSLETTER JULY 2016

Hello dear friends and colleagues,

I have just returned from a series of residencies and I am so filled with inspiration and a desire to connect with my peers that I decided to reach out to you, share a little about my year and hopefully hear a little bit about yours. 

This year started off in beautiful Durham, NC as we were invited for a residency at The American Dance Festival (ADF) for two weeks. ADF has become a second home for me so it was such a treat to be there as I begun an entirely new rehearsal process. Straight from Durham we headed back to Miami for a sold out performance with The New World Symphony. We were truly honored to collaborate on a unique performance experience melding the two worlds of orchestral music and dance. With the internationally renowned Frank Gehry designed New World Symphony Music Hall transformed into a late-night lounge with club-style lighting and video projections, our original music videos and live performance created a surreal and lively experience that was uniquely Miami.  

In March, a short documentary film collaboration between Jonathon David Kane and myself was selected to be a part of The Miami International Film Festival. Click here to see the trailer.

In April I was amongst the first group of artists to be invited to Dance Place, DC to participate in the Alan M. Kreigsman Creative Residency. I began working on a quartet which would eventually premiere in June at The American Dance Festival. 

In May I was selected to be a Schonburg Fellow at The Yard at Martha’s Vineyard. My company was in residency for 3 weeks and we began to solidify the foundation of our newest work Carne Viva. I was mentored by the brilliant David Brick of Headlong Theater whose advice and wisdom is still resonating with me today and who has helped to shift my thinking in a major way. (side note- It was pretty surreal to have the enigmatic Eiko and Koma as roommates!) Click here for a short video about the Shonburg Fe

Also in May, I was honored to present my dear friend Richard Feldman with the Civic Award as part of Ballet Hispanico 2016 Gala.

Click here to read my feature in July's Dance Magazine.

Another incredibly talented group of students auditoned this year for the annual Spike Scholarship Audition at New World School of the Arts. Congratulations to Chris Medina for being selected! For more info go to www.spikeaward.org

The title Carne Viva literally translates to “raw", but for native Spanish speakers it is a term we often use to describe an open wound. The words ‘carne' means flesh or meat. And ‘viva' means life or long live. So… you can interpret this title to mean a variety of things. 

This month my company is preparing for performances presented by ADF at The Joyce NYC August 4-7. I remember watching my first performance at The Joyce and feeling like a part of something so much bigger than myself. I never would have imagined that one day it would be my name on the marquis. And it still feels like a dream. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for all the experiences that have brought me here and so honored to be able to be an advocate for my community outside of Miami. 

ADF presents Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre at The Joyce NYC. Click here to see the trailer,

On the Joyce program will be this newest work Carne Viva and my very first work Various Stages of Drowning: A Cabaret. I think it quite fitting to pair these two pieces together as they both represent times in my life of great growth and transition, 8 years apart. I have been saying for a long time that I feel my creative process has been shifting in a new direction and this new work sits in the middle of that evolution. Although it is already very different from my previous choreography in its visual simplicity and exhausting physicality, I sense that I have some ways to go before it feels fully complete. I am excited for what this new process can reveal for me personally, and I hope it will bring more dimension to my entire creative vision. I hope to see you at The Joyce and to share in this moment of transition and growth with you. 

Thank you so much for your continued support and love,

Rosie

Catch up with Rosie 🌹2013 Newsletter

As this new year begins to take shape I wanted to take a moment to reflect on 2013.   It was a year of great growth filled with a lot of firsts and with many challenges. I wanted to share some of my experiences this year with you and to thank you for your continued support and love.

2013 begun with the NYC premiere of Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre at Focus Dance at the Joyce Theater. The performance was met with a lot of enthusiasm and was hailed by broadwayworld.com as “A company that is so innovative, searing and disturbing that it bears repeated viewings.”

With Spring came the NYC premiere of Dining Alone at the Baryshnicov Arts Center and an incredible and surprising sold out run. I was overwhelmed with the amount of enthusiasm surrounding RHDT'S first solo show in NYC and the outpour of support from my extended dance family in NYC. Rachel Rizzuto of Backtrack.comcomments that she ..."left the theater rejuvenated about the state of dance in performance..." and Deborah Jowitt called the work "...earthy, poetic and beyond dada imaginative."

In June and July I was in residency at the American Dance Festival creating a new work on the ADF dancers entitled Make Believe. I was moved by my experience with the dancers and planted the seeds for a work I am excited to start working on with my company in the near future. 

With Charlene, Princess of Monaco, receiving the 2013 Princess Grace Choreographic Fellowship.

Straight from ADF I departed onto NYC to set a work entitled Show.Girl on Ballet Hispanico. This is a work I have been excited to create for many years and Ballet Hispanico was the perfect fit.  This process took me to another level as a choreographer. I knew it was time to challenge myself in many ways creatively and the result I think is a work more sophisticated and polished than my most recent work. I hope to see you at the world premiere of this work at The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts June 6-7. Click here for more info.

My relationship with Ballet Hispanico eventually led to a prestigious Choreographic Fellowship Award from the Princess Grace foundation in October. Click here for a behind the scenes look at the development of Show.Girl as part of Ballet Hispanico's Instituto Coreorafico.

Back in Miami we prepared for the second annual Spike Award auditions. Created in 2012 by my colleague Matthew Ferrara and myself,The Spike Award is a fund supported by Northwestern Mutual that awards tuition, travel, per diem and housing for one New World School of the Arts student of great financial need to attend the American Dance Festival each summer. We were pleased with the turnout for this year’s audition and with this year’s scholarship recipient Amanda Edwards.

Also in October RHDT performed for the CircX Anniversary at the Fillmore Theater in Miami Beach with an excerpt of Pity Party. It was an incredible celebration of Miami’s unique and thriving cabaret scene and we were so honored to be a part of the fun.

In November I headed to Ohio (cold weather was clearly a theme this year!) to set a new work entitled Housebroken on Moving Ground Dance Theater of Cleveland.  I was also able to do a lot of outreach in the Ohio community with masterclasses and workshops at Cleveland State University and University of Ohio in Akron. Click here to hear an interview with Dee Perry of Ohio's Idea Stream about the motivation for Housebroken. 

With all the new experiences 2013 brought, I hope 2014 brings many more opportunities for growth and happiness for myself as well as for you.  I also hope that this new year will bring more chances for us to enjoy each others company. Thank you all for your incredible support now and always.  

With Love,
Rosie

ADF presents Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre at the Joyce, NYC

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