Urban and Tribal Dances was created between 1990-1992.

Urban and Tribal Dances is about people of present, past, or slightly future time in an urban setting. The 6-part suite was to be revived at the Ivy Substation in Culver City this past July, but it was cancelled with the Pandemic lingering for months. It was just one in a series of cancelled performances. But we are looking forward to creating something in Culver City later this fall. The photo here is from the new Alone 2020, but the video link takes you back to the original that was cancelled.

Batida, reveals an ever-present communal or tribal theme that lies below the surface. Alone is just the opposite, bleak and isolated. Although choreographed in 1990, it foreshadows our dependence on our phones, but at this time by the attached line. When it breaks, the dancer is deaf and blind.

We were rehearsing Batida and Alone for the Orange County Dance Festival that would have been in April, and left the tent partially set up in our early March rehearsal and took it up to storage at the studio that way. Then March 12 came, and everything closed. When we got back into the studio 4 months later, only twice because it was then again closed down, we found the tent had been thrown away by mistake. It was totally unexpected, as the tent had been stored folded up for 30 years in my home.

When I look at this new version of Alone, I see a piece where even though we are each experiencing a very alone moment, this has been happening since the beginning of time, and perhaps, on a more hopeful note, we are still connected always to each other.

Program 1- San Pedro Festival of the Arts- September 19- October 4, 2020

Companies & Choreographers with video.

LA C&D is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles

County Department of Arts and Culture and the festival is supported in part by a grant from the Department

of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles. Funds for the Festival also come from Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn.

Program 2- San Pedro Festival of the Arts- September 20- October 4, 2020

Companies & Choreographers with video.

These are matching grants. Please become one of the festival supporters!

Los Angeles Choreographers & Dancers presents soulful, imaginative dance/theatre/multimedia works that take audience members on their own journey of self-discovery.

See our web-site for information on our concert repertory with works for general & dance audiences, and for Family Audiences. Read about our educational programs for youth, and even with the Pandemic served more than 15,720 young people this past year. Our special projects including producing the San Pedro Festival of the Arts and the Southern CA Dance Directory. Bring us to your venue, whether in Los Angeles, in the US, or abroad.

AB5 has finally hit the front pages of the LA Times Calendar and main section, but as the Director of a company with 40 years of creating more than 100 works and working each year with more than 27,000 young people in our educational programs, I have very divided feelings about it. I grew up knowing that there was limited money in the "Arts" area, as opposed to the "Entertainment" area of dance. As a former member of 3 unions and multiple Broadway shows, I have often worked on the "entertainment " end, and was very happy to do it, and very happy to receive the money it can bring in. I was also happy to teach at multiple colleges, including 30 years at USC on Faculty as an employee. However, in the "arts" area our non-profit arts companies are just not set up to fund raise to the extent that we can use "employees" vs "independent" contractors. It will raise our expenses to the extent that we will have to drastically curtail our programs, as the new AB5 details we must turn all our independent contractors into employees. Of course we would want all our dancers, both performers and teaching artists, to have the benefits that an employee can have, but most of us do not have millions (or even one million) behind us to make this happen. The dichotomy of employees vs independent contractors became even more noticeable when seeing that our company could only apply for very specific emergency funding opportunities.

This is a new state law, put through with the best of intentions, but no forethought on the fragility of the performing arts. Ideally, government would support us to the extent that other countries support their professional dance, theater, and music. So we need to amend this law to exempt us, or even better, bring up the level of funding for the Arts, so artists (dancers) can be part of the benefits that so many enjoy today. Let's add these appeals with all the other so necessary aspects of our lives (like saving the environment and providing education and medical help). California leads the country in numbers of working artists, but we need to contact our state senators and governor to help us find a balance to keep them here.