Imagine the offbeat in music — the ever-elusive beat between the beat. That’s the concept of “contra tiempo.”
“It’s the part of the music that makes it sound delicious,” says Ana Maria Alvarez, founding artistic director of Contra-Tiempo Activist Dance Theater that emerged from the streets of south and east Los Angeles more than two decades ago. “It gives it that sabrosita drive.”
Beyond obvious rhythmic inspiration, there’s a deeper meaning. “It’s the concept of being from the ‘in between.’ Many of us in the company have parents who are immigrants, or us ourselves have been born in other places, or come from mixed families. And it’s this idea of existing in these spaces of the ‘in between.’”
And just like many of the contagious dance forms they explore — salsa, hip-hop, capoeira, Afro-Latin rumba — resistance is the key, she says. “Resistance is actually what makes the music work, what makes the dance work, and that resistance is rooted in love.”
Performing their first ever Bay Area show at the Green Music Center in March, the dance troupe stages the road-tested “joyUS justUS,” a defiantly celebratory work that premiered in 2018 during Donald Trump’s first presidency.
“It’s the kind of piece that just keeps being more relevant,” says Alvarez. “I always say to people, ‘I look forward to a world where this piece actually feels like the past.’ But we keep getting invited to perform it in many, many places all over the country, because it does feel like it’s really speaking to the now.”
Brought to life by six dancers, spoken word passages, and electrifying music, “joyUS justUS” draws from very personal stories “to look at joy as a birthright, as a mechanism for change, as a practice, as a weapon, as a tool,” she says. “There’s a lot happening all over our country that is really rooted in separation and rooted in fear, that to really take on joy in this way, it gives us access to power and hope.”
That joy is contagious, which is why everyone in the audience will find a scarf at their seat that they’ll learn to wave around at all the right moments. By the end of the night, as the desire to get up and move becomes almost overwhelming, the audience earns its rhythmic release.
“We end the show with a big dance party. The audience gets to actually jump up on stage and be a part of moving and dancing with us,” says Alvarez.
“It’s this beautiful dissolving of the fourth wall, where the audience really is a part of the performance.”
Details
What: “joyUS justUS” by Contra-Tiempo Activist Dance Theater
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 5
Where: Weill Hall, Green Music Center, Sonoma State University, 1801 E. Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park
Tickets: $31-$81
Info: gmc.sonoma.edu