Send us a message!

Welcome back to LNXdance with your Co-Hosts, Marcus & Mari! M&M continue Season 4 with the inspiring, talented, and wonderful Gabriel Mata!

IG: gabrielmatamoving
Site: www.gabrielmatamovement.com

Gabriel Mata (gah-bryehl mah-tah) is a Mexican American dance choreographer, educator, and performer from Washington DC. He received his Masters in Fine Arts - dance from the University of Maryland - College Park.

Mata’s seven-year research has cultivated his own performance work of “motion memoirs.” While focused on movement, the work is about centering marginalized narratives and identities removed from expectation of concert dance and the white lens. Motion memoirs make themes of Latinx, queerness, and immigration a part of a receptive conversation with viewers.

Mata’s dance works have been performed in California, New York, Minnesota, North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, New Jersey, Washington DC, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. His work has been presented at Stanford University, San José State University, Georgian Court University, Howard Community College, and American University; and has been commissioned by David Herrera Performance Company, Jane Franklin Dance, Atlas Performing Arts Center, Dance Loft on 14, sjDANCEco, Charlotte Dance Festival, the Minnesota Fringe Festival, the Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers, Dance Place, Silicon Valley Pride, the Hispanic National Bar Association, and Corazón Folklórico DC.

Currently, Gabriel is an adjunct instructor at American University, the John Hopkins University Peabody Conservatory, and teaches at the Washington Ballet Adult Program. He has been an instructor at the University of Maryland - College Park and Coppin State University and a guest instructor at San José State University, Georgetown University, UMD - Baltimore County, and Stanford University.

Mata is the inaugural Social Justice Commissioned Dance Artist at Dance Loft on 14th and the Arts Lab Fellow at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. He received the S&R Evermay Washington Award for the Fillmore Dance Studio. He has been awarded the Amplify Grant, DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities Fellowship Grant, DCCAH Performance Grant, and the Kennedy Center REACH Campus Residency.

We are so happy to share his story with you. Comparte el amor with

Support the show

--
Brought to you by MotionScoop Dance Corp, LNXdance Podcast is a series of conversations FOR Latinx dancers and educators BY Latinx dancers and educators. Join Mari & Marcus -M&M- as they dive deep into important topics in the dance industry and explore how being part of the Latinx community affects us, our contributions, decisions, and careers.

We hope you enjoy our sip and chat. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a comment with what you loved, questions, and topics for next time!

Follow us on our Instagram page, LNXdance, to interact with our community and with us.

For business inquiries and to apply to be a guest, please email motionscoopinfo@gmail.com

¡Adiós!

Hosts: Marcus Mantilla-Valentin & Mari Vasconez
Sponsors: MotionScoop Dance Corp.

Send us a message!

Welcome back to LNXdance with your Co-Hosts, Marcus & Mari! We are excited to be back and close out our celebration of Hispanic/Latine Heritage Month with the inspiring and beautiful Dr. Rebecca Pizarro!

BioSite: https://bio.site/On2PhysicalTherapy
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/on2physicaltherapy/
Website: https://on2physicaltherapy.com/

A NYC native, Dr. Pizarro always danced as part of her culture but her passion for Latin dance exploded when she learned on2 Salsa in high school. From then, Rebecca trained with various NYC instructors which eventually led to her teaching and performing at local and international venues. While working as an engineer by day and teaching, training, and performing by night, Rebecca lived the life of an extreme dancer. This lifestyle, unfortunately, led to multiple injuries.

Trying to find a physical therapist with Latin dance experience proved impossible. Rebecca quickly realized that there was no one who understood the movement vocabulary of Latin dancers. Frustrated, Dr. Pizarro decided to study Western dances such as ballet and modern. While useful, this training did not lead to any insights into injury prevention or body maintenance - instead it created new ones.

In an effort to better understand the movement mechanics required of Latin dancers that was lacking in the physical therapy world, Rebecca decided to become a doctor of physical therapy. Her background in structural engineering plus extensive years of dancing gave Dr. Pizarro a unique and deeper insight into the biomechanics of Latin dancers. This led her to opening up On2 Physical Therapy - a clinic that understands and serves the unique needs of Latin dancers.

Dr. Pizarro holds certifications in:

• Bachelors of Engineering - The City College of New York
• Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) - Hunter College
• One80 System Certified Practitioner
• Pilates Certified - Mat Level 1

We are so happy to share her story with you. Comparte el amor with our guest, and let us know your favorite part of this chat.

Support the show

--
Brought to you by MotionScoop Dance Corp, LNXdance Podcast is a series of conversations FOR Latinx dancers and educators BY Latinx dancers and educators. Join Mari & Marcus -M&M- as they dive deep into important topics in the dance industry and explore how being part of the Latinx community affects us, our contributions, decisions, and careers.

We hope you enjoy our sip and chat. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a comment with what you loved, questions, and topics for next time!

Follow us on our Instagram page, LNXdance, to interact with our community and with us.

For business inquiries and to apply to be a guest, please email motionscoopinfo@gmail.com

¡Adiós!

Hosts: Marcus Mantilla-Valentin & Mari Vasconez
Sponsors: MotionScoop Dance Corp.

Send us a message!

Welcome back to LNXdance with your Co-Hosts, Marcus & Mari! We are excited to continue our celebration of Hispanic/Latine Heritage Month with the wonderful Lourdes del Mar Santiago Lebrón!

Instagram: lourdesdelmar_

Puerto Rican movement artist, Lourdes del Mar Santiago Lebrón, is committed to creating immersive artistic explorations that provoke curiosity, heighten sensory awareness, and demand attention. Central to their practice is a belief in fostering genuine connections between art maker and audience through raw emotional experiences. Their work often carries a sense of urgency, utilizing art as a powerful tool for expression and communication, facilitating both healing and exploration for all audiences.

As a Queer Latine woman, Lourdes is dedicated to crafting unapologetic art that encourages deeper thought, heightened emotional engagement, and fearless life experiences. A graduate of the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University, they are currently pursuing an MFA at Washington University in St. Louis. Their research at Washington University in St. Louis includes but is not limited to, dance on the body of the Puerto Rican and the histories, lineages, and politics that inform Puerto Rican dance encounters. The research largely considers national identity as a topic of discussion questioning the diaspora, the nation’s sovereignty, nationalism, and art as activism.

They are the recipient of the 2024/2025 RADicle Croft Residency and Artist-in-Residence at the Tyson Research Center in the Spring of 2024. They will present an in-progress research essay, "Cuir (Queer) Reggaetón and the Call for Cuir (Queer) Embodied Puerto Rican Identity," at this year’s Dance Studies Association conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Their piece a meating, choreographed with Tess Losada Miner, was recently performed at the Fifth Biennial Graduate Student Art History Symposium Making Contact: Haptic, Temporal, Spatial, and Conceptual Connections. In 2023, their piece Un recuerdo del presente was commissioned to be performed at SUMMIT: THROUGH HER RISE at the University of Michigan Department of Dance through a cross-campus partnership between the U-M Museum of Art, the U-M Arts Initiative, and the College of LSA.

We are so happy to share their story with you. Comparte el amor with our guest, and let us know your favorite part of this chat.

Support the show

--
Brought to you by MotionScoop Dance Corp, LNXdance Podcast is a series of conversations FOR Latinx dancers and educators BY Latinx dancers and educators. Join Mari & Marcus -M&M- as they dive deep into important topics in the dance industry and explore how being part of the Latinx community affects us, our contributions, decisions, and careers.

We hope you enjoy our sip and chat. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a comment with what you loved, questions, and topics for next time!

Follow us on our Instagram page, LNXdance, to interact with our community and with us.

For business inquiries and to apply to be a guest, please email motionscoopinfo@gmail.com

¡Adiós!

Hosts: Marcus Mantilla-Valentin & Mari Vasconez
Sponsors: MotionScoop Dance Corp.