Like all good infatuations, Cielo Elena (World Premiere) began with a pair of pants sold at a 60% discount. The brainchild of choreographer Omar Román De Jesús, cinematographer Xhon Dang, sound designer Jesse Scheinin, and lighting designer Christopher Chambers, this fifteen-minute performance film takes viewers through six movements celebrating individual and interpersonal relationships to the human body. Cielo Elena splays intimacy open, posing questions about ecstasy, kink, queerness, vulnerability, and risk while participating in an ongoing effort to liberate concert dance from moral rigidity. Through the durable medium of film, this work intentionally makes space for eyes to linger then adjust, discomforts to stir then process, and audiences to pull back the curtain on what else might be consumer friendly at 60% off.
Following the World Premiere of Cielo Elena, the six characters of De Jesús’s 12-minute film Los Perros del Barrio Colosal take us on a wild romp through the challenges of creative decision making through the exaggerated mannerisms of daytime television. Diving dramatically into the adventure of an imagination yet to be physicalized, they ask us to consider the far side of the moments when our ideas threaten, with disjointed urgency, to swallow us whole.
Creation and production of Cielo Elena were made possible by generous support from the Baryshnikov Arts Center and Boca Tuya’s individual donors.
Omar Román De Jesús
Omar Román De Jesús (Bayamón, Puerto Rico) is a Queer LatinX choreographer and company director who creates rhythmic narratives through contemporary dance forms, improvisation, and dance theater techniques. De Jesús is a recipient of the 2020 Jacob's Pillow: The Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellowship.