In their latest work, mixed-heritage dance company Dancing Earth investigates renewable energy from differing ancestral, cultural, and practical perspectives. Between II seeks to balance Indigenous Elders’ cultural teachings with the realities of a new generation struggling for survival in the apocalyptic present. The audience is invited into dreamscapes of balance and harmony and future-looking possibilities for connection and renewal. The performance will use mobile installation, oration, dance, music, immersive media, and eco-innovative design from the company’s mixed-heritage dancers, artists, and collaborators.
About the Artists
Dancing Earth Creations (DEC) is a contemporary dance theater ensemble embodying the intention to renew and revitalize culture, community, and cosmologies through performing arts. Founded by Artistic Director Rulan Tangen, to serve a need rarely met in the USA, DEC gives hope and opportunity to Native, mixed global Indigenous, and BIPOC talent who have been largely outside the dialogue of mainstream performance because of lack of access. DEC is an organic constellation of largely self-taught dancers, composers, costumers, filmmakers, and spoken word artists. Together, DEC artists work with community members, culture carriers, and Native elders to explore the rich diversity of ancestral heritage, contemporary identity, and intra-cultural relationship building, by collaborating on innovative ecologically themed performances. DEC’s work promotes environmental awareness, cultural diversity, and understanding between peoples through contemporary art expressions.
“We gather as individual artists to create experimental yet elemental dances that reflect our rich cultural heritage as contemporary global peoples. We strive to embody the unique essences of cultural perspectives through the creation and renewal of artistic and cultural movement rituals. Ancient and futuristic, our dances are an elemental language of bone and blood memory in motion.” - Founding Artistic Director, Rulan Tangen
Paid for in part by Sarasota County Tourist Development Tax revenues.
Between II was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
