Pepatián

Richard Rivera
PHYSUAL Dance Company

"Black Clouds" was one of the standout pieces of the night. Four performers in black skirts and tutus S formed a sculptural tableau that began to shift and melt into each other. The piece gained ever more momentum as the dancers moved out of these moving sculptures into often unified, often disparate phrasings that captured an unforced intensity I had been seeking.
Sion Dayson, Bronx Dance Magazine

BIOGRAPHY

Richard Rivera, Bronx-born and bred, received his primary dance training at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center where he was also a member of Ailey II. As a company member he performed, toured and instructed master dance classes throughout the U.S. Currently Richard is an artist-in-residence at Tribeca Performing Arts Center. His company PHYSUAL will premiere "Experience the Flight" at Tribeca¹s Work and Show Series 2004. PHYSUAL has also been invited to be part of the Mellinium Stage AmericArtes festival presented by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

ARTIST STATEMENT

To combine my passion for creating movement and performing, I created PHYSUAL. PHYSUAL dance company's mission is to use dance and movement as a catalyst for creating powerful expressive performance work. My movement vocabulary develops ideas by blending form and technique with human subtlety. I continuously work with the concepts of weight groundedness, movement phrasing and spacial relationships.

REPERTORY

Flirting Flamingos (2003) - This male duet shows how sharing of weight and tenderness are one and the same. 2 dancers. Music: Lucienne Boyer. RT: 8 minutes. Black Clouds (2003) a quartet exploring tensions of space and interrelationships. 4 dancers. Music/soundscape: Verve. RT: 15 minutes. Untitled Solo (2001) male solo dancing an internal revelation, of seeing and dealing with reality. 1 dancer. Music: Donny Hathaway. RT: 8 min Inside Conversations (2001) - reveals different phases of a relationship and its closure. Movement represents conversation and -dealing with a relationship¹s end. 2 dancers. Music: Sosa/Pizolla. RT: 15 minutes m.j.t. (2001) male trio reflecting comradeship through rites of passage. 3 dancers. Music: Leyuex Noirs. RT: 9 minutes

RESIDENCY ACTIVITIES

Richard has taught modern dance in NYC at Alvin Ailey, Ballet Hispanico, Broadway Dance Center, Peri Dance Center, throughout the NYC Public School System and internationally at the Tokyo School of Music. His classes explore movement and the connection of weight in space. Participants work with specific phrases that develop linear alignment for full spirited movement.