MOTHER TONGUE
MOTHER TONGUE
An eco-erotic evening of contemporary dance theatre exploring the raw and rapturous intimacies of mothering and the nurturing bonds between humans and the natural world.
Hosted by FAM-ily Co.
Dates: November 15-17 @7:30PM
Location: FAM-ily Co. Studio - 1067 Alakea St., 4th floor
Featuring dancers Chloe Bee, Christina Comfort, Aisia Cyan, Spencer Dehnavi, Christian Grado, Maria Teresa Houar, and Kimberly Loo. Stage Manager Al Reyes and Sound Design by DJ Baddie Maddie.
Contemporary dance Theatre
Maria Teresa Houar
Erotic Performance
You have found A Home
For
Leviathan Dance
and the artistic projects of
Maria Teresa Houar
Under Maria Teresa’s direction, dance, performance, and theatre artists Living in the occupied Kingdom of Hawai'i
Come together and collaborate in the creation of work that seeks to interrogate how human power and precarity are created within the intimacies of our everyday lives.
LATEST PROJECTS
Newest Chapter Publication in Stages of Reckoning
“Stages of Reckoning is a crucial conversation about how racialized bodies and power intersect within actor training spaces.”
So honored to have the opportunity to contribute a chapter to this meaningful and important volume on Decolonial and Antiracist actor training edited by Amy Mihyang Ginther. My Chapter titled, The erotic of abstinence: Refusing the white-possessive and embracing settler abstinence in performance pedagogy, looks at the labor of intimacy within performance training spaces, and imagines abstinence as an erotic aesthetic that values consent and refusal as a necessary practice within higher education and arts training.
Past PROJECTS
PC: Tien Enga
HYDRA
Honolulu, Hawai`i - 2023
HYDRA is an immersive, erotic exploration of deep time, morphallaxis, and pleasure. Elements of kink culture and exotic dance fuse with contemporary choreography in this new work of dance theatre which imagines the regenerative potential of queer erotics.
Concept and Direction by Maria Teresa Houar. Choreography by Maria Teresa Houar in collaboration with Christina Comfort, Spencer Dehnavi, Christian Grado, Kimberly Loo, and Terry Slaughter. Guest artists Summer Luv, April Cloud, and Olga Rock. With stage manager Al Reyes, DJ and sound by Nico Gruta, and lighting design by Rachel Sorensen. Sponsored by Polearity Studio
PC: Tien Enga
NEVER FOREVER
Honolulu, Hawai`i - 2021
Never Forever is a surrealist storytelling of Pandemic depression, rage, and loss. This evening-length work of contemporary dance theatre traverses a dreamland in exploration of how we come together and break apart in response to tragedy, heartbreak, and the slow haunting of our collective memory.
Choreographed by MARIA TERESA HOUAR in collaboration with Fran Camuso, June Chee, Spencer Garrod Dehnavi, Kimberly Loo and Terry Slaughter with Stage Manager Al Reyes. Lighting by Jonah Bobilin.
LEVIATHAN
Honolulu, Hawai'i - 2019
Leviathan is a queer, retro-futurist re-imagining of Anderson’s Little Mermaid, which explores love and devotion in an eco-sexual opus on our human relationship with water and ocean life. Leviathan aims to elevate the art forms of pole-flow, exotic dance, and shibari rope practices within the concert dance space as a means to interrogate why we fear the consensual intimacies of our erotic lives, yet we have become numb to the slow, non-consensual violence of extractive capitalism and climate change. As the destruction of ocean habitats signals the end of a human presence on earth, Leviathan celebrates and mourns the love between humans and water, asking us to contemplate our dependence upon diverse ocean landscapes which sustain us.
Choreographed by MARIA TERESA HOUAR in collaboration with Kalikopuanoheaokalani Aiu, Fran Camuso, Tina Chan, Christian Grado, Cassie Filhart, Kimberly Loo, Terry Slaughter, and Rose Wolfe with Assistant Director Al Reyes. Lighting by Jonah Bobilin.
BABY SHAMPOO
Honolulu, Hawai'i - 2019
Baby Shampoo invites audience members into a world of absurd creation to explore the subjectivity of the inanimate, specifically the intimate inner lives and unexplored identities of soaps, detergents, and cleansers. These “Soapy Identities” appear onstage in a cast of wacky and exaggerated characters, including toothpaste, Comet cleaner, Dial bar soap, and more. Asking the question “what is it like to imagine yourself as soap?” the seven performers investigate themes of containment, escape, soapy conversations, filthy encounters, and dissolution from the perspective and corporeality of common household cleaners.
Choreographed by MARIA TERESA HOUAR in collaboration with Amanda Allen, June Chee, Spencer Garrod Dehnavi, Alex Miller, and Iana Weingrad with Stage Manager Al Reyes. Lighting by Jonah Bobilin.
COUNTRY OF BODIES
Mumbai, India - 2013
Country of Bodies is a dance film set against the urban landscapes of Mumbai, that narrates the personal and intimate relationship of the city and its inhabitants. As the never-say stop Mumbai races about, there are hearts that march to a different beat. Set against the urban landscapes of Bombay, 'Country of Bodies' is a dance film that narrates the personal and intimate relationship of the city and its inhabitants.
Choreographed by MARIA TERESA HOUAR in collaboration with Elina Hsuing, Svetana Kanwar, Rashi Mal, Arjun Menon, Naomi McCoo, Eden Pereira, David Poznanter, Manjari Sawant, and Harleen Sethi. Directed by Puneet Rakheja and produced by Aditi Anand.
PC: Spencer Agoston
TOAST AND JAM CONTACT DANCE FESTIVAL
Honolulu, Hawai'i - founded 2018
Toast and Jam Contact Dance Festival is a contact dance festival on Oahu which invites dancers from across diverse movement experiences to consider the connections between how we nourish ourselves, and the way we treat our bodies in social spaces. Contact dance practice is based on principles of weight sharing, thus it demonstrates the beauty of human interdependence in connection through movement. Our festival asks attendees to consider our human interdependence on a global scale and encourages acts of "micro-caring,” in order to produce a larger global culture of caring both in and outside of our dance spaces.