We Are the River, an Esther Tarpaga Collaborative Dance

“All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really one.” –Black Elk

Nature provides examples of interconnectedness, such as how the Delaware River or Lenapewihittuk, River of the Lenape, runs from the Catskills to Frenchtown to Philadelphia to the ocean.

“We Are The River” is a site responsive performance created by Esther Baker-Tarpaga, Gerard Minaya, and Emma White Thunder during a two-week residency at ArtYard. There will be dance, installation, music, video and audience participation.

BIOS:

Esther Baker-Tarpaga is a choreographer and performance artist. She co-directs Baker & Tarpaga Dance Project and is a co-founding member of Propelled Animals, an interdisciplinary arts and social justice collective and recipient of a 2019 MAP Grant. She is part of Earthdance’s Interdisciplinary Artist Consortium and is an incubated artist at Headlong Philadelphia. She currently teaches at Temple University, Schuylkill Environmental Center, and the Philadelphia Dance Academy. She recently performed at No New Idols in Riga, Latvia, Grinnell College, The Englert Theatre, Tamadia Arts Festival France, The Wassaic Festival NY, and BAAD!ASS Women’s Festival Bronx. She is a 2019 recipient of a NY Foundation Emergency Grant and lives in Philadelphia with her family.

Emma Lynn Rose White Thunder was born in Port Townsend, Washington. Raised by a single mother, she is the youngest of four siblings, two brothers and a sister. Living mostly in the Pacific Northwest, the family had traveled back to South Dakota when she was young to visit her father on the Pine Ridge reservation. Emma received a full scholarship to attend The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, where she acquired a BFA. Her work explores themes of depression, sexual trauma, self acceptance, anxiety, isolation/loneliness and their antitheses. Looking at the feeling of a memory, she pulls from the strong range of emotions that it evokes; Using a variety of familiar materials, she then translates these emotions into physical objects.

Gerard Minaya is a first generation Dominican-American, Bronx native, Queer-Afro-Latino dance artist who’s inspired by movement pathology that exists, collides, and possibly move through generations. Upon receiving his BFA in Dance at University of the Arts, Gerard has presented his work at WeWork’s Harlem Renaissance: A Night of Poetry, Panoply Performance Laboratory, The Iron Factory, and BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. He was also featured in Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, A Dance Company’s work, “Truth Don Die”, at the Bric House Theater. Gerard is a current company member with Ballet Hispanico’s BHdos and Curet Performance Project.