Imagine the offbeat in music — the ever-elusive beat between the beat. That’s the concept of “contra tiempo.”
“It’s the part of the music that makes it sound delicious,” says Ana Maria Alvarez, founding artistic director of Contra-Tiempo Activist Dance Theater that emerged from the streets of south and east Los Angeles more than two decades ago. “It gives it that sabrosita drive.”
Beyond obvious rhythmic inspiration, there’s a deeper meaning. “It’s the concept of being from the ‘in between.’ Many of us in the company have parents who are immigrants, or us ourselves have been born in other places, or come from mixed families. And it’s this idea of existing in these spaces of the ‘in between.’”…