The Tongue of the Flame Work-in-Process Presentation FREE Livestream

ID Studio presents four evenings of in-person performance of The Tongue of the Flame from May 24-27, 2021 at 8pm at 311 W. 140th Street, Bronx, NY. Tickets are $50, suggested donation to attend in-person or FREE via livestream on 5/27 (with suggested donation). Reservations requested and donations are accepted here. For more information, visit https://thetongueoftheflame.com/.

The Tongue of the Flame is a raw and dynamic dance theater work-in-process created and performed by internationally acclaimed dance artists and choreographers Blakeley White-McGuire and Daniel Fetecua Soto. Working in the genres of contact improvisation and contemporary modern dance forms they explore control, submission and caretaking as a physical practice. Experimenting with liminality in the realms of love, sexuality and compassion, the artists interrogate the human potential for transformation inside the labyrinth of individual choice. The upcoming performances will showcase this work-in-process as it develops towards the life cycle of an original piece of dance theater featuring the commissioning of a new musical composition by Pablo Mayor and sculpture from visual artist Olivia Kim.

“White-McGuire and Fetecua have a deep well of dance experience from which to draw. She is a former principal with the Martha Graham Dance Company, and he was a member of the Limón Dance Company. They met over a decade ago when both troupes were presented on the same stage in Italy and then reconnected while dancing with Movement Migration under the artistic direction of Kim Jones. White-McGuire describes their connection as ‘something beautiful about the organic nature of our work. We have a willingness to take control, a willingness to submit control, a willingness to listen and experiment, and to say yes in the space of care together.’ ” – The Dance Enthusiast

Daniel Fetecua Soto is a New York-based dancer, choreographer, educator and producer. Daniel has been a soloist member of the Limon Dance Company for ten years (2006-2016) dancing lead roles in Jose Limon’s master pieces and has appeared as guest artist in Pina Bausch’s Rite of Spring and Tannhäuser.

Mr. Fetecua is a master teacher of the Limon technique and reconstructor of Limon’s repertory, faculty member of the Limón Institute and founder member of Limon4Kids program. Daniel Fetecua is the founder and artistic director of two dance companies: Pajarillo Pinta’o, a dance company that preserves and promotes the Colombian traditional dances through dance performance, workshops and classes and D-Moves, a contemporary dance project that combines Colombian traditions, Modern Dance and German Tanz-Theater. Daniel Fetecua is a longtime collaborator of Colombian composer and musician Pablo Mayor. Together, they have created “Amalgama and El Barrio Project” and the educational residency Cumbia For Kids/Cumbia For All. Since 2008, he has worked with Native Choreographer Rosalie Jones/Day Star for her work Wolf: A Transformation, from whom Daniel has the rights to the piece for the performance, preservation and promotion. Daniel is Member of Movement Migration an international collective of seasoned dance artists directed by Kim Jones. He is the producer and artistic director of LATITUDES DANCE FESTIVAL, a NYC based platform to pro-mote and present Latin American and Native companies and choreographers from around the world.

Daniel has collaborated as a choreographer and teacher with REvolutionLatina and Salgado Productions both directed by Luis Salgado since 2011. With Foundation La Espiral in Colombia, Daniel has created a training project of Limón technique and Limón repertory through workshops since 2009.

Daniel Fetecua is currently resident choreographer and board member of ID Studio Theatre a not-for-profit organization led by Colombian actor German Jaramillo. He is also a resident choreographer at Teatro SEA directed by Manuel Moran for which he has choreographed Sueño, a Caribbean take on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and La Gloria: A Latin Cabaret. For La Gloria, Fetecua won a HOLA award for Best Choreography. Daniel is an adjunct professor of dance at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and Universidad del Atlántico of Barranquilla-Colombia.

Blakeley White-McGuire is a New York-based dance artist, writer and educator. Critically ac- claimed as a Principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company (2001-2016, 2017) she has embodied the most iconic roles of twentieth century modern dance including Appalachian Spring, Chronicle, Deep Song, Errand Into The Maze, Frontier, Lamentation and Rite Of Spring. As a leading practitioner of Graham Technique, she has contributed her embodied research to three historical re-imaginings by distinguished Graham alumni: Ardent Song with Professor Susan Mclain, Imperial Gesture with Associate Professor Kim Jones and Notes on a Voyage with Professor Peter Sparling. Ms. White-McGuire has performed on international stages including Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, Beijing Opera House, Theatre du Chatelet, Paris, Sadler’s Wells, London, the Hollywood Bowl, Vatican City and the Herodion in Athens, Greece. 

During her tenure with the Martha Graham Dance Company she was consistently listed among Dance Magazine’s “Best Performances” and was honored as the featured dancer in Googleʼs “Doodle” honoring Martha Graham. White-McGuire was also awarded two prestigious international honors, the Premio Positano Leonide Massine Prize for Contemporary Dance Performance and the Italian Career Achievement Award. 

Simultaneously and throughout her career, Ms. White-McGuire has created with and performed in original works by twenty-first century contemporary artists including Jacqulyn Buglisi, Martha Clarke, Sean Curran, Nacho Duato, Daniel Ezralow, Larry Kegwin, Michael Klien and Steve Volk, Lar Lubovitch, Richard Move, Bulareyaung Pagarlava, Pascal Rioult, Luca Veggetti, Robert Wilson, Anne Bogart SITI/ Company. As a dancemaker, her original works have been presented by The Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, Downtown Dance Festival, Danza en Arte Pietrasanta, New Ballet Ensemble, Jacob’s Pillow’s INSIDE/ OUT Festival, Baton Rouge Ballet Theater, Roxbury Arts Group and the American Dance Festival. 

Through a commission by the Martha Graham Dance Company, she created an original dance for Graham II in a collaboration with composer Patrick Leonard which premiered at the Joyce Theater in New York City. The publication of her first dance on film, These Worlds In Us, earned an invitation to be Artist-In-Residence by Dance Films Association. She has also been Artist-In- Residence at the Key West Modern Dance Festival, American Dance Festival and with Movement Migration. A highly sought-after teacher, Blakeley has led masterclasses and residencies worldwide including at Jacob’s Pillow, the American Dance Festival and Graham U.K. Her writings expressing the twenty first century dancer experience have been published by The Dance Enthusiast, Dance Films Association, Dance Magazine and Performance Research Journal, U.K. 

Ms. White-McGuire is presently a contracted author of Bloomsbury Publishing for her forthcoming book on lineal, artistic and technical profundities within Martha Graham’s canon. She holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College, Vermont and has served on the faculties of New York’s famed High School for the Performing Arts, The Martha Graham Center, The New School and Purchase College, USA. She is currently Adjunct Professor of Contemporary Dance at Hunter College as well as on the faculties of The Ailey School, Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance and Lincoln Center’s Audition Bootcamp. She designs curricula for the New York City Department of Education and is an official regisseur re-staging Martha Graham’s repertory internationally for the Martha Graham Center. 

About ID Studio Theater 
A non-profit arts organization based in the South Bronx in New York, ID Studio Theater Performance and Research Center, Inc. is committed to the artistic and social empowerment of disadvantaged immigrant communities through innovative work in the performing arts. With an active company of professional artists and performers and a network of dozens of theater and arts professionals, ID Studio works within Latino immigrant communities to create new audiences, develop new works, and train new performers and artists. Formed in 2001 and incorporated in 2005, ID Studio promotes the performing arts as a means of building community knowledge, catalyzing collective action, encouraging inter-community dialogue and celebrating our common humanity. ID Studio’s projects have been shown at a wide range of venues, from international theater festivals to schools and community spaces. ID Studio fosters exchanges with cultural organizations in Lat-in America and France and partners with community-based organizations such as Make the Road New York and Dreamyard in New York, and Unidad Latina en Acción in New Haven, CT. For more information, visit idstudiotheater.org.