Displace is a piece that premiered in the Festival Internacional Danza al Borde in Tijuana, Mexico in October 2015. Displace is a piece choreographed in collaboration with Hyoin Jun and Rainy Demerson: Carving paths through migration, displacement, gentrification, and disappearance, we try to find our way home.

Displace was also performed at University of California, Riverside’s Barbara and Art Culver Center in December 2015 as part of UNSCENE, a graduate dance student showcase

Rebeca presented Memorias de un No Abrazo for danceSTORM. danceSTORM is a dance festival geared towards fostering a network between and creating visibility for a diverse group of women directors in experimental dance and performance. 
The festival was held over two days in June 2015 in downtown Riverside at host-site Barbara and Art Culver Center of the Arts. Rebeca presented this piece along choreographic work of Samantha Blake Goodman, Anya Cloud, Mackenzey Franklin, Stephanie Yezek Jolivet and Sue Roginski.  This festival was curated by Crystal Sepulveda and Sue Roginski. 

 

Absorb is a site specific piece that explores the environment in a park.  This piece was performed as part of Pieter Plays the River, a performance based event hosted by Pieter Performance Art Space and sponsored by Project 51: Play the LA River. 

Pieter and Project51 partnered to present a day of dance and performance on the waterways around Pieter Performance Art Space, as part of Play the LA River (http://playthelariver.com), a 51-week initiative to inspire Angelenos of every stripe–especially from the communities that border the river’s 51 miles–to find, explore, play and celebrate the river and its boundless potential for creativity.

Pieter Performance Art Space is located near the confluence of the LA River and Arroyo Seco, where industrial and residential spaces meet a vibrant urban aquatic landscape. Pieter Council members presented a full day of riverside performances.

Visual artist Michael Parker dug out a trench in the shape of an obelisk along the L.A. River. His obelisk, 137 feet long, replicates an ancient Egyptian archeological site. Performance artist Rafa Esparza covered the entire obelisk with bricks he handmade with his seven family members.  Rafa and Rebeca collaborated in choreographing a piece on top of the obelisk.  The performance took place on an August afternoon at sunset.  2014. www.clockshop.org

Rafa explains the process: 

"In a continuation of working both with my family and brick making, i invited my 4 brothers, my sister, and parents to assist in making enough adobe bricks to cover the entire 137’ long obelisk: Michael Parker's The Unfinished. For apprx. 3 weeks the bricks were molded and dried onsite using water from the L.A. river and resources made available by my family, Clockshop, Michael Parker, and California State Parks. Once completed the bricks were layed atop The Unfinished, where Rebeca Hernandez and I staged movement-based performances engaging the bricked surface, the LA River and the sun".

In August 2014, Curator Amy Converse invited Rebeca and Victoria Wolfe to choreograph and perform a new piece at Mack Sennett Studios in Hollywood with visual artists Candice Lin and Marina Roy. The performance, exhibition and feast also featured dancers Olivia Mia Orozco and Devon Stern

Memorias de un No Abrazo  premiered on April 2014 for Performatica, a dance forum in Mexico. Since then Memorias has been performed in Mexicali and Los Angeles in public spaces, art galleries and coffeehouses.  The shape that Memorias has taken has been informed by the spaces, audiences, and performers involved.

Rebeca was invited to perform, screen a short dance film and teach in Performatica on April 2014. Performatica is a dance forum that takes place in Puebla, Mexico that brings an international group of practicing dancers, choreographers, theorists and teachers of movement based work.

Rebeca choreographed and performed in The Ship's Recorder,  a play written by Tom McKenzie and directed by Paul Sand.  The Ship's Recorder was presented on February 2014 at Machine Project's Mystery Theater in Los Angeles. In this play about European expansion and cultural clashes at the dawn of the 16th century, a fictional world of magical realism materializes. The plot loosely borrows from the narrative structure of Shakespeare's The Tempest and is rooted in language and events from the discovery journals of Bartolome de Las Casas, Christopher Columbus and Alvaro Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. These chroniclers traverse this shipwreck story which probes the psychological depths of their brazen entitlement and utter disorientation. As the characters navigate dreamscapes informed by Taino and Mayan cosmologies and contemporary archeological and historical findings, poignant reflections on early struggles for human rights on the “American” continent emerge.

Site Specific Dance

NECK for the event Between the Tables: An Afternoon of Movement, Words, and Music
Curated by Crystal Sepulveda. Back to the Grind Coffeehouse. Riverside, California. December 2013.  
Photography: Demetrios Katsantonis

Collaboration

BEYOND CONTROL is a new series of site-specific choreographies, a collaboration between Carolina Caycedo and Rebeca Hernandez. The choreographies include dancers incorporating and referencing different tactical movements used by police and SWAT teams for crowd and riot management, in what we call “a choreography of power”.  The training of a body to control another body is a pivotal reference to think about body movement in relation to constriction and containment. 

This series is part of Caycedo's ongoing research “BE DAMNED: Dams and Repression”, exploring the concepts of flow and containment through the historical, political, ecological, visual, and economic connotations and interrelations between social repression and the planning/construction of dams/reservoirs. Dams retain water by stopping the flow of a river. By analogy, repression interrupts the flow of social and community organization.

The performances are built upon the visual and theoretical relations between water dams and how they manage a body of water, and the physical, legal, and psychological containment of a social body, call it a crowd, a riot, a community organization, or an individual citizen.

BEYOND CONTROL was created as part of Carolina Caycedo's residency and exhibition at 18th Street Arts Center's Artist Lab Series, and Rebeca Hernandez's research as a resident of UCLA's Hothouse Dance Residency Program. 

Performances took place at the 18th Street’s main gallery, Pieter Performance Space, UCLA's Glorya Kaufmann Hall and the Mexican Consulate of Los Angeles, and at the terminus of Pico Blvd and Santa Monica Beach.

More information: http://18thstreet.org/events/beyond-control-2.

Rebeca performed Abrigo for the VII Festival de Improvisacion Danza Contemporanea de Cabaret at Foro A Poco No in Mexico City on Februrary 2013. Musicians and dancers are placed in pairs an hour prior to performing and they improvise together on stage. 

Dance on Film

JARIPEO CABARET is a short dance film that depicts an analogy between the sensuality of a woman and that of a horse.

JARIPEO CABARET was created for the production ORO BLANCO by Rebeca Hernández as a 2012-2013 recipient of the National Performance Network Performing Americas Program in partnership with the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs’ CEI program and the Instituto Municipal de Arte y Cultura de Mexicali.

Produced in collaboration with Fundacion Wanna Winni as part of a one-month residency, Mexicali B.C., Mexico, September-October 2012.

Lead funding of the National Performance Network Performing Americas Program is provided by the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.  The National Performance Network is a group of cultural organizers and artists facilitating the practice and experience of the arts in the United States and internationally.  For more information: www.npnweb.org.

Dance for Theater

Rebeca Hernandez was a 2012-2013 recipient of the National Performance Network Performing Americas Program in partnership with the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs' CEI program and the Instituto Municipal de Arte y Cultura de Mexicali.

In addition to her choreography for the JARIPEO CABARET dance film, Rebeca produced a performance in collaboration with the performance art group Fundacion Wanna Winni as part of a one-month residency in Mexico. The production was performed twice every day for two weeks.

The performance was composed of three pieces: SALINIDAD, TREN, and PASSAGE.

@ Fiestas del Sol, Mexicali, Mexico.  October, 2012.

Dance on Film

THEY LIVE IN THE SAME CITY BUT THEY DON'T KNOW ABOUT EACH OTHER is a collaborative project with fifteen Los Angeles-based artists (including Comfort Zone) that was directed by Brazilian composer Octavio Camargo.  Hosted by Outpost for Contemporary Art, the live performance took place at Confluence Plaza in Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles, in January 2011.

This project was made possible through a grant from the National Performance Network.  

See also http://samecity.wordpress.com/

Dance for Theater

VOID is a full length choreographic piece which engages the five elements: WATER, EARTH, FIRE, WIND, and spirit (or VOID).  The piece involved improvisation, interdisciplinary work with musicians and site specificity.

Live music: David Strother in violin.

Pieter Performance Art Space.
Los Angeles. May 2012. 

Site Specific Dance

DANCE AT THE METRO STATION 1 was performed at the Mariachi Plaza Metro Station in Boyle Heights. It was a work choreographed in collaboration with the music duo Comfort Zone.  Los Angeles, California. March 2011.

On its second iteration, DANCE AT THE METRO STATION 2 was performed at the Sunset and Vermont Metro Stop.  This piece was created for LA Road Concerts, a site-specific art festival. Los Angeles, California. September 18, 2011.

Site Specific Dance

Created site specific performances for the Mexicali Biennial in Mexicali, Mexico, and Los Angeles, California, in 2009, 2010, and 2013.

LEDGE
@ Vincent Price Art Museum. Los Angeles, California. April, 2013.

CAPES; FRIDA KAHLO VS. WONDER WOMAN; WIGS
@ Otis College of Art and Design. Los Angeles, California. January 2010. 

CAPES; CHAPULIN COLORADO VS. WONDER WOMAN
@ Casa del Tunel Cultural Center. Tijuana, Mexico. August 2009.

CAPES; CHAPULIN COLORADO VS. WONDER WOMAN
@ Galeria Universitaria at Universidad Autonoma de Baja California. Mexicali, Mexico. June 2009.

LA TINA
@ Mexicali Rose Cultural Center. Mexicali, Mexico. June 2009.

Site Specific Version

Community-based performance for the Day of the Dead Celebration at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery with four L.A-based dancers.

Hollywood, California. November 22, 2011

Theatrical Version

Presented as part of Choreographers’ Showcase at Pieter Performance Art Space, Los Angeles. December 2010. 

Site Specific Dance

A site specific performance for an alternative to the Oktoberfest event, which depicted iconic characters of Mexicali culture. Performed with five Mexicali-based dancers.

Downtown Mexicali, Mexico. October 2009.

Site Specific Dance

Created a site specific choreographic piece for performance artist Raul Baltazar and his performance art group.  Presented at the Trespass Parade, one of the opening weekend celebrations of Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980, a Getty-sponsored, region-wide initiative.
Downtown Los Angeles. October 2, 2011.

http://trespassparade.org/artists

Site Specific Dance

Made for Outpost Cup curated by Outpost for Contemporary Art, EVIL CHEERLEADERS is a community-based site specific piece created in collaboration with Mexicali-based guest dancer Melissa Sarabia and Los Angeles-based performance artist Raul Baltazar.

@ Vista Hermosa Park. Dowtown Los Angeles. June 2010.

Dance for Theater

PILLARS is a site specific dance created for Pieter Performance Space.

PERSPECTIVE was choreographed in collaboration with Los Angeles visual artist Andreas Gurewich.

Both pieces were presented in the Choreographers’ Showcase at Pieter Performance Art Space.

Los Angeles, California. December 2010. 

Performance for Desertica Sun Sound 2009, an electronic music festival. Performed with four Los Angeles dancers.

@ Parque Vicente Guerrero. Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico. November 2009.