Mark DeGarmo Dance Revives LAS FRIDAS At The Clemente Center

By dancer/choreographer Mark DeGarmo is Las Fridas is a 60-minute dance-theater duet inspired by the life and work of Mexican painter and revolutionary, Frida Kahlo.

The original cast will perform the piece for the first time in over 3 years in its original, intimate setting: Studio 310 at the Clemente Center, 107 Suffolk Street.

Marie Baker-Lee and choreographer Mark DeGarmo, artistic associates for over 30 years, will perform the two leading roles. The work explores a transcultural, transdisciplinary art and theater space, while the sum of its two parts suggests a new art form. It is inspired by the duality of sun and moon, mother and child, sacred and secular, ancient and current as they appear in Kahlo's artwork. Las Fridas calls on each community that engages with it to examine its own history, heritage and assumptions about Kahlo, women, and aging.

The implicit question the movement installation proposes is, "What if Frida Kahlo had lived beyond her forties?" In offering this work for public viewing, choreographer Mark DeGarmo pays homage to his mothers, grandmothers, mentors and friends, including renowned choreographers and dance educators Anna Sokolow and Hanya Holm, educational theorist Maxine Greene, and Living Theatre Co-Founder Judith Malina. NY critics heralded Las Fridas as "brilliant," "mesmerizing," and "fearless."

Mark DeGarmo Dance (MDD) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that educates underserved New York City communities and children; creates, performs and disseminates original artistic and scholarly work; and promotes intercultural community through dance arts. New York press and audiences have heralded MDD's dance-theater works as "risk-taking" and DeGarmo as "a gladiator in various arenas."