Local Dance Artist Patricia Verity Suarez Receives Funding For New Dance Performance ‘La Llorona’ & Research Project to Strengthen Middlesbrough Dance Sector Post Pandemic
Photographer Jodie Canwell
Positive news for the arts and culture sector in Middlesbrough - funding support secured for Patricia Verity Suarez’s work ‘La Lorona’ and Middlesbrough Dance Sector Development (MDSD) Pilot Project.
Patricia is an independent artist and Movement Director based in Teesside and London. She is also a Movement Lecturer on BA(Hons) Musical Theatre at Leeds Conservatoire and an Associate Artist of Both Barrels Theatre. Her movement work is exciting, dynamic and has a deep lyricism to it. She also makes work about the experience of being British and Latinx, and about our connection to the traditional and family stories we love. About Patricia - https://www.patriciaveritysuarez.co.uk/about-1
Patricia has received support from Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grants scheme and a Dance City Creative Summer Residency to continue work started last year on her solo work ‘La Llorona’ as part of a commission from Dance City’s 2021 Commissions programme, also supported by an Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grant with support in kind from Middlesbrough Council. She is also grateful for the ongoing assistance from producers Moving Art Management who are supporting the project.
La Llorona is a choreographic exploration of femininity, internalised emotion, and cycles of joy and violence through the juxtaposition of a Colombian oral tale of a woman who is abandoned, and in her grief drowns her child and contrasted with lived experience as an Anglo-Colombian woman.
“I am delighted for the continued backing of my work here in the Tees Valley and am excited to be supporting the dance community in Middlesbrough.” Patricia Verity Suarez
This creative process will be to develop the solo work into a full-length production ready to tour nationally in Spring 2022.
Patricia will be sharing rehearsal excerpts on her Instagram page @pvsuarezmovement on the following dates:
Tuesday 3 August 2021
Tuesday 17 August 2021
Thursday 26 August 2021
There will be a work-in-progress sharing at Dance City, Newcastle Friday 27 August 2021 time to be confirmed. Please contact Patricia for further details.
During this process Patricia in collaboration with Amy Swalwell (TeesDance) & Middlesbrough Council will be working to strengthen infrastructure for Dance through the MDSD Pilot Project to advocate for how and why venues in Middlesbrough could and should programme dance and develop dance audiences, providing tangible and practical recommendations. Building on the recommendations from Moving Art Management’s Middlesbrough Dance Mapping 2019. As part of this project a ‘10 year vision for Dance in Middlesbrough’ resource will be developed through conversations with organisations and freelancers within the sector distributed as an online document.
“I am thrilled that Patricia has been successful with her Arts Council England funding, this is great news for the cultural sector” Charlotte Nicol, Head of Culture at Middlesbrough Council
As the theatre sector recovers from the devastating consequences of the pandemic on our artistic community, Patricia and her team are dedicated to making a positive impact on the regions dance sector, making brilliant and brand new work for the stage, as well as opening doors for other professional artists to grow and develop new work.
For further details contact:
Patricia Verity Suarez
Email patriciaveritysuarez@googlemail.com
Mobile 07800862897
