Interview with King Swami

Maria Piedad was interviewed by the musician based in California, King Swami  for The Bright Seed. His work, together with JWG’s, is to create “simple, elegant and attractive music” for other artists such as choreographers, film makers, digital artists, etc. Their work is natural and strongly connected with love, peace and living harmoniously with other fellows respecting our planet Earth.

Modern times has made us live in a quick and non-stop society that, sometimes, loses connections with spirituality and nature. Modern life also makes us live in an extremely technological era, fact that is advantageous if we realize how lucky we are to be able to shorter distances and easily cross any border helped by the internet. The cyber space made this interview possible with the plus of having met such a wonderful artists living on the opposite coast of the country.

It was very interesting as an artist to recap how dance has modeling my life and career since very early stages as a child and adolescent. How ballet has brought me to very different places and societies to learn from different people, cultures and countries has been core for building my life philosophy and professional practice. Along the interview, artistic influences, experiences, mentors and masters were emerging showing to me, one more time, how lucky I am to be able to make a living with my dance, my childhood dream that became true and continue being part of me. Family, teachers, classmates, friends, students, colleagues, among others have been part of my life journey.

To have access to the full interview clicking here: Maria Piedad, Ecuador’s Shinning Light 

American Ballet Theatre Summer Intensive 2014

Maria Piedad was a counsuelour for  the ABT Summer Intensive 2014. It was an extraordinary experience, artistically and personally rewarding. She was able to share five weeks full of ballet with the talented young dancers of the Violet level as well as with the ABT and JKO School faculty and staff.

Violet level, ABT Summer Intensive 2014

NYU Dance Education Program Distinguished Faculty Concert

Maria Piedad performed the dance/theater piece “Having Conjunctions” choreographed and directed by the well known choreographer Claire Porter. The piece was part of the 2014 NYU Dance Education Program Faculty Concert NYU which happened at the Frederick Lowe Theatre in New York last April.

This piece´s creative process embraced movement, interpretation and linguistic clusters explorations to create unique stories for each character. Along the choreography, small stories were told using only grammatical conjunctions as language. The piece had a humoristic touch, a characteristic of Claire’s work. The audience enjoyed this piece and Maria Piedad could use her oratory skills playing with a text and its counterpart in rapid Spanish.

"Having Conjunctions" Cast

Backstage moment

Enjoying Claire Porter´s choreography

Maria Piedad presented her Master's thesis to NYU/Steinhardt

After several months of research, Maria Piedad presented her thesis “Ballet and the Contemporary Choreography Creation: a relation to be revealed” as one of the requirements for her Master of Arts degree in Teaching Dance in the Professions: The American Ballet Theatre Pedagogy at NYU/Steinhard.

The research question addressed if ballet, as a dance technique, facilitates or not the contemporary choreography creation. However,  Maria Piedad’s research purpose had nothing to do with ballet as facilitator of the contemporary technique performance. Conversely, she investigated about how the creative processes of contemporary choreographers, such as, Jiri Kilán, Willian Forsythe, Hans Van Manen, among others, are stimulated or not, when they work with dancers who have had a strong ballet training.  During the research process, different theoretical lens and theories were used to collect and analyze data; for instance, Modernism, Post-modernism, Avant-Garde  and the history and heritage of Judson Dance Theater and The Grand Union were taking into consideration for this research. 

This thesis was a practical complement. Maria Piedad did an extensive movement research along many hours of studio rehearsal in order to create the movement language that she used in her choreography “Á la première, á la deuxième, á la troisième...". In this way, she put in practice her theoretical analysis about ballet as facilitator of the contemporary choreography creation. This choreography was performed at the NYU/Steinhardt Masters’ Dance Concert 2013 by Steinhardt and Tisch masters students last November. 

A la première, à la deuxième, à la troisième...

The latest Maria Piedad’s choreography is entitled  "A la première, à la deuxième, troisième à la ..." music by Philip Glass.  This piece was presented for the Master's Dance Concert 2013, Dance Education Program of New York University NYU, November 16^th and 17^th, at the Frederick Loewe Theatre in New York City .

The dancers, NYU Steinhardt/Tisch master’s students, performed a contemporary ballet piece with a psychological theme. The aim was to explore the experiences and feelings of what it means to be a woman; its femininity, independence, thoughts, conscious, subconscious and emotional worlds and personal, intrapersonal and social relationships as well. This dance work was carried out in an environment of artistic collaboration. The primary choreographic exploration started more than five months ago and it was complemented by the academic research done by Maria Piedad for her Master’s thesis. 

A la première, à la deuxième, à la troisième...

Photography by James Alonzo White

Maria Piedad completed her ABT/NTC full teaching certification

María Piedad completed her American Ballet Theatre's National Training Curriculum full teaching certification.

In an intensive workshop taught by the ABT maîtres Raymond Lukens y Franco De Vita,  María Piedad could exchanged ideas and experiences about ballet pedagogy with different artists who came from different places of Europe, Asia and America; as well as, with former ABT dancers. After presenting her theoretical and practical tests to the director of the ABT Studio Company, Miss Kate Lydon, who is an ABT/NTC examinator, María Piedad was given the full mark for her certification. In this way, she became the first Ecuadorian dance artist who is fully certified in the ABT/NTC teaching method. Now, she is allowed to teach all ABT's levels of training including pre-primary, primary, level 1 to 7, including partnering (pas de deux). 

Undoubtedly, this is a great accomplishment in her career that also represents a great responsibility, as it happened years ago when she became the first artist from Ecuador who graduated as a ballet, character and historical dance teacher from the National Ballet School in Havana, Cuba. 

Artists who attended the level 6,7 and partnering ABT/NTC certification course

Maria Piedad´s choreography demo

This video shows excerpts of Maria Piedad´s work as choreographer. Different styles performed by students and professionals. Enjoy it.

Maria Piedad´s choroegraphy demo