Biography

Ana María Alvarez grew up as child of two labor union organizers. Due to her parents’ political work, she moved constantly and, as a result, attended 12 schools by the time she was 11-years-old. She found dance to be one of her only constants and something she could always seek comfort it, no matter where she moved to. Ana María is proud of her multiethnic home, family and community in which she draws inspiration from for her work, specifically the salsa rhythms from her father’s Cuban roots which she frequently uses. Alvarez attended Oberlin College where she studied Dance and Politics. There she had the opportunity to work with Katherine Dunham, a world-famous dancer, choreographer and anthropologist, and through their relationship, received more formal training in Afro-Cuban and Cuban dance techniques.

She then took her talents to UCLA where she completed her thesis on the intersection of dance and social change. This lead to the creation of Contra-Tiempo, her L.A. based dance company. Contra-Tiempo explores how dance can shift the way people see themselves and the world. Believing politics to be the under-current of artistry, Ana María finds art to be an incredibly powerful tool to inspire social change. She holds auditions for her dance company in search of finding critical thinkers who deeply investigate what it means to be human, a change maker and an artist. Alvarez describes her dancers as an incredibly diverse and powerfully talented group of people who all connect over their love of salsa. Contra-Tiempo works to re-frame narratives and works to include artists who, due to their gender or ethnicity, are so often written out of history or described in inaccurate ways.