It is less than two months before the launch of our annual arts festival celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, but the line-up of La Luna Nueva 2014 is already stirring up the excitement. This year’s edition, like almost the entirety of our 31st Season, brings to Portland something seldom (or never!) seen before with a series of premieres. (Visit www.milagro.org after Aug. 1 for full schedule of events.)

La Luna Nueva features local and international artists with traditional and innovative perspectives on Latino arts, and the opening weekend (Sep. 12-14) brings back to Milagro one of these talents from our very own city: Luciana Proaño. The renowned dancer and choreographer has collaborated with us in a few productions, beginning with the Touring and Education production, Mi Gente, Mi Vida in 1995. Learn more about this engaging artist in the following excerpt from LUCIANA PROAÑO, THE ARTIST IN SPRINGTIME by our own Olga Sanchez, which originally appeared in El Hispanic News, March 5, 2014:
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One of Luciana Proaño’s earliest memories is hearing The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky’s modern classic, on her father’s record player.  She was three years old, living in her native Peru, and Stravinsky’s fragmented music with its unpredictable rhythms stirred her to dance immediately. Again and again, whenever The Rite of Spring was played (which was often as it was her father’s favorite music), she would be moved to dance.  These childhood impulses launched a lifelong relationship with dance, music and art.  She went on to study classical and indigenous forms of dance: ballet and modern, Andean and Afro-Peruvian, as well as anthropology.  She spent years living in different regions of Peru, learning as much as she could about its thousands of classified dances and their history.  
 
These experiences have formed the foundation of Proaño’s work. Over the years she has generated more than 40 dance performances, each with distinct concepts and styles, drawn from her life events, often inspired by literature that she has distilled and reshaped. She is an eclectic creator, not unlike Stravinsky, this spirit of improvisation and spontaneity remains very much at the center of her creativity influencing not only the dance, but her costumes and scenic design. […]
 
Proaño finds it interesting that for an artist who is so committed to working in the present moment, her investigation is grounded in the repetitiveness of the life cycle. She explains this as a paradox. ‘Our life wouldn’t make as much sense if we only thought in linear time,’ she says.  ‘Our sense of hope might not exist. The past is a validation of the future, but this validation can only happen in the present.’ […]
 
Proaño enjoys reviewing the effects of history.  In Lima she experienced a rich cultural education but also 1000% inflation. She knows that the US has never experienced anything similar.  In circumstances like that, she says, ‘all you have is your education and your imagination. You learn to live in the moment.  It doesn’t justify suffering but it teaches you how to survive by being present to opportunities and truth’.  Working close to the renowned Peruvian theatre company Yuyachkani reinforced her philosophy, ‘Work with what you have.’
 
Proaño has been called an Intellectual Dancer for exploring themes of life’s meaning and life’s cycles in her works.  She says, ‘I do not perform to be admired, I perform to let you into a new possibility, I dance to open a door.’ […]
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Luciana Proaño will be collaborating on a fascinating exploration of the history of the Andes from Inca times and beyond, which will be performing during the opening weekend of the 2014 La Luna Nueva festival of Latino arts and culture. Call 503-236-7253 or go online to order your passes for this season and don’t miss all the exciting events starting September 12!