00:00:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to Get Connected with Nina Del Rio, a weekly conversation about fitness, health, and happenings in our community on 106.7 Light FM.
00:00:13
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to Get Connected. I am pleased to welcome back Dante Paleo, Artistic Director of the LeMond Dance Company, continuing their celebration of the company's first 80 years with a program that honors its revolutionary founder, José LeMond, and amplifies the voices of today. This upcoming program at the Joyce Theater is from October 6th to 11th. Tickets are now on sale at joyce.org. You can find out more about the company at limon.nyc. And Dante Paleo, so nice to see you. Thanks for being back on the show.
00:00:43
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
00:00:44
Speaker 2: It's good to see you again. Founded in 1946 by José Limón and Doris Humphrey, the Limón Dance Company has been at the vanguard of American modern dance since its inception and is considered one of the world's greatest dance companies. We had a conversation, Dante, about this time last year, about the 80th anniversary and the performances then, and you're doing it all again.
00:01:04
Speaker 3: That's right. We like to make sure we celebrate every last minute we can.
00:01:11
Speaker 2: You want to cover all the bases, sure.
00:01:12
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:01:13
Speaker 2: So let's talk about José LeMond first. Who was he and how did he see the world?
00:01:19
Speaker 3: You know, that's a great question. Jose was this very, very cool guy. He came to America as a young person in the early 1900s. His family was escaping the Mexican Revolution. He grew up in L.A., a little bit of an Arizona, and he thought he was going to be a painter. So he moved to New York, and he realized after going to an exhibition of El Greco's that he had already done everything that Jose wanted to do. So he talks about spending this year, this aimless year, not sure what to do next until he went to a dance performance. And then he says he walks out of the performance and did not want to keep living unless he learned to do what this man was doing. And then fortunately, he was introduced to Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, who were the first pioneers of modern dance. And together, the three of them really developed this language. Doris Humphrey was this incredible mentor and choreographer, And she really gave Jose so much of what he was able to grow from. He became known as the greatest male dancer of his time. And then one of the most prolific choreographers of the 20th century.
00:02:30
Speaker 2: He performed on Broadway in 1930. And after he became a U.S. citizen in 1946, he formed this company with Doris as the artistic director, which was a big deal at the time because she was female and it was not her company. She was the artistic director.
00:02:43
Speaker 3: Correct.
00:02:43
Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit too about his life and work reflective of his times and New York and his adopted country?
00:02:50
Speaker 3: Absolutely. So his, you know, he started playing with choreography maybe about 10 years after he started dancing. And in these early explorations, one of the first works he made for himself was a piece called Danzas Mejicanas. And in this solo were five solos. And each one was a different archetype that he felt represented who he was what his past was, what made him who he is. And there is the solo of the indigenous character who represented his mother, the conquistador, his father, this Christian crusader, then the peon, which is the enslaved, the Mexican people, then the caballero, which is like European royalty, and then the revolutionario. So there's revolutionary in the face of all of this. And you see these different characters come up in his work time and time again throughout the decades that he was choreographing. And I really feel like what he was doing was exploring all of the parts of who he was. So he knew how to enter into storytelling of other people's stories with authenticity. So he could really lean into the characters and show different parts of who they were. So when we get to see these works, we see them with a new perspective because he has dug into them in new ways.
00:04:09
Speaker 2: I think that's a nice transition into talking about the program. But let me remind people, I'm speaking with Dante Paleo, Artistic Director of the Le Monde Dance Company. He's also a former member for more than a decade. The program is at the Joyce Theater, 8th Avenue at 19th Street, Tuesday, October 6th through Sunday, October 11th. There's a curtain chat on October 7th. Performances are very affordable. Tickets start at $ 17. You can find out more about tickets at Joyce.org and more about the Le Monde Dance Company at LeMonde.nyc. You're listening to Get Connected on 106.7 Light FM. I'm Nina Del Rio. So when we spoke about a year ago, there was a different program that focused perhaps more on Jose's interior life and you celebrated generations of Limon dancers. So what was on your mind this time?
00:04:57
Speaker 3: Well, you know, the first piece on that program, we, you know, celebrate the different generations of all of these artists that have been a part of the company. This year, I wanted to go a little bit deeper into that idea because We have two works on the program. The first is called Mazurkas. Now, this is a piece that he made after he returned from his tour to Poland and Europe after World War II. He had seen the mass devastation. It was, you know, a very, it was really an upheaval for him to see these communities rebuilding their churches and their theaters. And he was really inspired by the people. And that work created or that time created a whole body of work for him. But particularly from this tour, he wrote these letters home. And in these letters, he wrote about the individual dancers in his company. And he talks about it really being the first time that he's seeing some of them as these beautiful artists. And he writes about each one, like a little paragraph, just about what's inspired to him or what about them has inspired him. And then he comes home and he makes this piece, Mazurkas. And it was really a gift to them. We actually still call the solos and duets by the original company member that it was made by. And so this idea that he was inspired and saw his dancers and wanted to create something for them that allowed them to show off their virtuosic nature inside of the Limon technique, it was this gift that he gave to them. And now we get to give it back.
00:06:35
Speaker 2: It's such an interesting, I have not seen all of it. I've seen some of the excerpts you have on the Facebook page for Le Monde Dance Company. It's a very sort of joyful work and it's with Chopin. So it's a Polish composer.
00:06:47
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:48
Speaker 2: You've also chosen for the program Le Monde Dance Company's 2025 commission, Azure Barton's Join. One of the reviews of it calls it a love letter in motion.
00:06:58
Speaker 3: Hmm. Yeah. There's a couple different avenues for this one. When Azure came in, we had started working together, and she was really inspired by the company. And after rehearsal one day, we were just talking, and she's like, they're just beautiful. She's like, I want to make something beautiful for them, beautiful with them. And so when I was thinking about this season and what to pair with Mazurkas in this way to celebrate this, this work seemed to be the exact response. She was also, she's also celebrating the contemporary Limon company where Jose was celebrating his company at the time. Now I get to celebrate these artists that are in the company now that are continuing this legacy that are carrying this information forward. And Azure herself did such incredible research into the work of Doris Humphrey and the work of Jose Limon. that she was really pulling from everything that they had created. And it's almost a love letter to them as well. She was originally inspired by some prose that I had given her. There's three and a half pages in Jose's memoirs that talks about this lost Doris Humphrey work. So I'd given this writing to Azure and I said, you know, does this inspire you? And she loved it. And she really pulled from that. And her and Ambrose Kim Musery, who is the composer, develop this score and this choreography as a love letter to Doris through Jose's words on the company of today. It's this really beautiful winding thread.
00:08:35
Speaker 2: You're listening to Get Connected on 106.7 Light FM. I'm Nina Del Rio. So Jose Limon passed away in 1972. It's been a while. Why does he remain so important in dance today?
00:08:47
Speaker 3: You know, Jose really understood the human condition and understood how to talk about it in timeless ways. So we can look at these works and he is telling these stories that still make sense to us. He was saying something that needed to be said. And, you know, it's funny because we don't really ask these questions of the Mona Lisa. You know, we go back and we listen to the Mona Lisa. We don't ask this question of Aretha Franklin. We still listen to Aretha Franklin. But somehow dance has fallen into this other, under scrutiny, that we need to kind of re-examine what is important. I think it's an important question. I think we do need to dig into who these artists were, why they made the works they made, and what about it is important today. Because I think diving into that helps reveal more about the work, the artist, and what we're all going through as people in 2026. Because it's worth examining. And those works do that.
00:09:47
Speaker 2: There's also something interesting when you think about, since you bring up Aretha Franklin, right? People could write or sing or perform in a style that is, you know, analogous to hers. You can compare them with hers. But this is a company that's, you know, stands. on Jose Limon's name and Jose Limon's work. So you want to be more than just a company that just creates the same thing over and over or, you know, changes the costumes in a piece from 1958. Exactly.
00:10:11
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:10:11
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:10:13
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's like, how do, how do we look at these works and how do we, how are we in conversation with them? And by commissioning new works by contemporary choreographers allows us to highlight different aspects of those works in new ways. So we're amplifying voices of today while also securing these great minds that started this form.
00:10:35
Speaker 2: Well, you have the job of really balancing his vision with your own vision, right?
00:10:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. I think when I first got here and I dove into that Danzas Mexicanas project, It allowed me to kind of walk in his steps a little bit. So I felt it gave me some agency with how to lead and how to direct. And Jose, every time he would stage or restage a work, he would change it a little bit and allow the artist in front of him to help mold. So we have all these different versions that he had staged that we can now pull from. And it just says to me that the intention of the work was important. The steps were part of that story, steps from different artists can still deliver that same intention. And so that really does that for me as a director. I'm allowed to like, allow it to breathe with the artists in the room.
00:11:28
Speaker 2: And what then is maybe the greatest lesson you've learned in your six-ish years leading the company?
00:11:34
Speaker 3: Oh, I think I've talked about this with my therapist. You know, it's both. I came into this position, I was a people pleaser. And I wanted to make sure everyone was happy all of the time. And I quickly realized that that was not actually going to feed the future of the organization. Everything... you know, all the dreams and all the thoughts that I have about what's possible, you know, I run through, you know, I am in deep conversation with all of the partners that I have with me. So whether that's my executive director, whether that's my associate artistic director, we have these really in-depth conversations about what is possible and what works need to be seen and what we can do with them and how far we can stretch them and what needs to stay in what we can highlight in a historical context. So by going through those, um, that practice kind of hones the vision for me instead of just being like, no, I want to do this thing. I'm going to, I don't care about anybody or worrying that, oh, I'll make you happy and I'll do this. But the deep conversation kind of reveals the truth behind it.
00:12:48
Speaker 2: It also sort of elucidates what a director's role really is, right? You know, you have to find a path and head down there with all the information given.
00:12:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:12:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we just have a couple of minutes left. If you could, let's recap what's in the program, which is Tuesday, October 6th through Sunday, October 7th at the Joyce Theater.
00:13:08
Speaker 3: Yep. We've got Mazurkas on the program. It opens the program. It's the first time we're going to see this work in its entirety since 1964. We've only done excerpts over the past how many ever years. So we really get to see this work in its full majesty from, you know, how Jose had envisioned it. And then the second act is Azure Barton's Join, a really incredible, beautiful 30-minute work, full company that really looks at what it is to be together and move through obstacles and move through the world as a unit.
00:13:40
Speaker 2: Just to wrap up, I want to ask about the dancers themselves performing there in rehearsals right now. What are they really working on and thinking about a couple of weeks ahead of the show?
00:13:49
Speaker 3: That's great. Where are we? So The movement style, the Limon technique is based on movement principles. So these ideas of fall and recovery, suspension and opposition and how those ideas live in the body. It's never in one place. You know, it's a constant evolution. It's a deep investigation. So at this point, we are revisiting this material and we're going deeper into those ideas and how the ideas behind the movement can reveal more truths about what the work has to say and how is the individual artists can inhabit that and feel really at home inside of these solos. And it's giving them that opportunity to continue to play and explore how they show up inside of this work.
00:14:36
Speaker 2: It'll be really exciting to see the performances at the Joyce Theatre, again, 8th Avenue, 19th Street in Chelsea, Tuesday, October 6th to Sunday, October 11th. There's a curtain chat on October 7th. You can find out more about tickets at Joyce.org and about the company at Limon.nyc. Dante Paleo, Artistic Director of the Limon Dance Company, thank you for being on Get Connected.
00:15:01
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
00:15:02
Speaker 1: This has been Get Connected with Nina Del Rio on 106.7 Light FM. The views and opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views of the station. If you missed any part of our show or want to share it, Visit our website for downloads and podcasts at 1067lightfm. com. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Get Connected with Nina Del Rio, a weekly conversation about fitness, health, and happenings in our community on 106.7 Light FM.
00:00:13
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to Get Connected. I am pleased to welcome back Dante Paleo, Artistic Director of the LeMond Dance Company, continuing their celebration of the company's first 80 years with a program that honors its revolutionary founder, José LeMond, and amplifies the voices of today. This upcoming program at the Joyce Theater is from October 6th to 11th. Tickets are now on sale at joyce.org. You can find out more about the company at limon.nyc. And Dante Paleo, so nice to see you. Thanks for being back on the show.
00:00:43
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
00:00:44
Speaker 2: It's good to see you again. Founded in 1946 by José Limón and Doris Humphrey, the Limón Dance Company has been at the vanguard of American modern dance since its inception and is considered one of the world's greatest dance companies. We had a conversation, Dante, about this time last year, about the 80th anniversary and the performances then, and you're doing it all again.
00:01:04
Speaker 3: That's right. We like to make sure we celebrate every last minute we can.
00:01:11
Speaker 2: You want to cover all the bases, sure.
00:01:12
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:01:13
Speaker 2: So let's talk about José LeMond first. Who was he and how did he see the world?
00:01:19
Speaker 3: You know, that's a great question. Jose was this very, very cool guy. He came to America as a young person in the early 1900s. His family was escaping the Mexican Revolution. He grew up in L.A., a little bit of an Arizona, and he thought he was going to be a painter. So he moved to New York, and he realized after going to an exhibition of El Greco's that he had already done everything that Jose wanted to do. So he talks about spending this year, this aimless year, not sure what to do next until he went to a dance performance. And then he says he walks out of the performance and did not want to keep living unless he learned to do what this man was doing. And then fortunately, he was introduced to Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, who were the first pioneers of modern dance. And together, the three of them really developed this language. Doris Humphrey was this incredible mentor and choreographer, And she really gave Jose so much of what he was able to grow from. He became known as the greatest male dancer of his time. And then one of the most prolific choreographers of the 20th century.
00:02:30
Speaker 2: He performed on Broadway in 1930. And after he became a U.S. citizen in 1946, he formed this company with Doris as the artistic director, which was a big deal at the time because she was female and it was not her company. She was the artistic director.
00:02:43
Speaker 3: Correct.
00:02:43
Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit too about his life and work reflective of his times and New York and his adopted country?
00:02:50
Speaker 3: Absolutely. So his, you know, he started playing with choreography maybe about 10 years after he started dancing. And in these early explorations, one of the first works he made for himself was a piece called Danzas Mejicanas. And in this solo were five solos. And each one was a different archetype that he felt represented who he was what his past was, what made him who he is. And there is the solo of the indigenous character who represented his mother, the conquistador, his father, this Christian crusader, then the peon, which is the enslaved, the Mexican people, then the caballero, which is like European royalty, and then the revolutionario. So there's revolutionary in the face of all of this. And you see these different characters come up in his work time and time again throughout the decades that he was choreographing. And I really feel like what he was doing was exploring all of the parts of who he was. So he knew how to enter into storytelling of other people's stories with authenticity. So he could really lean into the characters and show different parts of who they were. So when we get to see these works, we see them with a new perspective because he has dug into them in new ways.
00:04:09
Speaker 2: I think that's a nice transition into talking about the program. But let me remind people, I'm speaking with Dante Paleo, Artistic Director of the Le Monde Dance Company. He's also a former member for more than a decade. The program is at the Joyce Theater, 8th Avenue at 19th Street, Tuesday, October 6th through Sunday, October 11th. There's a curtain chat on October 7th. Performances are very affordable. Tickets start at $ 17. You can find out more about tickets at Joyce.org and more about the Le Monde Dance Company at LeMonde.nyc. You're listening to Get Connected on 106.7 Light FM. I'm Nina Del Rio. So when we spoke about a year ago, there was a different program that focused perhaps more on Jose's interior life and you celebrated generations of Limon dancers. So what was on your mind this time?
00:04:57
Speaker 3: Well, you know, the first piece on that program, we, you know, celebrate the different generations of all of these artists that have been a part of the company. This year, I wanted to go a little bit deeper into that idea because We have two works on the program. The first is called Mazurkas. Now, this is a piece that he made after he returned from his tour to Poland and Europe after World War II. He had seen the mass devastation. It was, you know, a very, it was really an upheaval for him to see these communities rebuilding their churches and their theaters. And he was really inspired by the people. And that work created or that time created a whole body of work for him. But particularly from this tour, he wrote these letters home. And in these letters, he wrote about the individual dancers in his company. And he talks about it really being the first time that he's seeing some of them as these beautiful artists. And he writes about each one, like a little paragraph, just about what's inspired to him or what about them has inspired him. And then he comes home and he makes this piece, Mazurkas. And it was really a gift to them. We actually still call the solos and duets by the original company member that it was made by. And so this idea that he was inspired and saw his dancers and wanted to create something for them that allowed them to show off their virtuosic nature inside of the Limon technique, it was this gift that he gave to them. And now we get to give it back.
00:06:35
Speaker 2: It's such an interesting, I have not seen all of it. I've seen some of the excerpts you have on the Facebook page for Le Monde Dance Company. It's a very sort of joyful work and it's with Chopin. So it's a Polish composer.
00:06:47
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:48
Speaker 2: You've also chosen for the program Le Monde Dance Company's 2025 commission, Azure Barton's Join. One of the reviews of it calls it a love letter in motion.
00:06:58
Speaker 3: Hmm. Yeah. There's a couple different avenues for this one. When Azure came in, we had started working together, and she was really inspired by the company. And after rehearsal one day, we were just talking, and she's like, they're just beautiful. She's like, I want to make something beautiful for them, beautiful with them. And so when I was thinking about this season and what to pair with Mazurkas in this way to celebrate this, this work seemed to be the exact response. She was also, she's also celebrating the contemporary Limon company where Jose was celebrating his company at the time. Now I get to celebrate these artists that are in the company now that are continuing this legacy that are carrying this information forward. And Azure herself did such incredible research into the work of Doris Humphrey and the work of Jose Limon. that she was really pulling from everything that they had created. And it's almost a love letter to them as well. She was originally inspired by some prose that I had given her. There's three and a half pages in Jose's memoirs that talks about this lost Doris Humphrey work. So I'd given this writing to Azure and I said, you know, does this inspire you? And she loved it. And she really pulled from that. And her and Ambrose Kim Musery, who is the composer, develop this score and this choreography as a love letter to Doris through Jose's words on the company of today. It's this really beautiful winding thread.
00:08:35
Speaker 2: You're listening to Get Connected on 106.7 Light FM. I'm Nina Del Rio. So Jose Limon passed away in 1972. It's been a while. Why does he remain so important in dance today?
00:08:47
Speaker 3: You know, Jose really understood the human condition and understood how to talk about it in timeless ways. So we can look at these works and he is telling these stories that still make sense to us. He was saying something that needed to be said. And, you know, it's funny because we don't really ask these questions of the Mona Lisa. You know, we go back and we listen to the Mona Lisa. We don't ask this question of Aretha Franklin. We still listen to Aretha Franklin. But somehow dance has fallen into this other, under scrutiny, that we need to kind of re-examine what is important. I think it's an important question. I think we do need to dig into who these artists were, why they made the works they made, and what about it is important today. Because I think diving into that helps reveal more about the work, the artist, and what we're all going through as people in 2026. Because it's worth examining. And those works do that.
00:09:47
Speaker 2: There's also something interesting when you think about, since you bring up Aretha Franklin, right? People could write or sing or perform in a style that is, you know, analogous to hers. You can compare them with hers. But this is a company that's, you know, stands. on Jose Limon's name and Jose Limon's work. So you want to be more than just a company that just creates the same thing over and over or, you know, changes the costumes in a piece from 1958. Exactly.
00:10:11
Speaker 3: Yeah.
00:10:11
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:10:13
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's like, how do, how do we look at these works and how do we, how are we in conversation with them? And by commissioning new works by contemporary choreographers allows us to highlight different aspects of those works in new ways. So we're amplifying voices of today while also securing these great minds that started this form.
00:10:35
Speaker 2: Well, you have the job of really balancing his vision with your own vision, right?
00:10:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. I think when I first got here and I dove into that Danzas Mexicanas project, It allowed me to kind of walk in his steps a little bit. So I felt it gave me some agency with how to lead and how to direct. And Jose, every time he would stage or restage a work, he would change it a little bit and allow the artist in front of him to help mold. So we have all these different versions that he had staged that we can now pull from. And it just says to me that the intention of the work was important. The steps were part of that story, steps from different artists can still deliver that same intention. And so that really does that for me as a director. I'm allowed to like, allow it to breathe with the artists in the room.
00:11:28
Speaker 2: And what then is maybe the greatest lesson you've learned in your six-ish years leading the company?
00:11:34
Speaker 3: Oh, I think I've talked about this with my therapist. You know, it's both. I came into this position, I was a people pleaser. And I wanted to make sure everyone was happy all of the time. And I quickly realized that that was not actually going to feed the future of the organization. Everything... you know, all the dreams and all the thoughts that I have about what's possible, you know, I run through, you know, I am in deep conversation with all of the partners that I have with me. So whether that's my executive director, whether that's my associate artistic director, we have these really in-depth conversations about what is possible and what works need to be seen and what we can do with them and how far we can stretch them and what needs to stay in what we can highlight in a historical context. So by going through those, um, that practice kind of hones the vision for me instead of just being like, no, I want to do this thing. I'm going to, I don't care about anybody or worrying that, oh, I'll make you happy and I'll do this. But the deep conversation kind of reveals the truth behind it.
00:12:48
Speaker 2: It also sort of elucidates what a director's role really is, right? You know, you have to find a path and head down there with all the information given.
00:12:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:12:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we just have a couple of minutes left. If you could, let's recap what's in the program, which is Tuesday, October 6th through Sunday, October 7th at the Joyce Theater.
00:13:08
Speaker 3: Yep. We've got Mazurkas on the program. It opens the program. It's the first time we're going to see this work in its entirety since 1964. We've only done excerpts over the past how many ever years. So we really get to see this work in its full majesty from, you know, how Jose had envisioned it. And then the second act is Azure Barton's Join, a really incredible, beautiful 30-minute work, full company that really looks at what it is to be together and move through obstacles and move through the world as a unit.
00:13:40
Speaker 2: Just to wrap up, I want to ask about the dancers themselves performing there in rehearsals right now. What are they really working on and thinking about a couple of weeks ahead of the show?
00:13:49
Speaker 3: That's great. Where are we? So The movement style, the Limon technique is based on movement principles. So these ideas of fall and recovery, suspension and opposition and how those ideas live in the body. It's never in one place. You know, it's a constant evolution. It's a deep investigation. So at this point, we are revisiting this material and we're going deeper into those ideas and how the ideas behind the movement can reveal more truths about what the work has to say and how is the individual artists can inhabit that and feel really at home inside of these solos. And it's giving them that opportunity to continue to play and explore how they show up inside of this work.
00:14:36
Speaker 2: It'll be really exciting to see the performances at the Joyce Theatre, again, 8th Avenue, 19th Street in Chelsea, Tuesday, October 6th to Sunday, October 11th. There's a curtain chat on October 7th. You can find out more about tickets at Joyce.org and about the company at Limon.nyc. Dante Paleo, Artistic Director of the Limon Dance Company, thank you for being on Get Connected.
00:15:01
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
00:15:02
Speaker 1: This has been Get Connected with Nina Del Rio on 106.7 Light FM. The views and opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views of the station. If you missed any part of our show or want to share it, Visit our website for downloads and podcasts at 1067lightfm. com. Thanks for listening.
