Founded in 2005, CONTRA-TIEMPO is a bold, multilingual activist dance theater company based in Los Angeles. We create a new physical, visual and sonic vocabulary that collages salsa, Afro-Cuban, hip-hop, and contemporary dance with theater, compelling text, and original music to bring dynamic multi-modal experiences to the concert stage.
While our performances are consistently electrifying, what sets the company apart most is our unique relationship to our own community. CONTRA-TIEMPO takes an uncompromisingly radical approach to the ways in which artists function within communities and create their work. We intentionally engage diverse audiences, cultivate dancer leaders, and center stories not traditionally heard on the concert stage, using our engagement process to inform and continuously re-fuel our creative process, and vice-versa.
CONTRA-TIEMPO offers culturally sustaining, community-based dance education programming for K–12 students, educators, and community members throughout Los Angeles County. Rooted in Afro-Latine dance traditions, our programs integrate dance with creative expression, cultural exploration, storytelling, and social-emotional learning.
Through school-based residencies, workshops, assemblies, our summer FUTURO intensive, and community engagement activities, professional teaching artists guide participants in movement-making, collaboration, critical thinking, and dialogue. Programming is adaptable to different ages, abilities, and learning environments, emphasizing accessibility, cultural affirmation, and meaningful participation.
Our educational approach encourages students to explore identity, community, history, and social justice through dance while developing artistic skills, leadership, confidence, and a sense of belonging. Through our teaching work, CONTRA-TIEMPO creates opportunities for young people to discover their creative voices and recognize their capacity to contribute to positive change in their communities.