Esther Casterá: Can you feel it?
Spanish choreographer and dancer began her professional dance journey as a commercial dancer, performing with Shakira, the Black Eyed Peas, and Dua Lipa. Casterá gained experience with a multitude of contemporary dance styles, including Waacking, Locking, Jazz, House, and Heels, alongside studying graphic design and creative technologies. She puts this combination of talents to good use in Can you feel it?, a 3-minute filmed dance piece that helps her literally make the jump from commercial dance to dance as art. Originally created as a live piece for a Madrid dance showcase, Casterá wisely transformed it into a video dance in order to reach a larger audience, and filmed the piece in portrait orientation to facilitate viewing and sharing on a phone. Can you feel it? is located in an auto repair shop and features Waacking, Jazz Funk and freestyle, performed by an octet of exhilarating dancers.
The piece begins with a shot overlooking the dancers before facing them head-on as their arms accent the driving beats of a remixed Chuck Roberts manifesto “My House,” that will sound very familiar to those of a certain age, and serve as a freshly inclusive history lesson to newer listeners. This section of the dance features contemporary partnering, flexible torsos, and Casterá has clearly done her homework, paying homage to the beginnings of House music and answering the call to “jack your body”. A very brief section two smoothly relocates to another section of the garage and the dancers coalesce into unison and transport to stacked pallets to perform multi-level Waacking movement, with elbows flying, punctuated by moments of repose or slow-motion action. The final section mixes freestyle, House, and Jazz Funk in a kaleidoscope of angles, formations, faces, and partners, featuring a dancer in red leading the group and another repeatedly slipping away from one scene to join another scene in progress. The piece ends in a tight triangle formation combining floor movement with standing, and later focuses attention on alternating between infectious and bouncy unison movement with rippling reaches, before freezing into the final pose.
The piece deftly and successfully combines past and future in a dance piece that makes one want to join in the fun and remember, or join in and appreciate something new with folks who are dancing with such joy and purpose. Juxtaposing vibrant dancers with the industrial background gives a gritty feel without sacrificing the positive vibe of the music, and her framing choices and camera movement adds variety and vigor to the dance while still allowing viewers to see and appreciate the movement. I am expecting great things from Esther Casterá as she continues creating dances with heart and soul.
Watch the video version of Can you feel it? for yourself.
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Check out the Human Kinetics publication Dance Appreciation, by Dawn Davis Loring and co-authored by Julie L. Pentz, also available from Amazon and other booksellers, and find what dancer shares your birthday at the Today in Dance project: www.dawndavisloring.com/todayindance.
You can also tune in to the Today in Dance podcast, hosted by Spotify and available from Apple podcasts and several other platforms.
