NEVERDARK SERIES 2021
Outstanding Performances Brought to Life
Sunday, July 11th & Tuesday, July 13th
Valetango Company
‘Trust Me. Trust Me Not’
VALETANGO COMPANY strips Argentine tango to its bare bones, focusing on the dynamic interplay of lead and follow co-creation as the source of a new aesthetic that highlights non-traditional stories. Our shows focus, with humor and wit, on gender dynamics of the social dance floor and the conflict created by power and desire.
It’s latest production “Trust Me. Trust Me Not” centers onto the importance and fragility of trust, incorporating the experience of distrust and the longing of profound togetherness.
The company is comprised of Obbie Award winner theater director Orlando Pabotoy, 2019 USA tango champion Orlando Reyes Ibarra, former principal of Ballet Hispanico Rodney Hamilton and ACE and HOLA awarded choreographer Valeria Solomonoff
I push forward the main legacy of tango (improvisation that emerges from connection) and apply it to theater and dance.
- Valeria Solomonoff
Trust Me. Trust Me Not
Valetango Company strips Argentine tango to its bare bones, focusing on the dynamic interplay of lead and follow improvisations as the source of a new aesthetic that highlights non-traditional stories.
“Trust Me. Trust Me Not” is a show about the importance and fragility of trust, the experience of distrust and the longing of profound togetherness
Music: Kala by Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté
Improvisation by: Fabio Angelo and Rodney Hamilton
Music: Quizas, Quizas, Quizas by Paco de Lucía and Ramón Algeciras
Improvisation by Alondra Meek. Choreography danced by Fabio Angelo and Valeria Solomonoff
Music: Deasapego by Pedro Giraudo Orchestra
Choreography danced by Rodney Hamilton and Valeria Solomonoff
Music: Andando Pela Africa by Barbatuques
Choreography danced by Fabio Angelo and Valeria Solomonoff
Music: Drume Negrita by Ry Cooder and Manuel Galbán
Improvisation by Rodney Hamilton
Music: Zamba Para Olvidarte by Mercedes Sosa and Diego Torres
Choreography danced by Fabio Angelo and Valeria Solomonoff
Music: Naja by Guem; Impetuoso by Pedro Giraudo Orchestra and Kora Dance by Maher Cissoko and Andreas Unge
Choreography danced by Fabio Angelo, Rodeny Hamilton and Valeria Solomonoff
Director – Orlando Pabotoy is Head of The Physical Acting Intensive Lab at the New Studio on Broadway in NYU Tisch Drama Deptartment. Pabotoy is an Obie Award-winning NYC based artist. Recent works include directing Everybody by Brandon Jacob Jenkins and The Caucasian Chalk Circle; devising, creating writing and performing SESAR, commissioned by the Ma-Yi Theater Company and directed by Richard Feldman. He was collaborator in The Object Lesson (NYTW, BAM, various international festivals) Home (BAM, various international festivals). He was the Movement Designer for Henry VI (NAATCO) and Marisol (Trinity Rep). His professional works in performance, direction, and movement design have been seen in NAATCO, Ma-Yi Theater, the Public Theater, NYTW, Yale Rep., Met Opera, Kirk Douglas, the Guthrie Theater, American Airlines Theater, TFANA, the Lake Lucille Project, Salzburg Festival (Austria). Pabotoy has worked for Comedy Central, WB, NBC, ABC. Awards: Obie (2003), TCG Fox Fellow. Pabotoy is a graduate of the Juilliard School.
Creator, Choreographer and Dancer – Valeria Solomonoff: Born in Argentina and based in NYC Valeria is a wide-ranging innovator who uses her tango roots to reimagine new possibilities of partnering. She choreographed for Broadway, films, plays, circus and created her own shows. She was Resident Fellow at Center for Ballet and The Arts, NYU and is a Research Associate at Partnering Lab, Harvard University. Besides coaching Broadway choreographers on tango scenes, she co-choreographed New York City Center’s 2019 production of the musical Evita. Her show “Tango por Ellos” received 2 ACE Awards, she received 2 HOLA Awards for choreographing “Tango Fever” and “Doña Flor y Sus Dos Maridos” and she received 2 ACE nominations for “Tango Intimo”, a show she directed and created. Solomonoff was the founder and co-director of TangoMujer, the first all-female tango ensemble worldwide and performed for the president of Argentina at the Metropolitan Opera House. She is a Tango Professor at NYU Tisch, New Studio on Broadway.
Choreographer and Dancer – Rodney Hamilton graduated from the Juilliard School and joined Ballet Hispanico of New York where he was a principal dancer and assistant rehearsal director for 10 years. While with the company, he performed works by Jose Limon, Paul Taylor, Hans van Manen, Robert Battle, Ohad Naharin, David Parsons, William Whitener, Ann Reinking, Ramon Oller, Sergio Trujillo, Trinette Singleton, Agnes DeMille, Talley Beatty, Annabel Lopez Ochoa, Vicente Nebrada. Mr. Hamilton was part of the national touring cast of Jesus Christ Superstar, Hello Dolly with Carol Channing and worked with the Broadway cast of Tarzan. In 2012 Mr. Hamilton became the resident choreographer for the Saint Pete City Theater where he choreographed Hello Dolly, Footloose, and Memphis the musicals. Mr. Hamilton has taught ballet and modern all over the world and is a master teacher of the Dunham technique. He recently obtained his Masters in Dance from the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.
Choreographer and Dancer – Orlando Reyes was born in Bogota where he has been acclaimed as one of the Best Representative Dancers of Colombia by the “Instituto Distrital de Cultura y Turismo de Bogotá”. With a background in classical ballet, he has been dancing and teaching tango for the last twenty years. Orlando performed and taught in United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Aruba, Argentina, South Asia (Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines) and Colombia. He performed at Tango Malbec House in New York City and with The Pan American Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC, “Mientras Tango”, “Tango Connection” and “Tango Noir” and since 2007 he joined Valetango Company for the shows “Tango Intimo” and “Tango por Ellos”, which received the Latin ACE Award 2010 for Best Choreography. Orlando won 2nd place at the tango competition “Pelando Variación” in NYC, 2018 and in 2019 he became the ATUSA Stage Tango Champion and won second place at ATUSA Tango de Pista
Dancer – Fabio Angelo was born in Rosario, Argentina and based in New York. He is an aerial dancer who specializes in malambo (argentine dance). His credit for Live Performance/Theater include Evita (New York City Center); All Shook Up; On Your Feet (WBT); West Side Story (Guthrie Theater); Breaking Surface; Saturday Night Fever, Starwater (Royal Caribbean); Chicago International Salsa Congress; Circo Orlando Orfei; I Am Pulse (Hostos Center); La Revista De Mar Del Plata, Hernan Piquín Es Freddie, El Planeta De Los Juguetes, Brillantísima Con Humor (Argentina).
In Film and Television: In The Heights; Bailando Por Un Sueño (Argentina).
Girl – Alondra Meek is happy to have her debut in this production
Lighting Designer – Cha See is from Manila, Philippines based in New York City.. Cha received her MFA in Lighting Design in New York University. She has been awarded by the Shubert Foundation, Lew and Edie Wasserman Scholarship and Tisch School of the Arts Department Fellowship. She has been chosen to exhibit her works in Prague Quadrennial 2019.
Costume Designer – Kat Jeffery is a Canadian multi-disciplinary artist working with character and costume design. Portfolio includes over 40 productions and collaborations with film, VR, theatre, dance and opera companies in New York, across the United States, and Canada. Recent credits include The Magic Flute at the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and Cave, an immersive VR story which premiered at TriBeCa this spring. Kat holds an MFA in design from Tisch School of the Arts, NYU.
Visual Artist – Fabian Marcaccio is an Argentine-Italian artist whose genre-defying works address contemporary painting and their connection to the digital age. He blends digital printing techniques, photography, and sculpture to create a hybrid form. Marcaccio received his formal training at the University of Philosophy in Rosario, Argentina. His three-dimensional paintings are included in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of Art, both in New York, and in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His work has been featured in exhibitions at the MoMA P.S.1 in Queens, the Daros Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, and the Havana Biennale, among others. Marcaccio lives and works in New York, NY.
Windhover Center for the Performing Arts
Valeria Solomonoff – Choreographer, Tango, Theater, Dancer;
Rodney Hamilton – Dancer
(Afternoon performance – performing the piece on the outdoor stage)
Orlando Reyes – Choreographer, Dancer (Left)
Orlando Pabotoy – Director (Right)
Valeria Solomonoff – Cretator, Choreographer, Dancer
Cha See– Lighting Designer
Orlando Reyes – Choreographer, Dancer