Federico Restrepo
Founder/Artistic Director/ Designer
Denise Greber
Executive Director/ Performer/Designer
Loco7 Dance Puppet Theatre Company, founded by Colombian born artist, Federico Restrepo in 1985, develops and promotes creative productions of Dance, Theatre, Puppets, Visual Arts, Media, Music and other forms of artistic expression. The company explores the junction of race, culture, history, and media in New York and throughout the global community. Loco7's cultural policies emphasize pluralism, dialogue, and cultural transformation. Loco7 is an organization that has been built on diversity and this is reflected in the history of work. Our audiences reflect our artists: they are multigenerational, multicultural, multiracial, and inclusive of all sexual and gender identities. We pay particular attention to the growing immigrant communities and support their efforts to engage within the community.
Loco7 is a Latinx-run organization that feels it is of the utmost importance to be inclusive and represent the voices of underrepresented people. In addition, the company provides an artistic home and professional foundation for a multicultural group of performers, designers and theatre artists who collaborate with Loco7 on a project basis. Currently our annual programming consists of workshops and performances for children and workshops and performances with seniors in affiliated senior centers, as well as a bi-annual fully realized adult production.
Loco7's artistic mission has been to develop the use of puppetry as an Instrument for the dancer, a style that incorporates dance and design. Utilizing original rhythmic music, live musicians, dancers, body puppets and larger then life marionettes, the objective is to merge these various elements and weave a choreography which extends beyond the body of the dancer. The undertaking of the ensemble is to deal with themes such as South and Central American Culture and History, the Immigrants' experience and New York City Urban Life.
Loco7 Dance Puppet Theatre is committed to improving our community through artistic and educational programming. Art has the unique power to unite communities and heal unseen wounds. Loco7 has facilitated workshops at Sirovich Center, The United Jewish Council, Grand Street Settlement, Bank Street Head Start, City Lore, PACT, and NYC-area public schools as well as many universities.
This puppet residency is supported in part by Cheryl Henson and The Jim Henson Foundation.
Video Gallery
About Loco7's Residency
Loco7's residency has been focused on the continued creation and development of Lunch With Sonia. In September Loco7 will continue this residency process at the Eugene O'Neil Arts Center in Connecticut. Then will return back to New York, to have it's world premiere at La MaMa in October as part of the La MaMa Puppet Festival.
About Lunch with Sonia
Written by Federico Restrepo with Denise Greber
Co-Directed by Federico Restrepo & Denise Greber
Choreographed by Federico Restrepo
Set & Puppet Design by Federico Restrepo
Sound Design & Music by Leonie Bell
Costume Design by Becky Hubbert
Featuring: Federico Restrepo, with Zulivet Díaz, Chris Ignacio, Aaron Haskell, and Hope Kroog
Sonia Voice Over: Luz Beatriz Pizano
Lunch with Sonia will be a dance puppet theatre piece, inspired by Restrepo’s true-life experience with his Aunt Sonia, a woman who decided to end her life with dignity after a long illness at the age of 72. The show will use puppets, live actors, music, video and physical theatre to deal with the themes of life, love and loss.
Conversations about assisted dying bring up controversial and emotionally fraught issues: morality, religion, politics, and faith. With this piece Loco7 hopes to acknowledge the incredible intimacy and the very personal nature of dying as the final event of living a self-actualized, individual human life and to move the dialogue from the philosophical arena to the realm of personal experience and stories related to the topic of Death with Dignity.
Generously supported in part with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, New York State Council on the Arts, Cheryl Henson and The Jim Henson Foundation and Individual Donors.
Tune In For Lunch With Sonia
http://loco7.org/performance-history/lunch-with-sonia/
October 5 – 10, 2021
Tue – Sat at 7pm & Sun at 4pm
Ellen Stewart Theatre at La MaMa
66 E 4th Street, 2nd Fl, NYC 10003
Image Documentation Library
Video Documentation Library