Lunch with Sonia
By Loco7 Dance Puppet Theatre Company
Directed by Denise Greber and Federico Restrepo
Lunch with Sonia is 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 uses 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.
Photo by Richard Termine
Featuring: Marina Celander, Catherine Correa, Aaron Haskell, Hope Kroog, Jorge Ariel Blanco Muñoz, Steven Orrego Upegui, and Federico Restrepo
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, and other forms of artistic expression. The company explores the junction of race, culture, and history in New York and throughout the global community. Loco7's cultural policies emphasize pluralism, dialogue, and cultural transformation. 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. 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.
Lunch with Sonia 2023 presentation is 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, NYSCA Regrowth and Capacity Enhancement Grant, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, and Individual Donors.
La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival
La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival continues to support La MaMa’s commitment to presenting diverse performance styles that challenge audience’s perception of dance by featuring performance/installations, experimental film screenings & public symposiums which address dance artists’ engagement with the current political climate, as well as honoring diasporic histories and legacy, ancestral inspirations and inter-generational dialogue.