Erick Montes
Erick Montes (he/his/el) is a dancer, choreographer and interdisciplinary artist who believes in the technology of movement as the threshold toward ancestral wisdom. His research gravitates between memory and representation in an intersection with dance aesthetics. Montes is passionate about liberation and very much about messing with the status quo whenever he can. His dances, practice and training are highly influenced by American choreographer Bill T.Jones and the late Luis Fandiño (Mexico City, 1931–2022), among the array of dear friends and mentors across his transnational cultural community between the U.S. and Mexico, who have supported his dancing to date. Currently, Montes is interested in authenticity versus the manufacture of dance-making and about the body as a confluence of biology, biology as in culture. Erick is a two times New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” recipient with the Bill T.Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company for Outstanding Revival of D-Man In The Waters (2013), and Best Ensemble for Chapel Chapter (2007). He holds a fellowship from The New York Foundation for the Arts (2008); Fund for New Work Harlem Stage (2005/2010); National Endowment for the Arts; FONCA (National Endowment for Culture and Arts, México, 2003/2005); Mexican Studies Institute CUNY (2022); and the Dance Fellowship and Life Experience Award at University of the Arts (2021–2022). His work has been presented in New York by Movement Research at Judson Church, E-Moves Harlem Stage, CPR, Dixon Place, River to River Festival, DUMBO Festival, Triskelion Arts, and the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. His latest project, Moving Landscapes, is a performance/installation exploring ideas of conviviality and the nuances between spatiality and movement, in collaboration with artists Arantxa Araujo, Miriam Parker, Geraldine Cardiel and Sara Kostic. Montes is also a Vinyasa yoga and meditation–certified practitioner in hybrids of Ashtanga yoga tradition and mindfulness meditation–oriented toward harm-reduction philosophies.
What is not here, is somewhere else. – Thomas D. Frantz