Savor the thrill of the unexpected in Jacklean (Jacklean). Governed by play and collaborative improvisation, New York powerhouse choreographer and dancer Mariana Valencia’s (2023 Creative Capital Awardee) improvised gestures are prompted by transmissions from Jazmin Romero’s vocal and instrumental repertoire of cumbia, punk, jazz, and electronic music. Can an everlasting process frame a final performance?

Choreographer and dancer Mariana Valencia’s lyrical, witty, and transgressive performances are created from rigorously ordered sequences in which movement, song, and spoken text are improvised upon in front of audiences. She is invested in the idea that improvisation carries emancipatory potential. Inserting cultural traditions into contemporary dance spaces, her movement lexicon draws on her ethnographic research, modern and postmodern vocabularies, and pedestrian movement. Valencia has received several awards for her choreography, including a 2024 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, a 2023 Creative Capital Award, the 2018 Bessie Award for Outstanding “Breakout” Choreographer, and her work was included in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. She has received major commissions from Abrons Arts Center, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Chocolate Factory Theater, Danspace Project, Performance Space New York, and the Shed. Valencia is based in New York City.

Jazmin Romero is an interdisciplinary artist from Los Angeles, California. Her work explores how memory is embodied through performance, video, sound, and sculpture. Romero’s practice is concerned with how experimentation, improvisation, and collectivity allow for alternative forms of storytelling. She engages with the relationship between musical gesture and physical form to produce scores, assemblages, and compositions. She is also a member of various performance and music production collectives, such as COQUETA.