Principium Omnium
Tabula Rasa Dance Theater was founded in 2018 by Felipe Escalante. To transform both the arts and society, Escalante believes choreography must elicit powerful and sometimes difficult emotional responses.
Escalante says, “Ideally, my work will have repercussions beyond my own medium of dance, and will transcend boundaries of time and place.”
Felipe Escalante
Born in México
Felipe Escalante, Artistic Director of Tabula Rasa Dance Theater, began his career at 6, performing the folk dances of his birthplace, Querétaro, México. A protégé of Guillermina Bravo, he graduated from Mexico’s National Center of Contemporary Dance.
Escalante choreographed his first piece at 16, and has since developed a repertoire of more than 20 works. Commissioned in 2015 to participate in the International Festival of Young Choreographers in México, Escalante received the Choreography Award in 2017 for his piece “Animula, vagula, blandula” at the Series IV festival in Manhattan.
In 2018, Escalante received a grant from the Ford Foundation to create “Ex umbra in solem,” addressing the global refugee crisis. The following year, with further support from the Ford Foundation, Escalante premiered “Inside Our Skins”, calling attention to mass incarceration.
During the 2020 pandemic, he presented “Liquidus,” a virtual piece about the physiological toll of shelter-in-place, and “One of Four,” concerning gender-based violence, in the summer of 2021.
For 2021-2022 Escalante is working on two new dance pieces, about conversion therapy and comercial sex trafficking, made possible by support from the Ford Foundation, and a grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Sevin
Ceviker
Born in Turkey
Caitlin Javech
Born in the United States
Noriko
Naraoka
Born in Japan
Shannon
Maynor
Born in the United States
Charlotte
Hagström
Born in Sweden
Jonatan Lujan
Born in Argentina
Anica
Bottom
Born in the United States
Jose
Losada
Born in Cuba
Simon Kazantsev
Born in Russia
Rawinan Asawakanjanakit
Born in Thailand
