Explore Daniel Catanach's repertory with endless vitality!

Daniel Catanach's Bless Me, Ultima is a coming-of-age novel by Rudolfo Anaya centering on Antonio Márez y Luna and his mentorship under his curandera and protector, Ultima. The ballet reflects Anaya's interpretation of Hispano culture of the 1940s in rural New Mexico. Daniel uses Anaya's use of Spanish, mystical depiction of the New Mexican landscape, use of cultural motifs such as La Llorona, and recounting of curandera folkways such as the gathering of medicinal herbs, gives the audience a sense of the influence of indigenous cultural ways that are both authentic and distinct from the mainstream.

Illuminated by the original music of Susie Ibarra and Assif Tsahar. Catanach creates a distinctive study of where one can think dance lives and where dance goes to live. He uses Ibarra’s wildly illusive percussive beats, which conflict and then harmonizes with the sassy moods of Tsahar’s saxophone, to fashion an inspiration of a mixture of old and new, which lends to an extraordinarily new dance vocabulary.

The piece has received critical acclaim in the past, in which William Kerns, A-J Entertainment writes...“El Hambre” is the Program’s highlight, choreographed by Catanach...“El Hambre” manages to be rhythmic and wild, sexy and tragic...their performance was so dramatically piercing that one wishes it were available on tape for repeated viewings... it works because of Catanach’s skill at forcing audiences to feel while often leaving interpretations open... Catanach cannot be ignored...”

With music by Alberto Ginastera Estancia celebrates the vitality and energy as well as the struggles of the people of the Latin Americas. The Journey of so many of these cultures is represented abstractly by the constant energy of the movement throughout the ballet. The four movements represent the four levels of their journeys: Creating energy and reason amongst the workers, the peace found in the land, the wrestlesness of the struggle and finally the celebration of hope for the future. 

A world premier is being created to set off the Urban Ballet Theater ten-city visit to Catanach’s home state of New Mexico. It will be based on several versions of the well-known story told through the ages of the young woman who drowns her children and wanders the rivers looking for them. Catanach himself grew up being told this story to get him and his eight siblings to behave and go to bed on time.

Mambo questions and celebrates the diverse culture of Latin communities and explores our desire to know and understand our heritage. The ballet portrays a young man who grew up in the Chicano culture of the American Southwest. He moves on living in an urban environment that exposes him to immigrants from all cultures of the Americas and the Caribbean, along with the new label of being "Latino". Trying to fit in, he mistakenly identifies the many cultures of his Latino friends with their music, and creates a fictional identity, which he thinks is Mambo. It is through this music that he begins a journey to understand these cultures and along the way he discovers that the true meaning of Mambo does not include his roots. 

Based on the poetry by the award winning New Mexican Poet, Levi Romero, Of Dust and Bone is presented in English and Spanish, based on growing up in the small Northern New Mexican town of Dixon. After being introduced to Romero’s poetry by Catanach’s brother, he created this ballet, sharing the same title as Romero’s poem Of Dust and Bone. Catanach threads six of Romero’s poems together to tell the story of a young man’s hunger for life, and his realization that the same thing that gives you life, can also take it away. 

Created to represent a community rarely intruded by outside influence, a group of dancers content in doing the same movements at the same time are disrupted when a new dancer enters with different steps, which subtly disrupts the harmony. His new ways attract one of the community’s members. It is a study of acceptance and non-acceptance of outside influence representing the subcultures of the inner cities and their subtle segregations.

A new work choreographed by Daniel Catanach in collaboration with emerging choreographer Andres Gonzalez set to live DJ’s spinning original beats and compilations.

Surface features six male dancers who are connected by their background but have changed through levels of journeys and successes. The ballet has three parts: Celebration, Struggle and Triumph. Celebration brings together the dancers, who at first seem similar, but as the work progresses their true personalities surface. Struggle utilizes the sound of water to flood the struggles of the world onto the dancers as they work together and individually to stay above the surface. Triumph represents what happens after the storm and the dancers surface to triumph over the struggles moving on in life.

The premier in 2003 was highlighting the return of Amar Ramasar, who began his dance training at the Abrons Arts Center with Daniel Catanach. In 2005 Catanach expanded this passionate duet into a full, five-part ballet including a web of ballerinas in an elegantly powerful opening, an all-male work with an untamed spirit that challenges ballet’s technique. The work is set to music by The New Tango Orquesta.

This would set the standard for UBT’s ability to invoke realities that reflect the current tempers of society. Trouble is a study on the effects of war from different points of view, the passion from which it is blindly pursued, and its most likely outcome.