Step inside the beauty and energy of Rumba in a photographic display by artist Jessica Angel in the exhibition Liquid Heat: La Rumba Llama, on view in the historic Mural Pavilion at Harlem Hospital.
Community Works, NYC + Voza Rivers/New Heritage Theatre Group have unveiled a photo exhibit by London-based photographer Jessica Angel. This is an installation of never-exhibited, life-sized photographs capturing the energy and passion of the Pogolotti community, a Havana neighborhood known for the Rumba.
Jessica Angel has been taking photographs of Cuban dance for the last fifteen years. As a dancer herself, she draws on her knowledge of Rumba, working closely with dancers of the Conjunto Folklorico Nacional de Cuba. Her process is a combination of precision timing and slow camera speeds, to capture the freedom and spirit of the movement. It’s hard to walk through and around the large-format images without a breathless feeling of being in the middle of the dance floor.
La Rumba Llama is part of a broader international public art and outreach project ~ Liquid Heat ~ that celebrates our common humanity through the power of dance, while reinforcing the cultural links between Harlem and Havana.
Liquid Heat launched in the Museo Casa Guayasmin, Havana in April 2018 and in RAW SPACE, Harlem as part of Harlem Havana Festival in August, 2018.
About the Artist ~ Jessica Angel has combined her love of photography and dance to, in her words, “convey what it feels like …. the exuberance and exhilaration … (as she) looks to communicate the physicality and present moment of the dance and what is revealed in that journey. It is in this exhibition that she “distills the movement of the moving image in a still image.”
The exhibition, Jessica Angel: Liquid Heat ~ La Rumba Llama, has been extended through November 30, 2019, Monday through Saturday from 11am to 5pm. The Mural Pavilion at Harlem Hospital is located at 512 Malcolm X Blvd., at 136th Street.
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Liquid Heat: La Rumba Llama has been made possible by the support of Harlem Community Development Corporation, Tahl Propp Equities, World Music Institute, Cuban Artists Fund, Harlem Arts Alliance, New Heritage Theatre Group, The Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce, Community Works, HARLEM WEEK, Harlem Havana I Love New York.
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While you’re there, don’t miss Community Works’ thirty-foot timeline of Harlem Cultural history.
The timeline begins in c. 1900 to present day, featuring such iconic dates as in the year 1928 when the Dunbar Apartments were constructed, home to such notables as W.E.B. DuBois, Countee Cullen, A. Philip Randolph and more. ~ in 1929, Louis Armstrong and his band took up residency at Connie’s Inn, and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr preaches his first sermon at Abyssinian Baptist Church ~ c. 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. visited Harlem to raise support for a planned march on Washington, D.C. and The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Boys Choir of Harlem and The National Black Theatre were all founded that year.
Directly across the hall you will find a room with vintage pictures of Harlem Hospital (below).
Throughout the Pavilion, the WPA Murals grace the interior walls. The Works Progress Administration (WPA),was established by President Roosevelt in 1935.
135th Street was considered the cultural center in Harlem during the WPA period. Over time, the murals fell into disrepair. In the 1990s, serous efforts began to restore them to their original state.
Also on view in the Pavilion, the sculpture ‘Golem‘ by artist Jordan Baker-Caldwell.
Step across the street and visit The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.