" …to say a dance show merely happened is to underestimate its profundity."
– Lauren Warnecke for ART INTERCEPTS
Past Productions
SPRING 2022 / UNTOLD / Chicago, IL
“There is no greater agony than an untold story inside you.” – Maya Angelou
Influenced by Elizabeth Lesser’s Cassandra Speaks: When Women Are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes, PARA.MAR founder and director Stephanie Martinez explores and interrogates the same question of “how the stories we tell, the stories we hear and see, become the culture we know”.
When Lesser proposes “what happens when women are the storytellers too—when we speak from our authentic voices, when we flex our values, when we become protagonists in the tales we tell about what it means to be human”.
FALL 2021 / kiss. (full-length) / Collaboration with Ballet Des Moines
“It’s my love letter.”
In a unique and inspired collaboration built for both companies, the five-week residency will culminate in a full-evening performance that includes both the original work and new, never before seen, sections on a cast of 16 in a ONE NIGHT ONLY performance, October 29, at the Des Moines Civic Center
SPRING 2021 / THAWEN / Chicago, IL
“An antidote to collective loneliness, as well as a sign of hope."
Like the first feeling of warmth after months of cold, THAWEN (meaning defrost) will provide audiences with a glimpse of one the many things we’ve been living without - the joy of gathering to experience live art.
FALL 2020 / kiss. (original) / Chicago, IL
“I offer up this performance series... as a testament to our community’s resilience."
Motivated by the core human need to be seen, to be heard, and to be honored we witness the dancers on the perilous journey we all take to find and sustain intimacy. As a collective, we stumble searching for the sense of wholeness found in authentic connection.
A delicate recipe for peace - I nourish myself, you nourish yourself, we nourish each other - Often only felt for a moment, before sliding back into obscurity.