“Atahualpa Yupanqui” is quite a mouthful. So when the legendary Argentine folksinger became a household name in the ´60s, his countrymen smartly elected to call the dearly departed crooner and composer “Don Ata.” Beloved for keeping alive the music of his country’s indigenous people, Don Ata continues to influence lives in Argentine dancer Mabel Dai Chee Chang’s Vientos Rojos (Red Winds).
Rojos combines the music of Don Ata (performed by singer-guitarist Lucas Rousseaux) with Chang’s modern dance to weave a narrative of magical realism, with only a poncho and a hat as props (incidentally, that’s all she wears). Don’t worry if you don’t speak Spanish: “The story is conveyed simply and elegantly without words,” says Vinod Hopson of DiverseWorks. “Therein lies the appeal.”
March 31-April 1, 8 p.m.
This article appears in Mar 30 – Apr 5, 2006.