Tess Angelica Losada: Dancers Making Moves

Dancers Making Moves founder and host Carly Vanderheyden sits down with current MFA in Dance candidate Tess Angelica Losada to learn about her unique journey in dance, as well as the research and process leading up to her upcoming thesis performance presentation later this month at Washington University in St. Louis. Tess Angelica Losada is a Cuban-American dancer, choreographer, and scholar. She has lived and danced in the south of France, central Illinois, New Orleans, and is now based in St Louis. Currently, Tess is working towards her MFA in Dance at WashU and teaching Contemporary Partnering and Cross-Training for dancers in the Dance departments at WashU and Webster University. Tess’ research considers bicultural straddling, diasporic grief, liminality, and how identity is shaped by a lifetime of being ni de aquí, ni de allá. Her work is heavily inspired by her father’s stories of his migration away from Cuba and the rest of his life spent in exile between France and the United States. She has performed her work at various festivals, conferences, and events both nationally and internationally, most recently in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tess is currently creating her MFA capstone work, which will be presented in a split bill show entitled “¿Te puedo contar algo?” in March 2025 at the Edison Theater in St Louis. This work, tentatively titled “el cielo abajo” is an investigation into the past, present, and future memories of exile. In 2025, Tess will travel to Puerto Rico to conduct artistic research and create a new evening-length duet with collaborator Lourdes del Mar Santiago Lebrón, funded by a Global Futures grant from WashU. Prior to graduate school, Tess earned a BA in Dance Performance from Illinois State University, and spent the better part of a decade dancing, teaching, and performing in New Orleans. Tess has been featured in works by Stephanie Martinez/PARAMAR, the artist Monika Weiss, Kesha McKey, Donna Crump, Jennifer Harge, and Laurie Merriman, among others. Tess is also a third generation classical Pilates teacher with more than a decade of teaching experience, certified by Alycea Ungaro’s Real Pilates NYC teacher training program.Follow @dancers.making.moves on Instagram and Facebook and learn more about the artists involved in this project at www.dancersmakingmoves.com.