Haute Couture Bodies
an endless dress-up game

Joy of Motion Dance Center Presents, “Haute Couture Bodies” at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on June 11 at 8:00 PM at Atlas Performing Arts Center. “Haute Couture Bodies” is an evening-length work created by Felipe Oyarzun Moltedo for Joy of Motion Dance Center’s award-winning Youth Dance Ensemble (YDE) Company. Performed by young dancers ages 13-18, the piece provocatively explores the endless game of ‘dress-up’ within the fashion industry. The YDE Company explores the punishment and glorification of narcissism in our culture, and the struggle to defy physical reality. The piece organically developed over a three year period from conversations between Moltedo and the YDE Company dancers.

In fall 2013, Moltedo and the YDE Company received the DanceMetro DC Award for Best Youth Performance for “Femmenist,” exploring the intersection of the feminine and the feminist as well as the cultural expectations of gender. Conversations sparked by “Femmenist” continued over the following years, ultimately leading the the creation of “Haute Couture Bodies.”

“YDE [dancers], they have this knowledge that art is a medium to communicate all your emotions, not just an excuse to look pretty,” Moltedo says “It’s easy to have a sophisticated creative process because of the way they perceive reality. They are really mature.”

By the fall of 2015, the dancers and Moltedo began seriously investigating fashion, their bodies, and how the teenaged dancers fit into the modern world. “We are glorifying the fashion industry and at the same time judging narcissist behavior,” Moltedo reflects. “Fashion affects many aspects of people’s lives. They [the dancers] embrace fashion, but at the same time they see how their bodies lose their identities when they wear clothes designed from someone else’s perception of beauty.”

“The dancers will express the extremes of the fashion industry by being vulnerable and strong, connected but isolated, vain and modest. “Haute Couture Bodies” will not clearly define whether or not fashion is inherently good or bad.” Moltedo explains, “You will be encouraged to have your own opinion.”

Performance Date: Saturday, June 11, 2016, 8:00 PM, Atlas Performing Arts Center.

Tickets available at:

Atlas Center Performing Arts Center
1333 H Street
Washington, DC 20002
202.399.7993 ext 2
Purchase tickets here.

Photos by Felipe Moltedo