Pajarillo Pinta’o Dance Company official site

With the founding of Pajarillo Pinta’o in 2003, Artistic Director Daniel Fetecua Soto has started to investigate the fusion of traditional dances and rhythms of Colombian Folklore with the principals of modern dance and German tanz-theater.

Pajarillo Pinta’o took its first steps as a traditional Colombian Folkloric dance ensemble while Colombian founder and artistic director Daniel Fetecua Soto was a student at the Folkwang Hochsule in Essen, Germany. Later his choreography became shaped by not only his cross-cultural studies of Colombian traditional dance at Universidad Nacional in Colombia, but by his newly acquired experiences and training in dance-theatre, modern, and contemporary dance-notably his position with the world-renowned Jose Limon dance company until fall 2016. The culmination of this training and performance history has birthed a movement that interweaves the rhythms, music, choreographic structure, and rites of native dances of Colombia, with the lyricism and neo-expressionisim found in contemporary dance.

Pajarillo Pinta’o is Daniel’s personal homage to his culture and his traditions. Upon moving to the USA in 2006, Daniel started his work with professional dancers in New York City while continuing to travel annually to Germany to work with his dancers and Associate Artistic Director Maria Lucia Agon Ramirez abroad who keep the work alive across the ocean.

Here in NYC Pajarillo Pinta’o has started an incredible collaboration with Colombian musician and composer Pablo Mayor and his band Folklore Urbano as well as with the renowned Colombian singer Lucía Pulido, and Theatre Director German Jaramillo, founder and director of ID Studio Theatre. He is now a part of an arts alliance called ArtsLatinoNY made up of ID Studio Theater, Folklore Urbano NYC, and Pajarillo Pinta’o.

In the last three years Pajarillo Pinta’o has been developing an infrastructure and under the managing direction of Anna Amadei, Pajarillo Pinta’o has received two grants from the Harlem Stage Fund for New Work (granted to Daniel for two new choreographic works).
The mission is to keep spreading the pure essence of Colombian folklore to the world, and have people experience it through the music and the dances, while continuing to develop a new form merging the soul of tradition and its evolution in our contemporary world.

Daniel Fetecua Soto, director, dancer, choreographer, and teacher, a native of Bogotá, Colombia, was a member of the Limon Dance Company until fall 2016. He has appeared as guest artist in Pina Bausch’s masterpieces the Rite of Spring and Tannhauser. Fetecua has also worked with La Fura dels Baus, Kuo Chu Wu and won a Salsa Award in the European Salsa Championship in 2004. His recent work with Teatro la Sea garnered an “Hola” award for his salsa choreography for the production “La Gloria: A Latin Cabaret.” His choreography was seen performed by the Connecticut Ballet in 2014. Daniel is an avid educator, and works with Limon4Kids, Turtle Bay Music School, among other organizations. Daniel holds a BFA from Folkwang-Hochschule, Germany.