Check us out in Interim, Vol. 36, Issue 3

Written by: Charly Santagado and Matthew Menchaca 
Choreographer: Charly Santagado 
Dancers: Charly Santagado and Emory Campbell 

~mignolo dance~ is a 501-c3 nonprofit contemporary dance company based in New York and New Jersey founded by sisters, Charly and Eriel Santagado, in 2017. They have been dancing and creating together for more than ten years and use this experience to continue to collaborate with each other and other dancers and artists to create new work that explores elements of various artistic mediums through movement. 
 
Charly Santagado is a dancer and choreographer originally from Orlando, Florida, living in Metuchen, New Jersey and working in NYC. She graduated with highest honors from Rutgers University in 2017 and founded a contemporary dance company that summer with her sister, Eriel Santagado, called ~mignolo dance~. She has performed at the Orlando Fringe Festival, at Peridance’s BLUEPRINT Intensive and Choreographic Development Project, at Axis Connect Intensive, with Monteleone Dance Collective, with Kaitlyn Halpern and Dancers, with Haven Movement Company, with Olivia Dwyer Dance Projects, and with Maiya Redding. She also regularly performs in her own work, which has been produced at more than twenty venues around the tristate area including Manhattan Movement & Arts Center, GK Arts Center, City Center Studios, The Secret Theatre, Ailey Citigroup Theater, Paul Taylor Studios, Peridance, Triskelion Arts, Suzanne Roberts Theater, and Baruch Performing Arts Center. She studied with Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company in Ga’aton Israel from 2018-2019, was part of the 2019 Dance Canvas Choreographic Initiative, was selected for coLAB Arts’ new choreography commission, and was project leader at Earthdance’s 2019 EMERGE Collaborative Residency. 
 
Emory Campbell joined ~mignolo dance~ in 2019. Hailing from Brooklyn, New York, she began pursuing dance at age 13 at LaGuardia High School and the Taylor School. She went on to study dance at The Hartt School at University of Hartford, where she performed in classical works by Martha Graham and Jose Limon, as well as original pieces by contemporary choreographers such as Gregory Dolbashian, Nobert De La Cruz III, Loni Landon and Take Uyama. She also performed with Pier Group Dance, Full Force Dance Theater, and Opera Connecticut before graduating Summa Cum Laude in 2016. Since returning to NYC, Emory has performed with The Francesca Harper Project, Bryce Dance, Of Bones/Hollye Bynum, Zoo City Theatre Group, The Dance Collective, Depth Dance, Hatchworks, in Nick Cave’s “The Let Go” at the Park Avenue Armory and in Arcade Amerikana at Industry City. 

Matthew Menchaca grew up in Austin, Texas and graduated with a degree in philosophy from Rutgers University in 2017. He is now pursuing a PhD in philosophy at CUNY. He paints and writes in his free time