Drawing Danza
April 17, 2025 @ 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm
$10.00 – $20.00
Join us for a figure drawing workshop where movement and art come together!
Led by illustrator Eugenia Mello and choreographer Anabella Lenzu and featuring live dancers, participants will explore movement through Latin dance genres. The session will begin with slow, fluid movements, allowing artists to capture the essence of the motion while becoming familiar with their various tools and materials.
Eugenia will bring an array of mediums, including pastels, colored pencils, wax pastels, and different types of paper, demonstrating how each can be used to express motion in unique ways. Eugenia will also discuss how she uses this drawing technique in her own artistic practice and show examples.
As the workshop progresses, the dancers will move through faster sequences, challenging participants to shift their focus from capturing fine details to expressing the energy and flow of the dance. Anabella will share her deep knowledge of choreography, discussing the origins of movement and guiding participants in using gestural drawing to capture the dynamic nature of dance.
This is a unique opportunity for artists of all levels to experiment with materials and techniques while connecting with the vibrant energy of dance.
Pastels, charcoal, and markers will be made available to use.
This event is being offered as part of Carnegie Hall’s Nuestros sonidos festival.
Artwork by Eugenia Mello
Learn more about the hosts:
Eugenia Mello is an award-winning illustrator and art director from Buenos Aires, Argentina based in Brooklyn, NY. She is always trying to spark music out of her images. Her illustrations have been commissioned for projects with renowned companies and organizations such as Planned Parenthood, Apple, UPS, Chase, Nike, Patagonia, the NYT, and the Guggenheim Museum. Her rhythmic and colorful artwork has garnered recognition from prestigious institutions including the Society of Illustrators of New York, Communications Arts, American Illustration, and The Art Director’s Club (ADC) of New York. Awards include Gold and Silver medals from the NY Society of Illustrators, as well as a Silver Cube from the ADC which she won for Moving, a picture book she authored and illustrated. She has also illustrated several other picture books.
Eugenia is a regular collaborator at Enchanted Lion Books, serving in various capacities, primarily as a Designer and Associate Art Director. She teaches illustration at the School of Visual Arts and Queens College.
Photo courtesy of Eugenia Mello
Originally from Argentina, Anabella Lenzu is a dancer, choreographer, scholar & educator with over 30 years of experience working in Argentina, Chile, Italy, and the USA.
Lenzu directs her own company, Anabella Lenzu/DanceDrama (ALDD), which since 2006 has presented 400 performances, created 15 choreographic works and performed at 100 venues, presenting thought provoking and historically conscious dance-theater in NYC.
As a choreographer, she has been commissioned all over the world for opera, TV programs, theater productions, and by many dance companies. She has produced and directed several award-winning short dance films and screened her work in over 200 festivals both nationally and internationally.
Lenzu founded her own dance school L’Atelier Centro Creativo de Danza in 1994 in Argentina, and as an educator for more than 30 years, she has been teaching in more than 50 institutions, including universities, professional dance studios, companies, festivals, and symposiums in the USA, Canada, Ireland, Egypt, Australia, Panamá, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, London, and Italy.
In 2023, Anabella received the National Award for Outstanding Leadership in the Independent Sector by NDEO (National Dance Education Organization) and in 2022, the Innovative Dance Educator Award by NYSDEA (New York State Dance Education Association), acknowledging her work as a dance educator who develops innovative pedagogy in the dance field, groundbreaking teachings that have a significant impact on dance, as well as an established record of exemplary leadership on the state and national level in USA.
Lenzu has written for various dance and arts magazines and published her first book in 2013, entitled Unveiling Motion and Emotion. The book contains writings in Spanish and English on the importance of dance, community, choreography, and dance pedagogy. Her second book, Teaching Dance through Meaningful Gestures, is expected in 2024, and explores basic exercises, visualization exercises, active imagination and artistic application. The book explores how technique is a philosophy and a theory, and how the body is an instrument for expression.
Photo by Todd Carroll
