Orlando Hernández
& The Knee-Heart Connection

Synopsis:

The CUNY Dance Initiative and Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture present a work-in-progress showing of Too Soon to Discover Planets, Too Late to Discover Islands by Orlando Hernández & The Knee-Heart Connection.

Blending tap dance, live music, masks, and physical theater, this evocative new work stages encounters rooted in Taíno and early colonial Puerto Rican history. Through a striking mix of forms, Hernández explores — and challenges — themes of myth, violence, and resistance.

About The Knee-Heart Connection:
The Knee-Heart Connection is a tap dance–theater project led by Orlando Hernández. Integrating mask work, physical theater, original music, research, and improvisation, the project creates dynamic performances that fuse rhythm with reflection.

About Orlando Hernández:
Described by The New Yorker as “a onetime tap prodigy who’s grown into a history-mining experimentalist,” Orlando Hernández is a performer, choreographer, theater-maker, musician, and writer. Rooted in New York’s tap dance community, his work brings together tap, live music, and theater to tell layered, resonant stories.

CREATIVES:
Choreography by Orlando Hernández
Music direction by Danny Fisher-Lochhead
Music by Fisher-Lochhead, Charles Lloyd, and Behike Marie Nanamaguey Maweiaru