The Ponce Art Museum presents Obra Viva, a new initiative that celebrates the power of art to transcend its limits and generate new forms of creation. The project, in collaboration with the contemporary dance company Andanza, reinterprets five emblematic works from the museum’s collection through dance. The first edition of Obra Viva features five audiovisual pieces that explore how a visual work can acquire new dimensions when combined with body movement and sound.
The pieces, with durations between three and ten minutes, will premiere weekly on the museum’s YouTube channel starting October 11, 2026. The museum and Andanza will share brief content and previews on their social media platforms to accompany the weekly premieres. Obra Viva is part of the museum’s reconstruction process, which has led to a temporary absence of its collection from the galleries.
The initiative aims to symbolically return the presence and spirit of art to these spaces, converting the absence into an opportunity to create new experiences. The museum’s executive director, Marcos Montero, stated that the reconstruction process has led to new ways of looking at the museum and finding opportunities for creation. Andanza’s artistic director, Lolita Villanúa, shared that creating coreographies and music for the museum’s collection and filming them in the empty museum was a magical experience.
The project integrates dance, music, painting, film, and architecture, bringing the characters in the paintings to life. The Ponce Art Museum, founded in 1959, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the collection, conservation, study, and exhibition of art, with a collection of over 5,000 objects. Andanza, founded in 1998, is a Puerto Rican contemporary dance company and school that has maintained a sustained production of innovative projects and offers dance education to students of all ages.