My work in sculpture focuses on representations of concepts and qualities of humanness—the characterization of various universal emotions, sensations, thought processes, the embodiment of self-identity and manifestations of spirituality. Having a background as a professional dancer, choreographer and competitive athlete, I am used to employing the language of the human body as a means of creative expression, and in sculpture I often use aspects and parts of the human anatomy to convey ideas in physical form. Working primarily in metal renders a certain weight and material presence that I find particularly engaging, and the physicality and three-dimensional visual aspect that comes from being a dancer are what attract me to this medium. Seeing my work I wish the viewer to find resonance and relevance of “being human” as I explore and express in physical form various facets, abstractions and iterations centering around the mind-body connection and the human experience.
Esperanza Alzona is a sculptor from the Washington, DC area whose work has been widely exhibited regionally and nationally. Working primarily in cast metal and mixed media, her sculpture has received numerous awards in juried exhibitions and she has received grant funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council and the Frederick Arts Council. Before taking up sculpture she danced professionally for over twenty years, was an award-winning independent choreographer, and directed her own contemporary dance company based in Turin, Italy, where she lived and danced for six years. As a visual artist she has worked as a free-lance graphic designer, and film photographer. Her experience in arts administration includes six years as executive director of the Loudoun Symphony Orchestrate and more than seventeen years as operations manager for the Shepherd University School of Music. She has been on the dance faculty of the Mid Maryland Performing Arts Center since 1991, and works in sculpture as an independent artist.
Ms. Alzona is a graduate of Leadership Frederick County, and has served as Director of Performing Arts for the Frederick Arts Council, as a Maryland State Arts Council Dance Advisory Panelist, Secretary of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic Regional Advisory Panel of the Royal Academy of Dance, and Secretary of the Board of Directors of the Weinberg Center for the Arts, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Committee in Frederick and the TAWA Dance Company. She is a member of the Washington Sculptors Group, the International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art, American Women Artists, Maryland Federation of Art, Frederick County Art Association, and the Frederick Arts Council.
Ms. Alzona holds a teaching diploma from the Royal Academy of Dance, an associate in arts degree in humanities and social science from Montgomery College, a bachelor’s degree in psychology from George Washington University and a master’s degree in public communication from American University. A nationally ranked competitive fencer, she holds a rating in both foil and saber, and she has represented Team USA at the Pan American Veteran Fencing Championships ten times, earning seventeen medals in individual events.
