Esse Aficionado is a New York City based modern dance company. It is an all female collective of three choreographers working as one to bring intelligent and innovative dance to a world of audiences yearning for an engaging and expressive experience through movement. The company was born in 1999 from the talent, vision and perseverance of Purchase College Conservatory of Dance graduates, Veronica De La Rosa, Gina Graham and Maki Morinoue. It was incorporated in 2001 and 501(c)(3) status was obtained soon after. Esse Aficionado has now become a cutting-edge, next generation dance company that incorporates multi-media elements into its work. What was once the vision of three dancers has now grown to become a company that engages up to 50 dancers on stage, which regularly presents at least one season per year to the public and performs site-specific works.

The mission of Esse Aficionado is to encourage professional artists to collaborate their technical and aesthetic ideas for the purpose of creating works of thought-provoking art. By incorporating multi-media elements into its work Esse Aficionado creates a synthesis of organic dance with modern technology, which puts this company into a contemporary context to which audiences can easily relate and respond. Moreover, Esse Aficionado strives to evolve modern dance by fostering an intelligent appreciation of the dance as an art form not only through performances, but also lectures and demonstrations. Esse Aficionado has lectured at the New School University and held lecture demonstrations at the Apple Store SoHo in New York City.

Esse Aficionado is an emerging force in the dance community. The company has performed in such venues as the Judson Memorial Church, Joyce SoHo, Merce Cunningham Studio, University Settlement, The Ailey Studios and for the Association of Performing Arts Presenters convention at the City Center. The choreographers of Esse Aficionado have been presented by the Joyce SoHo presents, Chashama’s Oasis Dance Festival, and The Tank in New York City, as well as in the Next Choreographic Series presented by Velocity Dance Center in Seattle, WA. Since 2000, Esse Aficionado has performed both indoor and outdoors and has successfully self-produced over 10 dance seasons in New York City.