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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > June > 20 > Entry
Review: KDH Dance Company and Guests
Three dance companies on one bill do not constitute a crowd.
Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company’s hosted Austin’s Chaddick Dance Theater and College Station’s Armstrong/Bergeron Dance Company Thursday at Ballet Austin’s AustinVentures Theatre. The three companies’ aesthetics overlap significantly. All three tread in the mainstream of American modern dance, shifting between asking dancers to make clear shapes with their bodies and focusing more on energetic qualities in other moments.
But each group (all now somewhat familiar to Austin dance audiences) also have distinctive strengths. Cheryl Chaddick directs a gorgeously diverse company, who excel in their soft phrasing. Armstrong/Bergeron, still a young ensemble, has terrific intensity. And KDH continues to have one of the strongest, most polished ensembles in the area.
Chaddick offered only one piece, “Ask No More,” a lengthy meditation on pre-Raphaelite paintings of communities of women. It was difficult to discern an arc through the entire, multi-sectioned work. Most of the choreography emphasized women coming together, lending a hand or a shoulder. The sense of community was most compelling in the barest movement of the piece. Four women, draped in long toga tunics, shifted almost statuesquely over and on top of a small bench. Chaddick’s eye for less movement being more evocative can be quite keen. In larger sections, Chaddick and Lynn Forney had a stunning softness in their joints, gifting a sense of pleasure and ease to the work. Kristen Studer’s well-phrased solo felt like one of the most complete dances in the entire evening.
KDH contributed two works: Lisa Nick’s fluffy, physical “Intervention: the day by BFF gave me the real scoop” and Hamrick’s “Her Majesty’s Well-Played Adventures.” Nicks has an excellent hand on making over-the-top choices in everything from facial expressions to music selection to make accessible comedic dances. The six dancers in Hamrick’s piece looked fantastic together—on stage and on the video projected behind them. But the two parts of the work, the projected and the live, did not gel.
Armstrong/Bergeron’s three works demonstrated the company’s continued growth. A duet, “And at 36, she hit a crossroads,” featured Sara Kitterman and Andrea Sheridan walking across a long line of more than 40 pairs of shoes. One seemed content to choose from the selection offered, while the other tested the floor on her bare feet. The piece initially composed an intriguing question about conformity versus individualism, but too easily settled into an either/or answer to the question—wear the pre-set shoes or strike out on your own—rather than exploring a variety of identities the presence of so many different shoes seemed to suggest.
Five women pushed through Kathleen Byrne’s “Discard the Broken Cassette” with
precision and clarity. The program also included company co-artistic director Carisa
Armstrong in her solo “Fallen,” a hearkening back to modern dance’s origins in
the solo work of strong women.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts writer.
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