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March 13, 2010
Review: Ballet Afrique
Ballet Afrique, Austin’s new African American dance company, weaves their vision of African American culture through ever facet of their work.
The result: their Friday show at Salvage Vanguard was a fascinating, intelligent blend of a variety of African American dance vocabularies—a dense collage of West African dance, jazz, modern and ballet. (And yes, every one of those traditions has roots in African American art. American ballet’s rhythmic complexity owes substantial debt to African American jazz.)
Led by founding executive director China Smith and artistic director Leah Smiley Tubbs, who choreographed all of Friday’s seven pieces, Ballet Afrique adds an exciting dimension to Austin’s dance community. It’s wrong that in 2010 it’s still rare to see an American contemporary dance company with multiple performers of color, but it’s great that Ballet Afrique’s six talented female dancers are stepping into the void.
Tubbs, who creates incredibly technically difficult work, has found dancers who meet her challenges head-on. Sade’ M. Jones spent most of the solo “Through the Silence” standing one leg. The precarious position eventually suggested a resolute desire to stand strong in the face of obstacles.
In “Nina Remixed,” the full company proved their versatility, moving across a choreographic palette that included the swinging, pulsing rhythms of arm-swinging West African movements; hip-grinding jazz isolations, and balletic pirouettes. Every step had a confident posture—an attitude that made it easy to overlook the occasional wobble.
The dancers’ self-possessed performance quality meant some moments offered a glimpse of emotional depth that will surely grow with the company. Adriana Ray’s acting made “At Play” an apt and hilarious depiction of the power struggles of childhood games. Daniele Martin’s intensity in the solo “Reset” made a relatively simple choreographic conceit, a fight to untangle the dancer’s bound arms, a statement on how persistence is central to self-empowerment. Tubbs’ solo in “Nina Remixed” saw the fantastically strong dancer use her physical agility to communicate a sense of internal turmoil.
Welcome to Austin dance Ballet Afrique. We need you.
The show continues tonight at 8 p.m. at Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road. www.balletafrique.org
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March 9, 2010
Review: Thang Dao's 'Quiet Imprint,' Ballet Austin II
Love stories between a man and woman (often of royal parentage) enjoy narrative hegemony in ballet. But Ballet Austin and choreographer Thang Dao proved ballet can be (and should be) a tool for telling other stories, too.
Ballet Austin II, Ballet Austin’s apprentice company, premiered Dao’s “Quiet Imprint” this weekend at Ballet Austin’s AustinVentures Studio.
Dao paired contemporary ballet with the smoky, almost bluesy voice of Vietnamese singer Khanh Ly to tell Vietnamese Americans’ stories of growing up in Vietnam during waves of war and violence. The series of vignettes to ten songs, performed live by Ly, hinted at narrative, but more compellingly portrayed a emotional landscape of survival: fierce struggle in the face of sorrow.
Dao crafts an image of a community of undulating bodies of rocking and swaying dancers. A couple swims forward from the group, but just as quickly the group swells to swallow them. No man nor woman ever seems representative of a single character, but the dancers gain identities through relationships. In an early section, a series of women perhaps mourn a lost love. The pairs intertwine their bodies, but never seem to see each other, as though a memory, not an actual man lifts each woman.
In general, the piece’s partnered choreography is strong because Dao imagine partnering as much more than one man lifting one woman. Some of the most interesting partnering features two quartets. In each two men and a woman work together to lift the other man.
The slow rock of Ly’s singing shapes much of the piece’s movement, but one section — really, one movement — stands out as sharply defiant. The cast circles the stage, one at a time interrupting their running fist-pumping, foot-punching jumps.
So much in this ballet is sad, but the dancers seem to refuse to go down under the emotional weight. Similarly, Ballet Austin II’s young dancers face Dao’s choreographic challenges thoughtfully. The dancers explore what it means to give into gravity, often letting their legs lead as their torsos ripple slowly behind.
It’s exciting to see young dancers trying out new ways to move and, equally exciting that Ballet Austin, by commissioning now a fourth from Dao, has made a long-term commitment to an emerging voice.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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March 1, 2010
Ballet Austin's 2010-2011 season
Romanticism rules much of Ballet Austin’s 2010-2011 season.
Along with its usual holiday presentation of ‘The Nutcracker,’ the company will dance ‘La Sylphide,’ widely credited as the first romantic ballet and first staged by the Paris Opera ballet in 1832. The story of a young groom who leaves his bride in pursuit of a tempting, beautiful sylph runs, perhaps appropriately, Feb. 11-13, 2011, right up against Valentine’s Day.
Then on Mother’s Day weekend (May 6-8), the company presents the ballet version of Mozart’s romantic opera, ‘The Magic Flute.’
Ballet Austin opens its season Sept. 24-26 with re-mounts of two works by artistic director Stephen Mills, ‘Carmina Burana’ and ‘Kai.’
A as-yet-to-be-announced program for the Studio Theatre Project March 25-April 3 will play in Ballet Austin’s 270-seat Austin Ventures Studio Theater at the company’s downtown Austin headquarters.
The apprentice company, Ballet Austin II, will reprise Mills’s popular ballet for young audiences ‘Not Afraid of the Dark,’ Sept. 18-19 at the Paramount.
See www.balletaustin.org for more information.
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February 23, 2010
'Quiet Imprint' explores Vietnamese American recollections of the Vietnam War
Four years ago, choreographer Thang Dao won the Audience Choice award at Ballet Austin’s first biennial ‘New American Talent/Dance’ project.
Now, the New York-based Dao returns to Austin with ‘Quiet Imprint,’ a new work based on personal narratives the choreographer gathered from the central Texas Vietnamese community.
‘Quiet Imprint’ gets its world premiere March 6 and 7 by Ballet Austin II, the apprentice company.
7 p.m. March 6, 2 p.m. March
AustinVentures StudioTheater, Butler Dance Education Center, 501 W. Third St.
$15
www.balletaustin.org
Dao’s dance depicts the arduous journey experienced by the countless displaced Vietnamese men and women who lived through the Vietnam War, especially those who ended up in Austin.
Dao’s grounded his work in an open dialogue with the Vietnamese elders, documenting their journey of exile and then connecting them with the dancers. Thus, folk dance movements and individual stories were directly shared. Dao worked with Women’s Alliance Vietnam’s Education (WAVE) to reach out to Austin’s Vietnamese community.
Also, ‘Quiet Imprint’ was inspired by legendary Vietnamese singer Khanh Ly’s soulful performances of the country’s beloved songwriter, Trinh Cong Son’s music. In a rare appearance, Ly will perform live with Ballet Austin II.
Here’s video interview with Thang Dao, produced by Ballet Austin:
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Review: 'Black Grace'
Unison, the portions of a dance piece where dancers move in perfect synchronicity, can be a powerful choreographic tool.
This is not news to legions of choreographers, but perhaps no company harnesses unison’s power better than Black Grace. The New Zealand-based company, at UT’s Bass Concert Hall Saturday, pushes unison to another level. The dancers inject such intensity into dancing together they achieve oxymoronic status—they are so unified they seem to move with more than unison.
The company’s choreography, by artistic director and company founder Neil Ieremia, invites such unity through sophisticated, sustained simplicity. “Deep Far” employed cyclical repetition to entrancing effect. Four dancers—Tupua Tigafua, David Williams, Abby Crowther, and Zoe Watkins—seamlessly slid around and across a circle. The piece’s layered repetition made the closing moment astonishing. The four dancers interlaced their bodies. Each couple locked their legs together and opened their chests and arms to the soft, still sound of a storm’s first drops. It seemed as though the repeated movement allowed the dancers to open their bodies, not just their mouths, to the falling rain.
Ieremia functioned as the show’s emcee, explaining from center stage how he combines Pacific Islander culture with modern dance to create Black Grace’s repertory. The informative interludes likely made the program more accessible for an audience unfamiliar with Pacific Islander culture. Ieremia’s tone, which bordered on stand-up comedy, undercut some of his more potent political statements.
The collection of six pieces displayed Black Grace’s range of cultural hybridity. Lausae (Tapulu Tele) depicted the Samoan tattooing tradition. Men spread themselves across three large stones as other dancers mimed the wiping of blood: a depiction of the intense, full-bodied tattooing process. Screams and the sounds of tapping echoed from the accompanying score.
Such obvious references (at least obvious after Ieremia’s introduction) could be too simple, but they build into a large theatrical and kinetic vision. For much of the piece, the dancers fly across the stage—a choreographic pattern repeated to even more excitement in “Gathering Clouds,” which Ieremia choreographed in response to an economist racist publications about Pacific Islander in New Zealand.
The giant rocks in “Lausaue,” New Zealand’s famous river stones, were one of several stunning design choices. The lighting design for all the pieces (uncredited in the program) shaped large group dancing. At the end of “Pati Pati,” the ensemble moved slowly. Light carved shapes across the dancers’ bare shoulders. Then, the dancers turned toward each other, their repeated reaches skyward seemingly drawing bright yellow light into the center of the circle. As the dancers strode backwards into the wings, the light expanded. This company leaves a trace of light behind them wherever they appear.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Photo by Neil Ieremia.
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February 13, 2010
Review: Ballet Austin's 'Truth & Beauty: The Bach Project'
Choreographers can’t resist the lure of J.S. Bach’s stately, luscious music.
Ballet Austin artistic director Stephen Mills added himself to dance history’s long list of baroque smitten choreographers when Ballet Austin’s ‘Truth & Beauty: The Bach Project’ opened Friday at the Long Center’s Dell Hall.
With clever approaches to familiar classical music and a wealth of excellent musicians in the pit, Mills and Ballet Austin have pulled off another artistic success.
Creating three new pieces that compose a full evening program is a huge artistic risk. It means one choreographer had to have three new concepts, work with three sets of music, and rehearse three casts. But Mills did it, and he did it quite well. It will be interesting to see whether the company keeps all three works in repertory and how each work will stand on its own. As a program, these three ballets were meant for each other.
“Truth and Beauty” rose to the challenge of Bach’s “Orchestral Suite #2.” The company captured the music’s tone as the company’s men and women, dressed in long, full purple skirts, entered as one. Their steps were deliberate, and they held their chests and chins high. The regal posture resonated with the elevated, almost sacred music.
In smaller group portions, the dancers ably shifted their approach. Jaime Lynn Witts and Frank Shott made a fantastic pair—sprightly royals dancing to Naomi Seidman’s flute, one of six excellent musicians from the Austin Chamber Music Center.
The fantastic live music continued in the program’s second piece, “Angel of My Nature,” as Michelle Schumann stroked the piano through a collage of Bach and Mills’ favorite go-to composer Phillip Glass. The choreography closely matched individual notes: a dancer quickly whipped her leg to a quick trill or jumped in perfect timing with one of Glass’s deep rumbles. In a mid-piece trio, Beth Terwilleger, Paul Michael Bloodgood and David Van Ligon most fruitfully explored the choreography and music’s parallel paths.
Perhaps the program’s biggest risk was asking local new music phenom Graham Reynolds to compos a work inspired by Bach—Reynolds chose “Suite in A minor.” The result “Bounce” might be the program’s most ingenious element, even though the piece’s performances and choreography have not quite fully merged yet.
Reynold’s brass explosions were a welcome shift from the program’s more somber works. The music also gave the dancers a chance to race across the stage, although only Jaime Lynn Witts exhibited a full appetite for the kind of space eating dancing the choreography and music demanded.
‘Truth & Beauty: The Bach Project’ continues 8 p.m. tonight and 3 p.m. Sunday at the Long Center. www.balletaustin.org
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Photo by Tony Spielberg for Ballet Austin.
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February 11, 2010
'Project Forklift' sold-out for this weekend
Performances of ‘Project Forklift’ — new short modern dances for non-dancers by Austin choreographers — are sold-out for this weekend, show producers Forklift Danceworks have announced.
Forklift Danceworks founder and choreographer Allison Orr — created evocative modern dances for such nondancers as firefighters, Elvis impersonators and most recently, City of Austin sanitation workers — challenged for her dancemaking peers to work outside their realm.
‘Project Forklift’ continues next weekend with performances at 8 p.m. Feb. 19-20 and 2 p.m. Feb. 21. www.forkliftdanceworks.org. Get your tickets now if you don’t want to miss out.
Read more about the performance here.
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February 10, 2010
'Project Forklift' throws down a dance challenge
Allison Orr has a challenge for her dancemaking peers.
The award-winning Austin choreographer, who under the umbrella of her company Forklift Danceworks has created evocative modern dances for such nondancers as firefighters, Elvis impersonators and most recently, City of Austin sanitation workers and their trucks, asked five choreographers to do the same: Make dances for people and the everyday moves they do on the job or during the course of their day.
Hence massage therapists, cooks, waiters and a police officer will be just some of the performers in “Project Forklift,” which opens this weekend for five performances at the Off Center.
Read the rest of the story here.
‘Project Forklift’
8 p.m. Feb. 12-20, 2 p.m. Feb. 21
Off Center, 2211 Hidalgo St.
$12-$20
www.forkliftdanceworks.org
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January 30, 2010
Review: Headlong Dance Theatre
It’s hard to have a dinner party when some guests insist on pretending to be horses. That’s not definitely the tension at the heart of Headlong Dance Theatre’s “More,” but it could be. The delightful dance, a collaboration between the Philadelphia dance company and choreographer Tere O’Connor at the Long Center Friday, exploits dance’s most interesting quality: the form’s poetic porousness. With the coupling of O’Connor’s high concept approach to choreography and Headlong’s wit, “More” offers the audience a chance to revel in the gaps between knowing.
Who knows what “More” is “about.” It doesn’t matter. Dancers neigh and paw like hyper horses. Furniture suggests a suburban parlor gathering. The pieces don’t necessarily add up, but they do seem to serve a larger structure. I did not know what was going on. But I was not lost.
Headlong and O’Connor approach everyday, mundane aspects of performance with precision. A brilliant blue vinyl couch, an Oriental rug and a microwave are among the items that create the work’s domestic atmosphere. Somehow when they’re moved into a giant junk pile and lit with a soft white light, the ordinary becomes beautiful, yet still haunted by functionality. Earlier when the furniture is still set up like a living room, dancers enter with several large trees. Once the dancers insert the trees into the existing set so that limbs and leaves cover huge swaths of the stage, the effect is beautiful. Then there’s the last Headlong touch: Nicole Canuso sits, her face now obscured by a limb, adding a witty wink to the lovely landscape.
Precision drives the dancers’ performances, too. Their partnering of flat affect with exact, unison series of tiny gestures produces a quirky juxtaposition that never grows tiring. What could be excessive repetition is fascinating. Dancer Devynn Emory has a special gift for pairing muted, but not vacant facial expression with total body engagement.
I’d describe how Emery’s final horse dance ended the show with another moment of beautiful humor, but then I’d rob future viewers of another moment of “More’s” pleasurable confusion.
The show continues tonight at 8 p.m. at the Long Center.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance critic.
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January 21, 2010
Ballet Austin dance, on demand
Have your ballet whenever you want.
Ballet Austin’s teamed up with Time Warner Cable to offer its award-winning ‘Cult of Color: Call to Color’ a collaboration Ballet Austin Artistic Director/choreographer Stephen Mills, visual artist Trenton Doyle Hancock and composer Graham Reynold.s
TWC’s digital cable customers can tune to On Demand channel 1400 and select Ballet Austin to view the ‘Cult of Coloe’ production in its entirety.
The audacious, innovative, whimsical, entertaining ballet premiered in 2008.
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January 11, 2010
Review: Voice Dance Company
Austin welcomed a new dance company Friday.
Voice Dance Company, directed by former Ballet Austin dancer Gina Patterson, offered its inaugural concert at the Zach Theatre. The evening seemed to be a taste of things to come.
The show featured two pieces by Patterson, a premiere of “Your Provision” and the latter half of “My Witness,” a piece Patterson created for DanceWorks Chicago last spring.
Patterson has developed quite a choreographic voice, first with Ballet Austin and more recently through a growing list of commissions from around the country.
“My Witness” had tastes of Patterson’s ability to spin choreographic layers, and it was buoyed by a rousing, sometimes soulful live accompaniment by Chicago band Sons of the Never Wrong. Individuals standing still amongst a larger group of wild, brash movement dropped notes of sorrow into a world grasping for joy. Promising partnerships between dancers, particularly Rebecca Niziol and Eric Midgley, demonstrated what it means to support another person. They didn’t have to stare longingly at one another. They had to feel one another.
“Your Provision” lacked the sophistication that has brought Patterson’s work previous attention. The piece seemed possibly an eagle’s eye view into a dance studio, where dancers pass through rehearsing and developing relationships with one another, but little else tied the piece’s ten vignettes together.
Some pieces popped more than others, namely “Balkan Chicks,” a striking trio for Niziol, Masa Kolar and Chris Hannon. Patterson managed the almost unthinkable: she made a chair dance — the cliche of all dance cliches — that was entertaining, even funny. Niziol and Kolar sat side-by-side, almost miming running in place while seated, setting up a funny, romping tone. Among the cast of eight dancers, many of whom came to Austin at Patterson’s invitation, Kolar’s sense of timing and internal focus made her stand out.
But still both pieces sometimes suffered from a sense of monotony. Tempos changed and sometimes individuals’ intentions shifted, but the dancers seemed to cut through the same air in the same way again and again. Beauty is nice; tension is more interesting. And it will be interesting to see where Austin’s latest new company goes next.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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January 4, 2010
New dancing into the new year
Former Ballet Austin principal dancers Gina Patterson and Eric Midgley have created Voice Dance Company, which leaps into its debut performance this weekend.
The award-winning Patterson premieres a selection of her new short works and also presents the Austin premiere of her critically acclaimed work ‘My Witness’ first performed in March at DanceWorks Chicago. As in the Chicago premiere, folk trio Sons of the Never Wrong will provide the live music to Patterson’s dance piece.
Patterson’s been active on Austin’s indie choreography scene — such as it is — and beyond. Her dances have not only been performed for Ballet Austin but also regional companies such as Richmond Ballet, Ballet Florida and Nashville Ballet, among others.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Kleberg Stage, Zach Theatre, 1510 Toomey Road
$30-$40
www.voicedancecompany.org
DanceWorks Chicago from Andreas Böttcher on Vimeo.
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December 16, 2009
Review: Tapestry's 'Of Mice & Music: A Jazz Nutcracker'
Usually the most noticeable percussive sound in Nutcracker issues from the toy of the same name.
Tapestry Dance Company shifts the sounds of the holiday classic from toys and Tchaikovsky to taps in its new production “Of Mice and Music,” which premiered Monday at Salvage Vanguard Theatre.
Running just under an hour, the new show looks to become an annual Austin dance fete. The slightly cramped audience in SVT’s theatre eagerly peered around one another’s shoulders to glimpse the large cast, which included adult, teen, and children students from Tapestry’s academy, as well as the professional company. The tiniest mice and the quickest feet made the lean-in worthwhile.
The company has significantly revised the Christmas story, making dance more than a decorative feature in the story. Clara (Meghan Davis) receives a pair of tap shoes as her magical Christmas gift, thus entering a world where characters create and prove themselves through dance.
One of the best moments unfolds as the Rat King (Tony Merriwether) and Nutcracker (Jeffrey Olson) battle each other in a tap competition.
Several dances made full use of the interaction with live band Blue J, who developed the jazzy score from Tchaikovsky’s score. In the Russian and Marzipan segments, Matt Shields and Katelyn Thompson respectively, tapped out the well-known music in spaces the band left open for them. Tapestry always does an excellent job of reminding audiences that tap is both music and dance.
Artistic director Acia Gray hovered over the evening as magical guide, Ms. Bon Marche, transforming the ballet’s eccentric uncle character into a diva Drosselmeyer..
As the story ends, Clara stands under the Christmas tree wearing the diva’s gifts: a fur boa and tap shoes. Merry Christmas.
‘Of Mice & Music: A Jazz Nutcracker’ continues at 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday at Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road. $15. www.tapestry.org
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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December 10, 2009
‘Dance-Along Nutcracker'
Keeping Austin invincibly weird. Donning fanciful red jackets and hats that resemble the old-fashioned military outfit worn by a classic nutcracker figurine, the indie band Invincible Czars charge through their rock-ed up version of “The Nutcracker Suite.” And you’re invited to dance along!
‘Dance-Along Nutcracker’
When: 3 p.m. Saturday, family-friendly show. 9 p.m. adult show
Where: Jovita’s, 1617 S. First St.
Cost: $8 adults, $4 children. Adults’ show: $10
www.invincibleczars.com
The Invincible Czars perform their ‘Dance-Along Nutcracker’ at Houston’s Wortham Center Houston
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December 7, 2009
Review: Ballet Austin's 'The Nutcracker'
The swish of taffeta dresses heard in early December can only mean one thing: it’s time for Ballet Austin’s “Nutcracker” again.
At the Long Center Sunday afternoon, the patent leather shoe-wearing children were in full effect. Although the “Nutcracker” matinee’s audience demographic suggests the show targets children, the company’s performance attests there are many reasons for balletomanes of all ages to revisit the holiday classic.
This year marks the company’s second “Nutcracker” run in the Long Center, and the theatre’s size allows for the celebration of “Nutcracker’s” full spectacle.
The set, designed by Richard Isackes, creates opulent worlds for ballet dreaming, both in the early first act party scene at the Silberhaus’s home and in the second act’s Kingdom of the Sweets. Many of designer Tommy Bourgeois’s costumes, particularly the party dresses for adult and children and the many tutus of the second act, accentuate the production’s sense of luxury. It’s nice to see that Ballet Austin avoids the “Nutcracker” ballet trap: often the classic veers towards looking run-down and re-hashed. Ballet Austin’s production sparkles.
Much of the dancing, particularly from the company’s women, extended the production’s clear, open feeling. As Snow Queen, Jaime Lynn Witts had a calm dignity. Kirby Wallis’s flash in the Spanish variation and Rebecca Johnson’s sleek Arabian were second-act standouts.
With so many solos and pas de deux, ensemble performances can go overlooked in “Nutcracker,” but the corps dancers in Snow and Waltz of the Flowers deserve recognition. In Snow, dancer Beth Terwilleger seemed a strong, sure leader among a flurry of beauty.
While Stephen Mill’s choreography does not always follow the swells in Tchaikovsky’s iconic score, Mills excels at creating smaller moments of suspension, from the more staid dances done by the parents in the party scene through the delicate variation for the French couple (Terwilleger and one of the company’s most promising recent additions Joseph Hernandez).
As Sugar Plum Fairy, Michelle Thompson made the most of Mill’s signature timing, opening her arms with a slow grace in the Grand Pas de Deux’s final turns. As Sugar Plum Cavalier, Frank Shott, yet again, proved himself the company’s strongest, most confident partner, a quality too often absent in other moments in Sunday’s performance.
While the adults might have been the focus Sunday, the cast’s children are integral to the annual “Nutcracker” event. As Clara, Macrina Butler displayed lovely shoulder and head placement, creating a central character worthy of center stage.
Like Clara, we all deserve a “Nutcracker” this year.
‘The Nutcracker’
7:30 p.m. Dec. 11-12, Dec. 18-22; 2 p.m. Dec. 13, Dec. 19-20, Dec. 23
Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Dr.
$15-$71
www.balletaustin.org
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Photo by Amitava Sarkar.
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December 2, 2009
Ballet Austin adds audio described 'Nutcracker' shows
After we wrote about the free audio description services provided to visually impaired at Ballet Austin’s ‘The Nutcracker’ this year, word has spread. And demand is up.
Due to demand, audio description will be offered at two more ‘Nutcracker’ performances for a total of four performances:
7:30 p.m. Dec. 12
New shows: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 18 and Dec. 19
2 p.m. Dec. 20
Audio description is free and the Long Center for the Performing Arts has 50 headsets available without reservation.
Tickets to ‘The Nutcracker’ are $15-$71 and can be purchased at www.balletaustin.org.
Audio description is provided by VSA arts of Texas, a nonprofit organization that connects people with disabilities to the arts. For further information contact www.vsatx.org
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November 23, 2009
Review: Tapestry's '20/20'
Many a dancer would cite a dance studio as a second home or fellow dancers as a second family. Austin’s Tapestry dance company celebrated twenty years of making dance and making connections Sunday afternoon at the Long Center’s Rollins Theatre.
A variety of Tapestry alums returned to dance alongside the current five-member company and company co-founders Deirdre Strand and current artistic director Acia Gray.
The program’s first half focused on the returning dancers, many of whom danced a favorite piece from their time in the company while a video screen projected recordings of their original performances above them.
Alum Molly MacGregor choreographed the half’s only new piece, “Current,” a tribute to her Tapestry teachers. As her hands repeatedly reached up and forward, flicking the air and then opening MacGregor effectively combined spry intensity and thankful blessings.
In the program’s second half, attention shifted to the current company, who danced solos often excerpted from larger, more recent group works. Katelyn Thompson’s solo from Sarah Petronio’s “Joy Spring” coupled intensity with playfulness. Thompson is always successful at holding the stage on her own.
Siobhan Cook, the last current company member to dance a solo and Strand’s daughter, had the simplest performance but it summed up the program’s sentiment. Cook reprised her role as “The Child” from the company’s 1996 “The Games People Play,” walking about the stage and hugging dancers new and old. Her embrace sent them into motion. The moving portrait suggested dancing together creates a set of relationships that sustain much more than the next double pirouette.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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November 20, 2009
Tapestry Dance Company looks back
Twenty years ago, Acia Gray and Deidre Strand, both accomplished tap dancers, dreamed of merging other dance genres with the rhythm-oriented tap style. The outcome of that dream is Tapestry Dance Company, an Austin professional nonprofit dance company that has delighted audiences with its signature blend of modern, ballet and world dance all woven together by explosive tap dance. The company also maintains a busy dance academy in South Austin and has garnered a slew of local awards. In 2002, Gray was inducted into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame.
Most recently, Tapestry took its show on the national road. ‘The Souls of Our Feet: A Celebration of American Tap Dance,’ which restages noted historic and contemporary rhythm tap dances, is currently on tour through the National Endowment for the Arts’ American Masterpieces program.
This weekend, Tapestry celebrates with a retrospective show at the Long Center that features the company’s current dancers as well as alumni from seasons past.
Gray answers questions in a Q-and-A here. Below, are some of her further thoughts.
Q: Any thoughts what you’re discovered about the mixing of not just dance styles, but dancers trained in different styles and audiences accustomed to seeing certain styles?
When Deirdre and I started Tapestry in 1989, we were drawn to not only utilizing our dance training as individuals but creating a foundation of non-restriction in our creativity. At the time, Hubbard Street was the only “multi-form” dance company in the US and there was little cross-discipline choreography. We were both members of Austin On Tap and working consistently in tap dance not only locally but a broad touring schedule.
With my degree in Acting from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and Deirdre’s from TCU, we were hungry to explore the possibilities of a company that could play not only with diverse dance disciplines and their shared experience but the exploration of rhythm - sharing the power of dance as a communication tool not only as a technique but a living experience for our dancers and our audiences.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), what made Tapestry different is still what distinguishes the company: tap dance. But with that, it seems that tap is what our audience really want to see. What they don’t realize is that it’s the juxtaposition of the other “styles” within the company’s work that creates a window to see that beautiful American dance form in a different way - an emotional connection that is historically new. At least 20 years ago before Tapestry. We will always be a multi-form company making that connection.
With this collaborative journey, the company’s dancers are asked to go from one extreme to another — bare feet, tap shoes, jazz shoes/ long flexible muscles against the fast twitch muscles needed for tap. Going from one form to another or asking a tap dancing body to roll on the floor and then get up and tap a mile a minute can take its toll. Injuries are definitely an ongoing issue. Finding dancers who can go to these extremes is also a challenge.
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November 16, 2009
Ballet Austin's 'Light' impress in Pittsburgh
Ballet Austin artistic director Stephen Mills left Austin audiences breathless with ‘Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project’ in 2005.
This fall, Mills took his groundbreaking multimedia contemporary ballet that deftly re-visits the Holocaust to Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.
And its seems that Mills’ elegant yet visceral story of belief, bigotry, isolation, survival and hope has impressed in Pittsburgh the way it did in Austin.
The Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre presentation of ‘Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project’ is impressing Pittsburgh critics.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said “Mills succeeded in extracting a strange beauty from a horrible tragedy.”
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review calls it “powerfully emotional theatrical experience that doesn’t let go when you leave the theater.”
Photo courtesy Ballet Austin.
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Review: Trey McIntyre Dance Project & Compagnie Julie Dossavi
Early in Compagnie Julie Dossavi’s performance of “P.I. Or Presentations Intimes,” Dossavi walks in a slight crouch with musician Yvan Talbot close behind. He taps his hand drum with each step. This close connection between dance and music made “P.I.”’s performance at the Long’s Center’s Rollins Theater, presented by Dance Umbrella, absolutely engrossing.
Austin’s other notable dance performance this week, Trey McIntyre Project’s one-night stop at UT’s Bass Concert Hall was also music-driven. McIntyre’s choreography often runs parallel to his musical choices, whereas Dossavi’s work more directly intermingles dance and music.
Dossavi, who is French and of African descent, worked with musicians Talbot and Allan Houdayer, as well as singer and dancer Diarra Papa Gedeon to create “P.I.” The melding of modern dance, West African dance and instruments, and digital music offers a gorgeous example of contemporary art from the African diaspora blending technology and tradition. Houdayer hunches over his computer. Gedeon sings in the high-pitched style of his native Mali. Talbot caresses booming sounds from the djembe drum. And Dossavi dances with exacting focus, responding to every note they sound. She is not just dancing to their music. She is listening to their music with her entire body.
Dossavi is not well-known in the U.S., but in the last decade Trey McIntyre has become one of the US’s dance darlings. The Wednesday night show last week was his company’s first visit to Austin.
Before he established the company in 2005, McIntyre’s primary work had been as a frequently commissioned ballet choreographer. The now full-time company, based in Boise, Idaho, makes it possible to see entire evenings of McIntyre’s work. The verdict based on Wednesday: McIntyre choreographs along a wide spectrum of moods and music (some more compelling than others) and he has convinced some fantastic dancers to work in Idaho.
McIntyre is known for drawing inspiration from pop and classical music, often within the same piece. In “Shape,” a brief trio to indie rock by Goldfrapp and the Polyphonic Spree, McIntyre demonstrates his ability to make happy work that never feels cheesy. Three dancers playfully perform with balloon attachments: two balloons hilariously stuffed beneath Lauren Edson’s T-shirt, two balloons in Annali Rose’s hands, and one balloon anchored on Dylan G-Bowley’s head. The balloons in Rose’s hands accentuate the detail with which she uses her arms. Every motion she makes unfolds with intricate complexity, but is still clean and clear. Rose was a standout but the entire company has a clarity of line and synchronicity that makes them easy to watch.
Another trio, “(serious)” brought, not surprisingly, angular sobriety to the program. Danced by Chanel Da Silva, Jason Hartley and Brett Perry, the pieces approaches Henry Cowell’s music somewhat like what early modern choreographers called music visualization. Each movement corresponds directly to a musical note or inflection. A tremolo on the piano: Hartley quickly taps his feet against the floor in a fluttering run, for instance. The formula never gets tired in the piece (which can happen easily) because the dancers have absolute commitment and the choreography balances the simplicity of its approach with the complexity of Cowell’s score.
The program also included “Like a Samba,” and “The Sun Road.” The former brought together the intensity of “(serious)” with “Shape’s” lighthearted pleasantries. “The Sun Road,” a dance interspersed with film of the cast dancing in Glacier National Park lacked the cohesiveness of the evening’s other pieces, although the film had one of the most compelling images of the night: a male dancer lying naked in a bed of snow. Every time the picture returned he had sunk deeper, as though his body heat slowly overpowered nature.
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November 8, 2009
Review: Chaddick Dance Theater's 'Freefall
Austin-based dancemaker Cheryl Chaddick’s choreography spans a wide range of performance dynamics.
In Friday night’s performance of ‘Freefall’ — the first of a three weekend run at Salvage Vanguard Theatre — the Chaddick Dance Theater presented an evening of Chaddick’s work, including pieces that seemed made for an audience to watch and others that seemed more about dancers on introspective journeys.
Three musical works by The Lyric Quartet framed “Three for Violin,” the most presentational of the evening’s dances. The all-female cast’s smiles contributed to the sense that they relished the opportunity to spin and leap in their metallic, layered dresses, created by costumer Elizabeth Vowell. Dancer April Mackey centered the piece, performing a calm, but strong solo in the work’s second section.
Program closer “The Watchful Sleeping Heart” featured more somber choreography that suggested women on a never-ending journey. Projections shown as backdrop moved from desert sands to rocky mountains to drenched rain forests. Some of the most striking moments occurred when the dancers ran to the wall, their silhouettes etched into the photograph of expansive landscapes.
Chaddick’s quirkiest piece, “I’m Your Lullaby,” was a welcome respite from the more overtly dance pieces. Four characters, named in program notes as Teena “Teenie” Tahtas, Toni Grover, Nutmeg, and Chanteuse cavorted about the stage doing almost unison with shades of character layered on top. Tahtas and Chanteuse were more likely to flounce. Grover and Nutmeg (Chaddick as a rather convincing drug-addled hippie) were more likely to amble. The tiny variations on a theme were sometimes hilarious, sometimes fascinating.
The program also included Chaddick’s “The Gambit” and Cynthia Chaddick’s photographic montage “Faces and Images of India,”
‘Freefall’
8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays through Nov. 21
Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road
$12-$15
www.chaddickdancetheater.com
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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October 5, 2009
Review: Ballet Austin
As the Austin City Limits Festival celebrated nineties bands like Pearl Jam in Zilker Park, down the road at the Long Center Ballet Austin also celebrated the nineties this weekend—the 1890s. Friday night the company proved its classical chops in “Swan Lake’s” second act, based on Russian greats Maurius Petipa and Lev Ivanov’s 1895 choreography, and artistic director Stephen Mills’ newest creation “The Firebird.”
In both ballets, the company’s women proved that to excel in classical ballet is to be able to transform into something more than human. As swan leader Odette, Ashley Lynn Gilfix remade her arms into delicate wings. Dancing the ballet’s central pas de deux, with Frank Shott as Prince Siegfried, Gilfix met the challenge, but both dancers seemed uncharacteristically anxious.
“Swan Lake’s” precise and demanding choreography leaves no place to hide less-than-stellar technique, and the corps dancing demands absolute unison movement. Ballet Austin’s sixteen swans performed with amazing synchronicity—quite a feat since the orchestra and dancers seemed like they were still testing out one another’s musicalities. The swans’ crispness made them seem worthy adversaries to evil sorcerer Von Rothbart (Christopher Swaim). As they battled him in the final moment, they seemed like a corps of swans who just might win.
“Swan Lake” and “Firebird” made an interesting program, in part because Mills’ striking use of asymmetry in “Firebird” sharply contrasted with Petipa and Ivanov’s absolute symmetry.
As the title character, Aara Krumpe was stunning. She has a perceptive ability to create angles with her body. Her chin has just the right thrust. Her eyes have just the right sharpness. As evil magician Kastchei, Edward Carr also made the most of the choreography’s clever shapes. Evil villains and beautiful birds: they are ballet’s winning combination no matter the century.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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October 2, 2009
Meanwhile, not at ACL
Not going to Austin City Limits this weekend? There’s plenty of ‘other’ music and arts going in town.
At the Long Center tonight through Sunday, Ballet Austin is staging Stephen Mills’ new choreography of ‘Firebird, offering a 21st-century take on a century-old dance to music of Igor Stravinsky. Read more about it here.
Here’s a rare video of the 82-year-old Stravinksy himself conducting the finale to his ‘Firebird Suite.
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September 15, 2009
Review: Ballet Austin II's 'Peter and the Wolf'
Ballet Austin’s Associate Director Michelle Martin opened “Peter and the Wolf” with a brief Ballet 101 lesson, explaining to the crowd of children in the Austin Ventures Theatre Saturday that ballet is a non-verbal art.
Part of the fun of watching ballet with a room of kids is that they refuse non-verbal spectatorship. As the members of Ballet Austin II, the apprentice company for Ballet Austin, danced Stephen Mills’ choreography to music by Sergei Prokofiev spontaneous reviews popped out all over the theater.
As the duck, Gwenyth Kelley’s dedication to character — most apparent in her waddle — sent waves of chuckles through the pint-sized crowd. Peter (Calvin L. Thomas, Jr.) is the hero of the story and seemed to capture the children’s enthusiasm. Thomas is a clean, clear dancer, more than capable of the buoyancy often used to mark characters as childlike in ballet.
Preston Andrew Patterson danced the role of the Wolf well, but the role proved a bit too much for much of the audience, a rather young crowd since the ballet has been advertised for 2- to 8-year-olds. The Wolf’s appearances resulted in frightened faces and heads buried in parental laps. Several kids looked reassured after the show, when Patterson removed his Wolf head and, with the rest of the cast, greeted the departing children.
Even if the scare factor frightened the youngest fans, the show did seem to hold the kid’s attention. Including Martin’s introduction, the entire production clocks in at 50 minutes.
“Peter and the Wolf” continues 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.Austin Ventures Studio Theater, Ballet Austin, 510 W. Third St. $14. www.balletaustin.org
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance dance critic.
Photo by Tony Spielberg.
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September 14, 2009
Review: Making the trucks dance in 'The Trash Project'
Saturday night on a defunct airport runway shiny with rain, a bevy of trash trucks and a couple of dozen sanitation workers became dance stars in a spectacular and surprisingly moving performance created by Austin choreographer Allison Orr.
Though the torrential rains hampered goings-on across the Austin area this weekend, it didn’t deter Orr and her volunteers from the city of Austin’s Solid Waste Service Department from going ahead with “The Trash Project,” the massively-scaled performance more than a year in the making.
Nor did the weather deter a beyond-capacity audience from heading to the tarmac behind the film production facilities Austin Studios, the site of Austin’s former Mueller Airport.
In a career that’s included crafting choreography for fire fighters, dog walkers, Venetian gondoliers and other groups whose professions or avocations demand regular physical movement, it wasn’t surprising that Orr pulled off such a complex show went off in the rain.
What was surprising is how much like pure dance ‘Trash Project’ ultimately was. Orr delivered one of her most celebratory, thoughtful and emotionally resonant shows yet. Orr made trash trucks dance — and with feeling and drama.
Bleachers seating for 700 filled quickly and at least as many people stood to watch. Some clutched umbrellas; others sported rain ponchos and slickers. Everybody cheered, applauded and whooped, greeting each new wave of activity as trucks and workers maneuvered through 14 different movements.
Clad in neon yellow safety wear, the sanitation workers did what they do best: roll and load plastic trash carts, jump gazelle-like on and off the back of a rapidly moving trucks and drive with precision in carefully choreographed patterns.
With incredible respect, Orr translated everyday physical labor into cleverly patterned movement without a hint of unnecessary spectacle.
Like the most graceful of ballerinas on pointe shoes, a crane truck operated by Don Anderson glided through nimble moves, its mechanical claw slowly extending and retracting as it spun in near perfect unison with delicate piano music played by Austin composer Graham Reynolds.
At three separate intervals, the dead animal truck wove solo across the stage area as tender music and voiceover comments by driver Tony Dudley told anecdotes of his job such as retrieving deceased beloved childhood pets. After driving in complex patterns, a quartet of trucks with automated arms rollicked through some synchronized moves.
Reynolds, using a combination of pre-recorded music with some synthesized sound and a live piano trio, gave “The Trash Project” an inventive soundtrack that was at times joyously funky and at times touchingly melodic.
A cinematic musical flourish greeted the beginning as the 16 vehicles snaked in front of the audience. A segment of celebratory rap exalted recyling. And sweeper truck driver and professional musician Orange Jefferson treated with a blues harmonica solo.
That lighting director Stephen Pruitt managed to engagingly illuminate such a vast outside area seemed nearly miraculous. That Pruitt did so to great dramatic effect even more so.
But that a crowd of about 1500 could be riveted in the night rain as sanitation workers demonstrated their skill proves Orr’s most salient artistic message: Our daily labors often make the most meaningful art.
Read a story about the making of ‘The Trash Project’ here.
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September 12, 2009
The 'Trash Project' is on tonight -- rain or shine
From Forklift Danceworks comes this announcement:
- The Trash Project is on for 7:30 p.m. tonight- rain or shine!
Please bring rain gear and a seat cushion or towel to sit on as the bleachers may be wet. We are discouraging umbrellas for people sitting in bleachers as umbrellas will block views of the stage. You can stand with an umbrella if you like
The Trash Project
Saturday, September 12th at 7:30pm
Austin Studios Tarmac (1901 East 51st; just east of the intersection of 51st and Berkman).
Doors open at 7pm, seating is general admission and 700 seats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Admission is free (donations will be happily collected!) and there is plenty of free parking. We will have a limited about of Trash Project t-shirts for sale as well (cash only!). Show will run about 1 hour.
br> Come out and support your city’s sanitation workers. They work in the rain all the time. Let’s watch them dance in the rain tonight!
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September 11, 2009
'Trash Project' set to roll; rain date scheduled just in case
The trash trucks are ready to roll Saturday night when choreographer Allison Orr launches ‘The Trash Project.’
The show is Austin Studios, 1901 E. 51st St. Doors will open at 7 p.m. Seating is general admission and 700 seats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Admission is free.
And with an unpredictable forecast on the horizon, the rain date for ‘The Trash Project’ is Sunday, Sept. 13 at 7:30 p.m.
Forklift Danceworks will announce by 12 noon on Saturday if the performance will be rescheduled to Sunday night. Check the Forklift Web site for announcements.
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September 10, 2009
'The Trash Project' celebrates everyday labor as art
Choreographer Allison Orr has coaxed firefighters, dog walker, Elvis impersonators and Venetian gondoliers to be dancers. In the process, Orr has created not just spirited shows, but also poked at our pre-conceived notions of what kind of movement can be considered dance.
Now, the innovative Austin dancemaker transforms the movements and equipment of 25 workers from the city’s Solid Waste Services Department and 16 trash-collecting vehicles into a large-scale dance celebration of the physical labor most of us overlook.
‘The Trash Project’ will have its only show Saturday at 7:30 p.m. on the tarmac of the Austin Studios, 1901 E. 51st St. The show is free.
Read a full story about Orr’s project.
Watch a video here.
Orr tapped lighting designer Stephen Pruitt to wrap the performance in dramatic lighting. And composer Graham Reynolds has written an original score for the hour-long show. Reynolds used the recorded sounds of trash equipment in parts of the score. In other moments, it’s a piano trio with Reynolds on piano, Leah Zeger on violin and Hector Moreno on cello. The trio will be performing live Saturday night.
Listen to a rough cut of the music here:
‘The Trash Project.’
7:30 p.m. Saturday
Austin Studios tarmac, 1901 E. 51st St.
Free
www.forkliftdanceworks.org
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August 18, 2009
Dancing at Salvage Vanguard Theater
Salvage Vanguard Theater expands its regular programming withe ‘Dance Offbeat,’ dance showcases every third Thursday of the month.
To start things off, Austin Tapestry Dance Company shows off its modern tap stylings in ‘The Cutting Edge of Tapestry,’ including portions of Tapestry’s ‘The Lindy Project.’
Show starts at 8 p.m. Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 E. Manor Road. $10. www.salvagevanguard.org.
Before the tapping, join dancer Ellen Bartel — founder of the Big Range Dance Festival and Spank Dance Company — at 7 p.m. for her monthly public exploration of Butoh, the meditative Japanese theatrical movement. Bartel’s show is free.
July 2009 Butoh at Salvage Vanguard Theater.
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July 7, 2009
Michael Jackson: As a dancer, he rode the boogie
In Michael Jackson’s 1979 hit “Rock with You,” he croons, “We can
ride the boogie.” Michael Jackson absolutely knew how to “ride the
boogie” to stardom.
Though best known for his music, Jackson’s enormous success had much
to do with his dancing, an absolute asset in the early 1980s as pop
music listeners became music video watchers. A trip through the best
of MJ — in music videos and footage from live appearances — reveals
a figure that, yes, could grab his crotch like no other. But
Jackson’s boogie included so much more.
Every dancer needs a signature move. Jackson found his in the
moonwalk. One of Jackson’s most famous moonwalks came in 1983 during
Motown’s 25th anniversary show (also broadcast on TV). Jackson was an
excellent dancer—capable of nuanced timing and subtle body shifts.
But he really was a showman. He told his audience how to watch his
dancing. Just before moonwalking while singing “Billie Jean” on the
NBC telecast, his pulls up his pant legs. His white socks contrast
with his black shoes and black pants. “Look at my feet!” his costume
says. And then he glides backwards, looking almost inhuman.
The Motown formula that produced the Jackson 5, Michael’s musical and
familial home, relied on unison dancing, a group of four or five
performers dancing absolutely together in fashionable outfits. Clips
from Jackson 5 appearances on “Soul Train” in the early ’70s
illustrate how the Jackson 5’s syncronicity resembled earlier acts
like the tuxedo-clad Four Tops or the bedazzled Supremes, but
Jackson, like Diana Ross, emerges from the group. As the five
brothers spin backwards at the start of “I Want You Back,” Michael
goes a little lower and squeezes a bit more time out of the turn.
Even at 13, Jackson knew how to play with musicality and movement,
separating himself from a crowd. And, wow, could Jackson work a
striped, lycra pantsuit.
Jackson was a true child of ’70s. The nimble James Brown was
Jackson’s artistic father. Several videos record the mutual
admiration between Jackson and Brown, including footage from a 1983
concert where Brown invited Jackson to the stage. Michael joined him,
singing “I Love You” and then busting out a few Brown moves, like the
weak-kneed, slipping, sliding boogaloo that made Brown look like a
man possessed. Jackson builds on Brown’s choreography, adding quick
spins and the lightning flash knee kick, refitting ’70s funk for the
slick ’80s.
Jackson could never be described as a b-boy, but he still managed to
borrow breakdancing’s timing and attitude. In “Thriller’s” epic 1983
video, Jackson stands out among another group of dancers, but this
time it’s zombies rather than his brothers. Jackson works
“Thriller’s” well-known dance moves against the music, snapping his
shoulders or pelvis so quickly, he has time to pause, mimicking the
robotic pulsing of b-boy styles like popping and locking.
Jackson led another dancing ensemble of bad boys in the 1987 video
for “Bad.” Choreographed by Jeffrey Daniels, who, like “Thriller”
choreographer Michael Peters, had worked primarily in musical
theater, the video couples camera angles with unison choreography to
build aggression and anger. Jackson and his crew seem to attack their
audience, making direct references to American dance’s best known
battle, Jerome Robbins’ choreography for “West Side Story.” Although
in the ’80s the dance battle had much more in common with standoffs
between break dance crews than leaps with pointed toes on Broadway.
Recommended Videography: The best of Michael Jackson on YouTube
- “Michael Jackson performs Billie Jean live at Motown 25th Anniversary Special (1983)”
- “Michael Jackson with the Jackson 5 on Soul Train ‘I Want You Back’” Broadcast in 1972; Jackson is 13.
- “James Brown and Michael Jackson RIP”
- “Michael Jackson-Thriller”
- “Michael Jackson-Bad”
Clare Croft is the freelance dance critic of the American-Statesman.
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June 22, 2009
Review: Blue Lapis Light's 'Impermanence'
Dancers repelling off tall downtown buildings, bursting through showers of creatively manipulated light. Or dancers floating on zip lines far overhead the Austin streetscape.
The site-specific aerial dances created by Austin choreographer Sally Jacques have always traded on spectacle — chiefly the spectacular marvel of performers doing dramatic stunts which are then framed with a lot of visual and aural artifice — even if those spectacles haven’t always charted deep artistic trajectories.
But unfortunately, in ‘Impermanence,’ Jacques latest work and the third created for the J. J. Jake Pickle Federal Building in downtown Austin, the spectacle never quite makes an appearance.
Having dancers harnessed to repelling gear or maneuvering on suspended aerial silks ultimately leads to a self-limiting movement vocabulary. After all, there’s only so many things a body can do when it’s tied up or wrapped up. And if those handful of moves or poses — striking an arabesque of sorts after pushing back from a building, a slow fluttering of arms, or twisting and hanging from an aeriel slik — are just strung together tentatively or repeated repetitively, there’s little dramatic build-up and certainly no sense of an artistic journey.
That’s certainly the case with ‘Impermance.’ The limited moves churned in repetition with no trajectory established and little sense of transition. The dark, modernist building — usually a palette that lighting designer Jason Amato leverages to great effect — seemed to swallow up, not show off the dancers. And the episodes of movement seemed little connected to each other.
In the end, the formula Jacques’s relied before — the spectacle of dramatic movement and stunning lighting — just didn’t return this summer to the Pickle Federal Building.
‘Impermanence’ continues at 9:15 p.m. Thursday-Sunday. www.bluelapislight.org.
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June 16, 2009
Review: 'Big Range Dance Festival'
The Big Range Festival ended its two-week Austin stint with a grab bag of modern dance. Saturday’s program at Ballet Austin’s Austin Ventures studio was uneven. Big Range mixes local dance pieces with groups from other cities.
One of the more exciting offerings on Saturday’s program came from Brooklyn. “Supplant,” choreographed by Jamal Jackson, blended West African and modern dance in a collage of fury and fire. Dancers Tiffani Harris, Meredith Moore, Asha Rhodes and Jackson brought intensity and speed to their performances. When they all fell to the floor with a resounding echo at work’s end the audience let out a collective breath and immediately applauded.
The program’s other out-of-town group, Dallas-based Muscle Memory Dance Theatre, had a similar drive to their dancing, although choreographer Lesley Snelson-Figueroa’s creation had a relatively simplistic structure to it. Two groups of women faced off, using portable green picket fences as movable dividing lines. The movement of the fences got rather clunky and repetitive, but the dancing held the piece together well.
Simple choices worked well elsewhere. Local choreographer Sharon Marroquin danced with ease and grace in a parable-esque story of a fisherman who loves to fish, and then learns from his fish.
Festival producer Ellen Bartel’s Spank Dance continued in the quirky vein Bartel seems to be making her signature. With video by Eliot Haynes and a punk-lite score by Adam Sultan, five dancers cavorted about wearing then discarding baroque wigs and skirts. While the tone of the piece felt defiant and suggested a possible political critique, the various elements never quite added up . The program also included Cheryl Chaddick’s earnest “The Watchful Sleeping Heart” and “Cycle I,” an excerpt from Andrea Ariel’s ongoing Gyre project, which premieres its next installment in August.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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June 13, 2009
Review: 'Big Range Dance Festival'
Big Range Austin is a dance festival, but Thursday’s two Big Range performances at Austin Ventures Studio were as much about music as they were dance.
The first program “Composer Challenge” paired musicians and choreographers with mixed results. Of the six pieces, only Jayne King’s “Threshold” and Ben Schave and Caitlin Reilly’s “Tickets, Please!” thoughtfully engaged with their musical accompaniment. The evening’s second program, a combination of improvised music and dance, was inventive and playful.
Part of the problem with “Composer Challenge” might have been its premise. Two composers, Austin Schell and Laura Phelan, each created a piece. Each work was assigned to three different choreographers, who then made three separate pieces. For the audience, this meant sitting through the same musical composition three times within an hour, a tedious task.
Also, neither musical work had a great deal of dynamic shifts. Since most of the choreographers chose to make dance that corresponded to the music, rather than challenging the music’s tempo or tone, dance and music grew monotonous together. King made the fullest embrace of the music, using the repetition in Schell’s “3 Stages of Oblivion” to make a dance about the utility—even pleasure—of repetitive tasks. A large video, projected for the entire piece, focused closely on a slowly rocking wooden chair. First, King sat in a similar chair, also rocking, and then she lay on her back and circled her legs as if bicycling. Then she stood, gripped a bike tire and started to spin, letting the wheel’s weight and inertia pull her round and round, recalling the hours of fun such mundane tasks provided during childhood summers.
Performing as klutzy clowns, Schave and Reilly treated Phelan’s “Swings and Arrows” as background music. Not really a deep choice, but a functional one. Other pieces on the program included works by Rhianon Renae Kjar, Ashley Parker Overton with assistance from her dancers, Deidre Russell Robinson and Shawn Nasralla.
Musician Adam Sultan opened the second show by quickly setting a playful tone. Improvisation performances often offer a chance to watch the subtleties that emerge as dancers and musicians play—play with how weight settles into their bodies, how an instrument sounds when touched in a bizarre way, or what sound happens when a person throws herself into an object. Even when I don’t know what’s going on, I know I’m being asked to open my mind to experience a room and a group of people.
The thirty-minute jam of six dancers and two musicians, Sultan and Thomas van der Brook, felt hypnotic and comedic by turns. In a late solo, Chell Garcia Trias’s joints seemed to melt as she moved. Mari Akita had a quirky sensibility that also separated her from the group. Several performers used improv to point to theatrical conventions often left unmarked. Sultan ran into the audience, producing rhythmic squeaks as he jumped on the theatre’s stairs. As two dancers crawled to the side of the stage, they called to someone in the wings, “Yoo hoo!” The improvisation felt full of clever joy.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
The Big Range Dance Festival continues through Sunday. See www.bigrangeaustin.org.
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June 1, 2009
Review: 'If There Is A Heaven'
Toni Bravo and Diana Huckaby the creators of “If there is a Heaven …, Though shalt not pollute!” chose well when they picked the Umlauf Sculpture Garden for their performance last weekend. The garden’s mix of art and nature invites dance. Swirling pathways and small and large artworks create a kinetic overlay of lines and shapes.
While the garden offered a lovely performance site, the work lacked thematic linkages, even though it circled back several times to environmental themes. In individual moments, the political message was clear: honor the earth. But how the dances—twelve in all, most choreographed by Bravo—added up to homage to the Earth was unclear.
The audience walked through the garden led a large coffin hoisted high by four men, a clanging cowbell, and somber drums. The pieces had a variety of tones. Some were comedic: “The Jesters” had a vaudevillian acrobatic flair all the way down to the dancers’ striped socks, and “The Explorers” had a jungle theme, complete with stuffed monkeys hanging from the trees. (Why add a silly prop to an already lush landscape?)
Some of the more successful individual works were more somber. “Mother Earth’s Angel,” danced by Chika Aluka, drew strength from its central sculpture, a huge, single bird’s wing. In the first half of “The Warriors,” choreographed by Anu Naimpally, dancer Annelize Machado demonstrated how bodies and sculpture make beautiful shapes, not just by hitting positions, but by sending energy out along extended lines.
But moments of depth never became more than moments. And important social messages never became more than didacticism.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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May 11, 2009
Review: Ballet Austin's 'Cinderella'
In Ballet Austin’s “Cinderella,” the shoe fit well enough. The company’s revival of artistic director Stephen Mills’ 1997 ballet has the expected elements: a beautiful Fairy Godmother, a happy couple, and a pumpkin-turned carriage pulled by adorable pint-sized dragonflies. But Friday at Dell Hall, the ballet did little to exceed expectations. The story was confusing, especially around the stepsisters, and the dancing seemed hesitant.
Mills’ “Cinderella” relies heavily on the guidance of the Fairy Godmother, the sparkling Aara Krumpe. With Cinderella (Allisyn Paino) and, later, the Prince (Frank Schott) Krumpe is a dancing guide. In pairs the dancers sweep back and forth as the Fairy Godmother pulls the young lovers toward each other through dance.
Other choreographic choices didn’t feed the story as well. The stepsisters (Anne Marie Melendez and Jamie Lynn Witts) contrast little with Cinderella. It’s an odd case: good dancing undercuts the ballet’s story. Then the stepsisters don’t come to the ball as stepsisters, but as princesses, indistinguishable from the other two princesses (Rebecca Johnson and Beth Terwilleger).
In princess variations, Johnson, Terwilleger, and Witts displayed precision. The incorporation of the ball guests into the main pas de deux was another choreographic high point in Act II. The Austin Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Peter Bay, buoyed all of the dancing.
Paino, best known for funnier performances like Kate in Mills’ “Taming of the Shrew” showed a softer side as Cinderella. Her acting, so compelling as midnight pulled her away from the Prince, will be missed when she retires after the weekend run.
Often Friday’s dancing looked anxious. In a dream sequence where the Fairy Godmother shows Cinderella her future, Johnson and Christopher Swaim struggled. Paino and Schott fulfilled the dream’s promise, also struggling in lifts as they reprised the duet at the ballet’s close.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance dance critic.
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May 4, 2009
Review: 'Grub' and 'Geisha' at Fusebox
Choreographers often overlook the possibilities offered by the mouth when making a dance. In Angelle Hebert and Phillip Kraft’s “Grub,” Portland, Oregon ensemble tEEth — part the Fusebox Festival — leaves no inch of their mouths unexplored. One dancer sticks a finger in the mouth of another and leads her forward. One dancer uses his mouth to remove tape from the floor, pulling it up with his teeth, partially eating it, and then spitting it back out. Repeatedly dancers gesture grotesquely with their tongues.
“Grub,” a Fusebox commission, was the later (and better) portion of Fusebox’s Friday night line-up at Salvage Vanguard. The earlier program, the LeeSaar The Company’s “Geisha” felt disconnected and empty. LeeSaar will return to Fusebox next year with a piece they began work on during their Fusebox/ testperformancetest residency.
Part of “Grub’s” intensity grew from the sense that the dance, while set beforehand, was also an onstage exploration. The performers’ sense of curious, playful investigation spilled into the audience, who laughed as “Grub” got stranger and stranger.
Several handheld cameras enhanced “Grub’s” invitation to bodily invasion. In some sections, dancers turned the cameras on themselves and what they filmed appeared simultaneously on two onstage screens, offering the audience the option of the dancing person or the filmed images.
The projections felt most powerful in moments of paradox, when the onscreen image brought the audience closer to the performer than the actual dancing body could. After disrobing from the white, space-age costumes all the dancers wore, one woman rolled on the floor in a filmy white dress. The camera captured mere inches of her body, sometimes focusing on her eyes— wide in anguish— or her massaging of patches of skin into the black dance floor.
The almost sad solo stood out in “Grub” because most of the piece took a comedic route. In a late quartet, two women sang a repetitious “La La La,” as their male partners first barely brushed or poked them. The partnering grew more physical, but the women insistently continued their chant even as the men flipped them upside down or over their backs.
Repetition produced meaning (and hilarity) in “Grub,” but “Geisha’s” repetitious, undulating choreography never took root in an emotion or tone. The piece featured three people, a topless man and woman (company co-founder Saar Harari and Jye-Hwei Lin) and Lee Sher, the company’s other founder.
Lin often danced alone in silence or with Harari. Their endlessly circulating movement was always sensual, sometimes sexual. The appearance of a bare-breasted Asian woman (Lin was born in Taiwan and moved to the U.S. in 2001) begged for connection to the piece’s title, though any connection seemed elusive at best.
The only other discernible marker of Asian or Asian American references might be the red silk robe that Sher wore in several humorous, Celine Dion-esque musical interludes. But, again, one robe, readily available at Macy’s, doesn’t add up to much. Not much in “Geisha” did.
While “Geisha” felt like a bust, LeeSaar is one of the dance companies getting the most buzz today. Thanks to Fusebox for plugging Austin into an exciting performance scene yet again. Some risks are worth taking.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance dance critic.
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April 26, 2009
Review: Fusebox Fest starts off dancing with 'Erection' & 'Bodies in Urban Spaces'
Dancers have a knack for reminding audiences that bodies have infinite possibilities.
In the opening weekend of the ten-day Fusebox Festival, “Erection” created by French duo Pierre Rigal & Aurélien Bory and performed by Rigal and “Bodies in Urban Spaces” by Austrian choreographer Will Dorner and a squad of local dancers, posed physical questions.
Rigal: Why stand on your feet instead of your shoulders?
Dorner: Why sit on a downtown bench when you could perch on it knees down, butt up?
On Thursday at Ballet Austin’s theatre Rigal morphed from amoeba to frog to biped to hologram as he slowly, deftly rose from lying on the floor to standing. He began on his back, his chest thrusting upwards, as though his heart filled his entire rib cage. On his upwardly mobile journey, Rigal writhed and rippled (he must excel at party game Twister). Simple, colorful projections—a series of white bars on the floor or expanding and shrinking squares of green, blue and red—framed Rigal’s motion.
Finally reaching standing, the projections subsumed his body. First, a strobe light effect (a direct steal from David Parson’s gimmicky, but famous 1982 solo “Caught”) made it look like Rigal could fly. Next a bare-chested, glowing projection of a man (imagine a cross between the Incredible Hulk and Michael Phelps) joined Rigal onstage. Rigal sometimes meshed with his projected partner, and other times left body parts outside the animation. The final effect: wiggling on the floor, the detail-oriented contortions looked more human than the standing man.
No environment could conceal the gymnastics of Dorner’s cast. “Bodies in Urban Space” is basically a contemporary art chase. An ensemble of colorfully clad dancers runs ahead of a walking audience, who encounter the performers in a variety of architectural crevices. During Saturday’s early evening show, the piece quickly transformed bystanders into audiences: bikers quieted their Harleys and rolled back several yards to stare at upside-dance dancers wrapped around a light post.
The intentional audience — those who assembled at Republic Park for the walk to the Capitol — seemed incredibly drawn to photograph every group of butts sticking out of building doorways or legs wrapped around gutter pipes. Bodies apparently don’t come into urban spaces without their iPhones anymore.
The Fusebox Festival continues through May 2. See www.fuseboxfestival.org.
Clare Croft is American-Statesman freelance dance critic.
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April 18, 2009
Review: Diavlolo
The dancers of L.A.-based Diavolo maintained their status as the American gladiators of the performing arts world Friday at the Paramount Theatre. Diavolo shows function somewhat formulaically: a large built structure sits center stage and extremely strong dancers pull themselves across, over, and through the object.
Friday dancers climbed a giant set of stairs in “Tete En L’Air,,” tumbled through a jungle gym cube in “Caged,” mounted a wall with large pegs in “D2R-A,” and rode a giant rocking shell of a boat in “Trajectoire.” Artistic director Jacques Heim and the dancers who help him choreograph these giant spectacles have a gift for manipulating a sense of danger through each piece. Even once the choreographic formula becomes familiar, a sudden fall or a slow slide across a capsizing platform is gasp-inducing.
Program opener “Tete” offers the most sense of story. A series of anonymous, trench-coat clad, fedora-topped figures walk down a gigantic staircase. As John Adams’ music gains momentum, the figures speed up, running and rolling down the steps and sometimes each other. Clothes come off and come undone, as dancers leap into and out of the stairs’ hidden compartments. The stairs’ transformation furthers the piece’s urban references. What was one a passageway now functions as an apartment-filled skyscraper.
But even as “Tete” grows to harried chaos, the dancers work together perfectly. The program hails the dancers’ varied backgrounds from gymnastics to acting, but says the company must be “always teammates.” That cooperation may be what makes the choreography’s sense of danger so appealing, almost heart-warming.
In the final moments of “Trajectoire,” one woman performs on top of the rocking boat’s platform, titled at a sharp angle. The audience can see the structure’s underbelly, where the other eight dancers rest shoulder to shoulder inside, their bodies’ weight holding the structure still. She can move, because other people can hold her.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance dance critic.
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March 27, 2009
Review: Ballet Austin's 'Studio Theater Project'
Ballet Austin had no lonely souls Thursday night.
Couples—some in agony, some in heat—dominated the company’s Studio Theatre Project. The program was its own duo of company premieres with artistic director Mills’ new “Songs of Innuendo” and guest choreographer Nicolo Fonte’s “Left Unsaid.”
Fonte’s piece featured six dancers merging in and out pairs. Odd numbers create conflict or despair, the latter conjured whenever dancers drape themselves over the tense limbs of other dancers. Swinging bodies juxtapose nicely with “Left Unsaid’s” movement palette. Where classical ballet’s pleasure is often predicated upon the satisfaction of legs closing into tight positions, Fonte swears by large, open movements. Who needs fifth position when second position feels so good?
Fonte also twists perspectives on another common ballet convention: ensemble finales danced in unison. Because each of “Left Unsaid’s’” couples develop their emotional relationship in earlier duets, the unison choreography resonated differently for each pair. One set of choreography equaled three layers of emotional texture.
“Songs of Innuendo” went light on suggestion and heavy on sex—the fun, colorful, springy kind. Jamie Lynn Witts and Kirby Wallis were particularly adept at meeting the playful, loose tone of Mills’ work, inspired by soulful classics. Choreographically, the piece was at its best when embracing its title, choosing kinetic metaphor over literal depiction. A charming example: when one dancer bounced off another’s horizontal torso, using her partner’s body like a trampoline. Less charming (and not so much an innuendo): a quartet rolling on their backs and sticking their legs straight in the air, as James Brown belted “Get on up” as part of “Sex Machine.”
“The Studio Theater Project” continues 8 p.m. tday-Saturday, 3 p.m. Saturday-Sunday; 6:30 p.m. April 1-2; 9 p.m. April 2; 8 p.m. April 3-4,; 3 p.m. April 5. Austin Ventures Studio Theatre, 501 W. Third St. $25-30; www.balletaustin.org.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance dance critic.
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March 25, 2009
Ailey's 'Revelations' still brings the house down
A big slice of Austin went to church Tuesday night … in Bass Concert Hall.
When the round tones of “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham” filled Bass as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre ground out Ailey’s soulful “Revelations,” almost everyone in the audience came to their feet. Clapping and swaying along to the piece Ailey created in homage to black, rural, Southern church services seems like a fitting celebration of the Ailey legacy.
The company’s stop in Austin falls in the middle of its 50th anniversary tour. As usual for an Ailey performance, two things remain true: “Revelations” is one of the master works of American art and the Ailey dancers are among the most clear, precise dancers working today.
But for all the glory of Ailey’s achievements, other factors remain undeniable. Yet again the company has commissioned a lackluster work, “Go in Grace,” choreographed by Ailey dancer Hope Boykin with live music by Sweet Honey and the Rock.
For almost a decade, Boykin has been a broad-shouldered force among Ailey’s women. “Go in Grace,” her second work for the company is painfully superficial. The piece follows a family whose son strays until his father’s untimely death. Sweet Honey and a sign language interpreter walk around the family, providing a musical, ladies-on-the-stoop presence. The piece centers on the family’s young, deaf daughter (Yusha-Marie Sorzano).
But until a final solo where Sorzano imagines dancing with her now dead father, the daughter is nothing more than a small thing to be petted and protected. It’s ironic that a dancer as capable of texture and nuance as Boykin—qualities she displayed Tuesday as the dancer front and center in “Revelations” opening “I Been ‘Buked”—would create such a superficial female role.
Sweet Honey’s voices are so clear and open, it seems one could bathe in them, but their lyrics were clichéd and irritating in “Go in Grace.” Sweet Honey’s comments like “you’re so beautiful” filled in the ellipses that make dance such a porous, poetic art form. Leaving nothing to the imagination was a movement theme as well. Lyrics, sign language, and choreography aligned, providing moments where Sweet Honey sang of strength as the dancers flexed their biceps in unison.
Dancing together does not have to be boring could be the tagline for George Faison’s jazzy, sassy “Suite Otis” from 1971. New costumes that redefine the color pink bring out the company’s capacity for camp. For one example see the company’s men boogying to Otis Redding’s pleas to the “hip shakin’ mama” of “I Can’t Turn You Loose.” Ailey dancers can jump and kick higher and longer than anyone, but it is the moments of sass, struggle, and deep joy that keep Ailey performances alive.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre performs again tonight at 8 p.m. See. www.utpac.org for more information.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance dance critic.
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March 24, 2009
'Left Unsaid' -- The smaller the better
This weekend, New York choreography Nicolo Fonte premiere ‘Left Unsaid’ while Ballet Austin’s Stephen Mills premieres ‘Songs of Innuendo,’ a new ballet set to R&B classics by James Brown, Aretha Franklin and others.
“Fonte is no Willie Nelson. His name is not familiar to Austin. But in the international dance world, Fonte is quite the commodity.”
Read the rest of American-Statesman freelancer Clare Croft’s Q-and-A with Fonte here.
Studio Theater Project
When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 3 p.m. Saturday-Sunday; 6:30 p.m. April 1-2; 9 p.m. April 2; 8 p.m. April 3-4,; 3 p.m. April 5.
Where: Austin Ventures Studio Theatre, 501 W. Third St.
Tickets: $25-30
Info: www.balletaustin.org.
Image courtesy Ballet Austin.
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March 23, 2009
Ailey company comes to Austin on historic 50- anniversary tour
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre is in the midst of a 50-city global tour, celebrating its 50th anniversary. The tour began in late March last year and is scheduled to end in mid-June
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the New York-based company will appear at the University of Texas’ Bass Concert Hall.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater with special guest Sweet Honey in the Rock
When:8 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday
Where: Bass Concert Hall, 23rd Street and Robert Dedman Drive
Cost: $30-$52
Information: 512-477-6060, www.utpac.org.
The Austin performances will include company member Hope Boykin’s “Go in Grace,” an innovative collaboration with Grammy Award-winning female a cappella musical group Sweet Honey in the Rock, who will perform on stage with the dancers. Also on the program is a new production of the historic work “Suite Otis” by Tony Award-winning choreographer and former Ailey company member George Faison, a piece full of romance and humor set to the songs of Otis Redding. And Ailey’s timeless masterpiece “Revelations” will performed in its entirety.
Read more about the Ailey company’s 50th-anniversary tour here.
R. Deshauteurs, C. Brown, A. Machanic and R. Robinson in Hope Boykin’s Go In Grace.Go In Grace. Photo by Paul Kolnik
C. Brown, K. Boyd and A. Douthit in Hope Boykin’s Go In Grace. Photo © Steve Vaccariello
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March 9, 2009
Review: Tapestry Dance Company's 'Head to Toe'
Tapestry Dance Company shows always exceed categories. Ranging from tap to modern dance to jazz, the company is, as artistic director Acia Gray describes it, a “multi-form company.”
Sunday’s “Head to Toe” performance at the Long Center marks the company’s first incursion into one of Austin’s newest dance spaces, and the packed audience got a little bit of all the forms and approaches Tapestry employs.
The show featured twenty different numbers, mainly choreographed by Gray and guest collaborator and local dancer and teacher Erica Santiago.
In solos, Gray and Santiago built portraits of individual personalities, and then later duets drew individuals together. In Jason Janas’s “Feeling Found,” Katelyn Thompson and Janas flirted with each other and Al Green’s music, looking like a pair finding the sweet spot of couple-dom where hips and shoulders sway in synchronous motion. Clarity and simplicity also guided dancer Matt Shields’ choreography for Tapestry’s newest (and welcome) additions, Siobhan Cook and Tony Merriwether.
Improvisation continues to birth some of Tapestry’s most eloquent work. In an improvisation to Gnarls Barkley’s “Searching,” Janas managed to grieve with his body, sending echoes of pain flying with every foot stomp.
As Janas painted an aural landscape of trauma, a single chair became the focus of his anger, until he crashed into it, overcome. In other solos, like Santiago’s “To Feel” for Thompson, chairs were less character and more prop. From television to modern dance, the emotive, often earnest or angsty “chair dance” is a well-traveled road. But the use of chairs as a recurring prop helped give the multi-faceted show a thru-line.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance dance critic.
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March 5, 2009
Old to new: Ballet Austin's 2009-10 season
Ballet Austin will dip its toes into ballet that spans three centuries during its 2009-2010 season which Ballet Austin officials will announce today.
In addition to Ballet Austin artistic director Stephen Mills version of the classic 20th century classic, “The Nutcracker,” the company will also premiere Mills re-invention of Stravinksy’s the Firebird and Mills’s entirely new piece “The Bach Project.”
The emerging choreographers of the 21st century will show their stuff in the “New American Talent/Dance” competition where the audience can vote.
And Ballet Austin will resurect a 19th century classic comedic ballet, “Coppelia,” by seminal French choreographer Arthur Saint-Leon.
Season Opener
October 2-4, 2009 | Long Center
Swan Lake (Act II)
Choreography: Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov
Music: Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky
World Premiere of The Firebird
Choreography: Stephen Mills
Music: Igor Stravinsky
The 47th Annual Production of The Nutcracker
December 5-23, 2009 | Long Center
Choreography: Stephen Mills
Music: Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky
World Premiere of The Bach Project
February 12-14, 2010 | Long Center
Choreography: Stephen Mills
Music: J.S. Bach
The 3rd Biennial New American Talent/Dance
A juried choreographic competition
March 25 - April 4, 2010
AustinVentures StudioTheater
Coppelia
May 7-9, 2010 | Long Center
Choreography: Arthur Saint-Léon
Music: Léo Delibes
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February 17, 2009
'Lion King' choreographer comes to Austin
For more than three decades, Jamaica-born dancer has been crafting a singular style of dance sourced in many origins: the torso-centered movement and energy of Afro-Caribbean dance, the speed and precision of ballet and the rule-breaking experimentation of the social and street dance.
That singularity netted Fagan a Tony Award for his choreography in Disney’s “The Lion King.”
Now, his Rochester, NY-based company comes to Austin.
Garth Fagan Dance performs at the Long Center for the Performing Arts at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 18. Go to www.TheLongCenter.org for tix and info.
“The dancers he has trained,” writes Ballet Review, “are virtuosi, no doubt about it, and fearless too, able to sustain long adagio balances, to change direction in mid-air, to vary the dynamic of a turn, to stop on a dime.”
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February 16, 2009
Review: Ballet Austin's 'Hamlet'
Opera and ballet fans often overlap: both forms tend toward spectacular extravagance. While story ballets may be replete with costumes and sets, it’s rare to see a production where choreography and design work together as well as Ballet Austin’s “Hamlet.” Artistic Director Stephen Mills’ 2001 rendition of iconic Shakespeare returned to Austin on Friday at the Long Center. The staging and the stage picture were always stunning and smart.
“Hamlet’s” design, created by Jeffrey Main and Mills, and lighting, designed by Tony Tucci, manipulated space to tell the story of the despairing prince and his wounded lover. Hamlet could be the story of one man’s tightly wound mind, and Phillip Glass’ swirling music kept focus on Hamlet’s (Frank Shott) journey. The set’s sense of scale, a mix of openness and elements that are so large they are monstrous, makes Hamlet’s intensity more painful.
When the second act opens at Ophelia’s funeral, the white hammock-like bed for Ophelia (Ashley Lynn) floated high above the mourners against a huge blue-lit scrim. Ophelia and Hamlet are always cast as outsiders in the ballet. In the opening moments, Hamlet sits on an elevated platform similar to Ophelia’s funeral bier. Then he moves through the crowd largely unseen. Ophelia dances with everyone, but her hair is down; the other women’s hair is tightly bound. Her dress is light pink; the other women wear deep colors.
Hamlet and Ophelia serve as observers and mirrors to a community unaware it has been unleashed from ethics in the wake of the murder of the king, Hamlet’s father. The people’s unfounded innocence unfolds most obviously from Ophelia’s brother Laertes. As Laertes, Johntuart Winchell’s fluffy blonde hair and earnest attack at movement made Laertes’ connection with the new King Claudius (Edward Carr) believable.
The completeness of the ballet’s narrative has much to do with the intelligent coupling of design and dance, but Shott and Lynn bring nuance to roles that can be stereotypical. In several solos, Shott foreshadows Hamlet’s breakdown through energetic choices. His knees suddenly jerk and bend. Hamlet’s ground is being torn from beneath him. Lynn’s Ophelia seems doomed by vulnerability Her open chest and deep lunges speak to her sensitivity, but also her undoing.
Choreographically, Mills’ work for Ophelia might be the best in the production. Her steps tap the softness of the other women’s classicism, but Ophelia’s are rooted. The combination illustrates how Ophelia is a woman who chooses to be different. Perhaps she goes insane because she, like Hamlet, is honest.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance critic.
Photos by Tony Spielberg.
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February 13, 2009
International dance teacher's to descend on Austin
Ballet Austin’s Butler Dance Education Center selected as the site for the 2009 International Dance Teachers Seminar, April 3-5.
This intensive 3-day course, presented and organized by The Institute for Dance Education Arts will focus on enhancing teaching and coaching skills and the underlying methodology and technical understanding of imparting this knowledge.
The seminar has been held for the past five years in Miami at the New World School of the Arts.
The central presenter in this year’s three-day conference will be Dinna Bjorn—one of today’s most respected master teachers. Ms. Bjorn is recognized throughout the dance world as one of the premier pedagogues of the Bournonville style. The philosophy of the method of teaching employed by the Bournonville School along with basic understanding of the student’s development with class progression, placement and style, will be comprehensively covered.
REGISTER: By March 25 at www.americanballetcompetition.com
COST: $350 for teachers, $35 - $175 for intermediate-advanced students age 13-19
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February 9, 2009
Review: KDH Dance and Mary O'Donnell
Saturday brought celebrations of arrival and longevity in Austin dance. Choreographer Mary O’Donnell introduced herself to Austin with “Eyes of Innocence” in the afternoon, and KDH Dance Company continued its 10th anniversary season with performances at Café Dance in the evening.
O’Donnell refers to “Eyes of Innocence” as an example of “responsible anarchy.” Some movement and ideas are set and remain the same across the piece’s rehearsals and performance, while some performers work to challenge that stability.
Five performers, embodying ideas more than characters, moved largely oblivious to each other. As the severe, black-suited Thunder, Kent de Spain was a constant presence around which Derrick Washington bopped, eyes darting. Julie Nathanielsz seemed Washington’s counterpoint; her movements were equally detailed. But where Washington settled into curves, Nathanielsz felt angular, though paradoxically soft. As Angel and Addiction, Lucila Velez and Seunghee Yang performed oblivion more consciously. Bellydancer Velez floated through curving paths, her turns signaled by the soft jingle of her costume. Yang’s sunglasses and a remote control truck, which had several crossings prior to Yang’s appearances, provided an aloof, but comedic layer. Teen-ager Lariza (identified by only her first name) functioned as audience surrogate, walking amidst the random environment, sometimes trying out performers’ movement and other times ignoring it.
KDH continues to build toward its 10th anniversary gala, slated for June 18-20. The current walk down recent memory lane features the company, led by artistic director Kathy Dunn Hamrick, in excerpts from four pieces made during the past seven years. A close-up view and Dunn Hamrick’s friendly introductions to each piece make the studio show a good way to ease in to dance spectatorship, even though Saturday felt more like a reunion of company family and friends.
KDH repeats the Café Dance program for the next two Saturdays, Feb. 14 and 21, at 6 and 8 p.m. For tickets call 512-934-1082 or go to www.kdhdance.com.
[Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance critic.]
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