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December 12, 2011
Review: Tapestry Dance's "Of Mice & Music"
Like clockwork, here we are again: the season of Nutcrackers. Professional and amateur dance productions alike abound in December, and for families of budding dance students, “The Nutcracker” is an obligatory event, perhaps as routine as that annual physical.
But some productions are more imaginative than others, and Tapestry Dance Company’s presentation of “Of Mice and Music: A Jazz Nutcracker,” which involves several dozen academy students as well as the company’s professionals and executive artistic director Acia Gray, is like an inspired peppermint dessert — a sweet breath of fresh air with just the right amount of holiday spirit — amidst the more cookie cutter options.
Tchaikovky’s classical composition is translated into jazz live by quartet Blue J (Jim Collard on guitar, Josh Espinoza on bass, Masumi Jones on drums, and Owen Summers on sax). As the production is only an hour, the score is whittled down to the essentials, and it’s fun to pick out various moments aurally from the original ballet (This is where Clara and her friends rock their baby dolls to sleep! Ah, the battle between the Nutcracker and the Rat King is about to ensue!). While clearly the majority of the audience Friday night at the Carver Center’s Boyd Vance Theatre consisted of family and friends of the dancers, such was not my case, and I wasn’t bored.
Consisting of a mix of dance genres (though tap dominates), the production kicks off with the Tacky Christmas Sweater Club tapping into the party, soon followed by the arrival of Clara’s friends. A mix of adult and teen students fill the stage with a combination of attitude and polished performances. The tiny ones fill the roles of the Little Mice and Rhythm Rats. A gaggle of girls don the tiniest tap shoes you’ve ever seen paired with grey leotards, tights, and mouse ears and tails; intermittently, Summers blows a whistle to produce a squeaking noise as the mice traipse around the stage, led by Tapestry company member Travis Knights. The boys sport top hats and coat tail suits, and hold their own in a tap-off with Knights.
Knights is simply a phenomenal tapper, and he embodies the character of the Rat King by invoking claws with his hands and maintaining that peculiar facial expression of the rat in pursuit of something tasty (he finds what he’s looking for when he nibbles on the Marzipan Toy’s leg). Similarly, Matt Shields’ Russian Toy is a delight to watch — his powerful tapping, melded with those Russian squats and turns, and sustained portrayal of cross-armed character, are exciting.
Much as Clara receives the gift of rhythm in “Of Mice and Music,” Tapestry’s production is a gift for the weary-eyed Nutcracker-goer.
‘Of Mice and Music’ continues through Dec. 17 at Boyd Vance Theatre, Carver Museum, 1137 Angelina St. $15=$25. www.tapestry.org
Claire Christine Spera is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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December 2, 2011
Review: KDH Dance's "Flash Dance"
Don’t forget to pick up a pair of 3-D viewing glasses before you take your seat at Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company’s “Flash Dance: 30 More Dances in 60 Minutes,” now at Salvage Vanguard. You’ll need them for a few minutes of dizzying visual effects.
The 3D segment is just one of several directions Hamrick sends this rapidly paced modern dance program. Indeed, Hamrick seemingly throws in everything and the kitchen sink for a spirited if somewhat artistically incohesive performance.
With the current production Hamrick revives the format of her previous “Flash Dance” program from a few years ago in which her troupe flew through 30 dances in 60 minutes, staying on time thanks to a kitchen timer. Now, the audience is invited to set their cell phone timer functions to exactly 60 minutes to tick away the time.
Thursday’s premiere, the first of four shows, was sold-out with a considerable waiting list.
With dances counted down by a sometimes seemingly arbitrary flip of video-projected numbers, the troupe of nine dancers whipped through a cornucopia images and styles, from vigorous athletics to sweet narrative scenes to quirky Pilobolus-like antics with cardboard boxes and other props.
Erica Santiago is a compelling performer. Ditto with Andrea Comola Williams and Miko Doi-Smith. Indeed, Hamrick’s company as a whole again proved one the most technically polished on Austin’s modern dance scene.
Stephen Pruitt’s lighting and production design amped up the frenzy of the program with considerable verve.
If more a sampler of styles than a cohesive program, and if a little too reliant on its own conceit, “Flash Dance” nevertheless proved entertaining.
“Flash Dance: 30 More Dances in 60 Minutes” continues through Dec. 3 at Salvage Vanguard Theater. www.kdhdance.com
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November 30, 2011
KDH Dance's 'FlashDance' is now flashier
Five years ago, Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance thrilled sold-out audiences with its lively program of 30 modern dances presented in just 60 minutes.
Dancers set a kitchen timer to cleverly count off the time and Hamrick’s signature whimsical yet physically disciplined choreography left the audience breathless.
Now, Hamrick and company are back with 30 more super-fast dances, played against a lively multimedia background.
“FlashDance, but Flashier: 30 More Dances in 60 Minutes”
8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday
Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road
$12-$17
www.kdhdance.com
Photo by Kevin Gliner.
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October 3, 2011
Review: 'The Mozart Project'
There’s no denying Ballet Austin’s artistic director, Stephen Mills, is a fan of Mozart. His newest creation, a three-piece series collectively titled “The Mozart Project,” was the company’s 2011-2012 season opener, which premiered at the Long Center last weekend. This work comes after Ballet Austin’s prior season’s closer, “The Magic Flute” — another Mozart-inspired ballet. But this time, Mills has taken Mozart to a new level: This is Mozart gone weird.
The first piece of the evening, “Wolftanzt,” was the most classical. Danced to Michelle Schumann and the Austin Chamber Music Center’s live, pure rendition of Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 12,” the 15 dancers maintained traditional male-female partnering relationships throughout the piece’s three movements, with Anne Marie Melendez as the lead ballerina, and Aara Krumpe and Rebecca Johnson as the two soloists. They were flanked by the corps de ballet and framed by a pink wonderland image of abstract roses projected onto the back screen onstage, which matched the ballerinas’ knee-length dresses in various shades of pink.
Though she was not the principal dancer in the piece, it was difficult for this writer to unglue her eyes from Johnson, whose physique and movement quality represented and interpreted Mills’ choreography in a seemingly effortless fashion. “Wolftanzt” is a joyful, expansive dance that calls for sweeping arm movements, high leg extensions, and the perfect arabesque line; the long-limbed Johnson delivered on all counts, especially in the slower second movement when she performed a gorgeous series of leg extensions that called out the delicateness of the piano. “Wolftanzt” ultimately communicates a sense of possibility and freedom.
In “Though the Earth Gives Way,” Austin-based composer Graham Reynolds’ musical composition, along with Michael B. Raiford’s set design, represented a dramatic shift from the production’s opening piece. Reynolds’ score was appropriately eerie, with an echo-y, pulsating beat and electric violin layered on top. The opening image — two white-clad women (Ashley Lynn Gilfix and Melendez) standing perfectly still underneath long veils — was flanked on three sides by five floor-to-ceiling light panels that shocked the eyes when illuminated for brief moments throughout the choreography.
The women were then joined by four men in black, who entered the stage by desperately falling into rectangles of light illuminating patches on the floor. The angular choreography — bent knees, sharp arms — comes to a stark conclusion in the piece’s final moments, when all of the gigantic panels flash at once, several times; with each illumination, the dancers are in a new pose. The chilling final image, with the two ghost-women once again covered with their veils, this time facing the audience head-on, is thrilling.
After the tone set at the conclusion of “Though the Earth Gives Way,” the opening of the evening’s final piece, “Echo Boom,” felt slow. The Austin Chamber Music Center began by playing Mozart’s famous “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,” which was then “remixed” live by Paul D. Miller (also known as DJ Spooky). This introduction went on for a good 15 minutes, accompanied by an at-times-nauseating, black-and-white projection of words, musical notes and barcodes scrolling across a scrim, before the nine dancers entered the stage.
Christopher Swaim was easily the highlight of “Echo Boom”; his limber back and consciousness of stretching the movement while simultaneously maintaining sharpness to his dancing were engaging, despite a crucial moment when Miller’s composition, in suddenly switching gears to the dissonant, wobbly sound of electronic dance genre dubstep, created a need for audience adjustment to fall back under the spell of the dance.
Claire Christine Spera is an American-Statesman freealance arts writer.
Image: “Wolftanzt” from “The Mozart Project.” Photo by Tony Spielberg.
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September 21, 2011
'Ten Mintues Max' to dance
The concept of this annual Dance Umbrella show is simple: Each dance ensemble has just 10 minutes on stage to debut their new work.
This year features the latest from eight groups including Olivia Chacon and Flamencuera, Ballet East’s Jennifer Weitz and Verge Dance Company.
Also on the bill is Austin newcomer and buzzed-about modern dancemaker, Charles O. Anderson. Named by Dance Magazine as one of “25 To Watch,” Anderson recently joined the dance faculty at UT. Anderson merges traditional and contemporary African-inspired dance styles to create narrative-driven dance works.
‘Ten Minutes Max.”
8 p.m. Saturday
Austin Ventures Studio Theater, Ballet Austin, 501 W. Third St.
$12-$18 ($6 children under 12)
www.danceumbrella.com
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July 28, 2011
"The Trash Project" encore: Reserve your seats now!
Sanitation trucks moving in synchronicity on a rain-slicked tarmac.
When choreograph Allison Orr presented “The Trash Project” in 2009, it was simply one of the most outstanding and most moving arts spectacles Austin has seen in recent memory. Orr wrangled a herd of trash trucks and a couple of dozen sanitation workers into an emotion-filled performance that on reflection still resonates with a kind of quirky profundity.
Read about “The Trash Project.”
See a gallery of the show.
Orr and her performers from the city of Austin’s Solid Waste Service Department will return to the tarmac Aug. 27 and 28 for encore performances of “The Trash Project.” And it’ll be the last chance for the show to happen: With development slated to start at the site of the former airport, that expansive tarmac is scheduled for demolition.
Tickets are free and can be reserved at www.forkliftdanceworks.org. There’s seating for 2,000, but both shows are bound to fill up fast.
Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Aug. 27-28 at Austin Studios tarmac at 1901 East 51st St.
Photo by Kelly West/American-Statesman.
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July 5, 2011
Ballet Austin leaders commit to another decade at the helm
While just about every other major Austin arts organization has recently seen the departure of its leadership, Ballet Austin
Officials with the organization announced today that artistic director Stephen Mills and executive eirector Cookie Ruiz have accepted 10-year extensions to their employment agreements. The new contracts will continue the Mills-Ruiz leadership team through 2021.
Mills has been at the artistic helm for 10 years; Ruiz has been helming the administrative side of things for 13 years.
Under their collaborative management Ballet Austin has grown from an organization with a $2 million annual budget to a $6 million annually. Mills and Ruiz also led the organization through the $10.3 million capital campaign and innovative downtown redevelopment project resulting in the 38,000 square-foot Butler Dance Education Center.
In recognition of the duo’s achievement, the Ballet Austin board has a names studio at the Butler Center the Mills/Ruiz Legacy Studio.
The combination of Mills and Ruiz is a formula for success. In May, Ballet Austin announced that it had had its best season yet, setting a new record for its own highest grossing season.
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June 21, 2011
Review: Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance and NobleMotion Dance
In a smart bit of regional collaboration, Austin’s Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company shared the stage at Austin Ventures Studio Theater last weekend with Houston’s NobleMotion Dance.
The companies made for a comely pair. Both share a vigorously athletic style of modern dance that’s countered by a thoughtful attention to detail.
NobleMotion opened the evening with “With Both Hands” set to live music by ambient noise band My Education. If the choreography in “With” relied a little too much on prolonged moments of stillness on the part of much of the ensemble, the complexity of the next two pieces, “Roundabout” and “Photo Box D,” proved compelling.
Choreographers Andy Noble and Dionne Sparkman Noble craft mini epics filled with drama and individual character smartly pitted against clever, engaging ensemble work from the eight dancers.
Formally elegant, “Photo Box D” featured six large fluorescent light boxes arrayed in a line and from in between which six dancers leapt and tumbled, fugue-like, in and out the darkness. (The lighting design was by Jeremy Choate.) There was an urgency and yet also a melancholy that played out in “Photo,” like a dream in which memories are suddenly, but not completely, recalled.
Hamrick’s “Murmur” filled the second half of the program. A brand new 40-minute piece for nine dancers, “Murmur” was set to an ethereal yet moving original score by Jacob Hamrick.
The choreographer’s signature vigorous moves seemed looser here. Arms were sinuous and made lovely drawn-out shapes. Moments of rapid foot work were immediately countered with slow gestures. Partnering always proved inventive. And slowly an emotional arc, enigmatic as it was, emerged.
“Murmur” proved to be masterly modern dancemaking.
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Review: Blue Lapis Light's 'Devotion'
Gliding out over the waters of Town Lake Sunday at dusk, a passenger on one of two Capital Cruises boats making its way west toward the old Power Plant Intake Building on the shore, I had more time than I’d had in a while to simply bask in my surroundings: Austin’s skyline all lit up, the Frost Tower its signature edifice; the sight of a lone swan floating between the boats; the sounds of a freight train rumbling on the bridge tracks over the lake; the feel of gliding over water.
I was here to experience Blue Lapis Light’s “Devotion,” a 45-minute site-specific aerial dance piece being performed by 15 artists under the direction of artistic and executive director Sally Jacques, with the help of an intricate system of harnesses, trapeze equipment and ropes, on the façade of the Power Plant Building. But ultimately, I was encountering something beyond the purely visual. Just my physical presence, out in the middle of the lake, the wind scrambling my hair and acting as a natural air conditioner in the heat of that night, was enough to make me feel new again.
In the opening moments of the performance, the company’s associate artistic director, Nicole Whiteside, performed a series of balletic movements on the ground just in front of the building while donning a dress that shimmered spectacularly in the floodlights; she then dove head first into the dark water before her. I could almost feel that sensation — the shock of being dry one minute and soaked the next.
Enter four rowers, each transporting a trapeze dancer. One by one, they mounted their trapeze equipment, calmly taking their seats on the thin bar-swings suspended by ropes, before being pulled up, up and away from the water until reaching a stomach-dropping height. In unison and in cannon, the four women bungeed from their swing-perches, all the while flanked by six “wall dancers” who resembled geckos stuck to the façade, their shadows seemingly multiplying the bodies occupying the space.
The music selection — ranging from Dido to Satie to Chopin to German DJ ATB — lent a dreamy atmosphere that could be heard just as easily by those of us on the boats as those audience members seated on the shore opposite the Plant, thanks to sound designer/operator William Meadows. The lighting and video projections (Jason Amato and Scott Hathaway, respectively) enhanced the natural landscape.
While a performance of this kind requires an expert technical crew and months of careful planning, it all seemed to go off effortlessly. While I could feel a small thrill in my stomach each time a dancer plunged from the sky downwards, it was the good kind of thrill — not the bad.
Claire Christine Spera is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Photo by Amitava Sarkar.
June 13, 2011
Tapestry Dance Company headed to China
Austin’s Tapestry Dance Company — one of the few professional tap dance companys in the country — will tour take it’s celebrated NEA American Masterpiece production of “The Souls of Our Feet: A Celebration of American Tap Dance” to China for this fall, the company will announce today.
Starting in Shanghai, the company will present 15 performances and also participate in the Shanghai International Tap Festival.
Additionally, Tapestry artistic director Acia Gray will help develop a Chinese training system and syllabus of American tap dance for use in the Chinese university system. Meetings have been underway over the last two years. Chinese delegates are currently in Austin to arrange the Tapestry tour.
“The Souls of Our Feet” smartly captures the history of American tap dance by combining archival footage of classic, and often under-recognized, dancers with live recreations of their revelatory creative work. More than just a simple homage , the show manages an engaging overview of a distinctly American dance form of tap. Since 2007, “The Souls of Our Feet” has toured the U.S. and Canada.
See more info about the show here.
Photo courtesy Tapestry Dance Company.
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May 25, 2011
Live from the Bolshoi Ballet
Can’t make it to Mosow this weekend?
On May 29, Long Center Cinema series presents a live simulacast of the Bolshoi Ballet’s current production of “Coppelia.”
The live performance will be screened 10 a.m. on the Long Center’s two-story high-definition screen. An encore screening happens at 2 p.m.
The Bolshoi’s lavish production “Coppelia” was composed by Leo Delibes, choreographed by Marius Petipa, recreated by Segei Vikharev and stars Viacheslav Lopatin and Natalia Osipova. Screening time is approximately 2 hours, 28 minutes.
Premiered in 1870, “Coppelia” is a light-hearted ballet based on a story by E.T.A. Hoffmann entitled “Der Sandmann” (“The Sandman”), about an inventor who creates a life-size dancing doll.
Tickets are $15 ($10 students). See www.thelongcenter.org for more info.
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May 23, 2011
Review: Aztlan Dance's 'The Enchilda Western'
The tagline for Aztlan Dance Company’s “The Enchilada Western” at the Santa Cruz Center for Culture last weekend — “Borders are meant to be crossed” — can describe the choreographic and music choices for the production just as easily as it refers to its thematic elements. Divided into four segments performed by 10 dancers, the evening depicted macho desperados and attitude-laden señoritas fighting for survival at la frontera, but not without the help of a special vision-inducing agave tonic and the regular shouting of gritos — words of the encouragement — to fellow strugglers.
Artistic director Roé n Salinas’ choreography really does take a big bite out of the whole enchilada; traces of everything from classical forms and folk dances to contemporary styles could be recognized. The first half of the evening, in which the women mostly donned black pant-and-vest outfits and high-heeled boots, was especially laden with modern dance and jazz repertoire.
Leg extensions (and swift kicks, in the feistier moments) and classic modern floor rolls were intermingled with the stomping footwork of Mexican folkló orico. Toreador stances, with hips thrust forward, added a Spanish flair, especially in conjunction with the music of Chambao, a flamenco-electronic group known for their “flamenco chill” albums. In the sweeter sections, the borderland ladies danced barefoot wearing white ruffled dresses, twirling pink and orange serapes through the air, to mariachi music with an eastern influence.
While it’s clear Aztlan Dance Company doesn’t want to be labeled as a single-genre troupe, some of the more inspiring moments came when the choreography directed the dancers to express one particular style. The final portion of the show featured traditional Mexican folklorico that had audiences shouting out their own gritos in support. Three men wielded fire engine red handkerchiefs while creating booming rhythms with their feet; the twirling of the women’s skirts was like an undulating force of immeasurable power. Here, the evening reached a crescendo, built upon the attitude, pride and will to survive present in earlier sections.
The performers’ passion was evident through their vivid facial expressions, their dance style as one-of-a-kind as the music to which they moved: Los Lobos, Mariachi El Bronx, Macaco, Bomba Estereo — all bands for which one-word descriptions of the music are hardly sufficient. To see an Aztlan performance, though at times dizzying, is to see something unique.
Claire Christine Spera is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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May 9, 2011
Review: Ballet Austin's 'The Magic Flute'
A shadow puppet serpent lurches forward, its body rapidly enlarging until it fills the lit-from-behind screen onstage. Prince Tamino, whose shadow form has been courageously battling the monster, collapses with exhaustion. Next: Three ballerinas to the rescue, their silhouettes betraying tutus and pointe shoes. It is only after destroying the serpent, its body shrinking down to nothing, that the three dancers enter the stage proper, parading in striking black tutus with silver-streaked bodices, their hair fantastically frizzed and piled atop their heads.
Welcome to Ballet Austin artistic director Stephen Mills’ version of Mozart’s beloved opera, “The Magic Flute.” To create this contemporary ballet, the opera’s score was artfully whittled down from its full four hours to a danceable one and a half by University of Texas professor and composer Donald Grantham.
From the playful overture to the prince-and-princess-are-reunited happy ending, the Austin Symphony Orchestra beautifully accompanied the visual feast onstage at the Long Center, composed of Mills’ dance choreography, costume designer Susan Branch-Towne’s delectable outfits and San Francisco-based ShadowLight Productions’ creative shadow puppetry.
In transforming the opera into a ballet, the shadow puppetry effectively filled in what would have been plotline gaps in the absence of the voice. After his tussle with the serpent, Tamino (Frank Shott) is presented with a heart-shaped locket containing the portrait of the lovely Pamina (Ashley Lynn Gilfix), the kidnapped daughter of the imperial Queen of the Night (Aara Krumpe). Pamina’s profile, encircled by the locket shape, appears on the shadow screen. Upon falling instantly and deeply in love with the maiden’s image, Tamino promises to rescue her from her captors, though he doesn’t attempt the mission without his magic flute — capable of changing the hearts of men — and his trusty sidekick.
Enter bird catcher Papageno, danced by the comical Christopher Swaim. His entourage, six bird-women, don richly colored tutus complete with poofed-up ducktails and matching feathered headpieces. The birds’ movements, perfectly synchronized, mimic the harried motions of a flighty flock. Papageno’s love interest, danced by the appropriately frenetic Beth Terwilleger, wears a rainbowed bushy tutu and matching feathered leg warmers. Swaim and Terwilleger make a lively pair in performing a laugh out loud interpretation of mating rituals.
Branch-Towne’s costume designs elicited squeals of delight repeatedly from the audience, including those developed for a parade of animals that traipse across the stage. The crown of one dancer’s head bore the elongated neck and face of a giraffe; another dancer embodied a kangaroo carrying its baby in the front pocket of an apron.
Mills’ choreography was consistently danced confidently. Gilfix, in a pink chiffon outfit, floated about the stage dreamily as the evening’s leading lady; Krumpe illustrated her technical skill as the queen when she hopped on her tippy toes in black pointe shoes; Shott beat his legs together mid-air to the tune of his flute.
Ballet Austin’s “The Magic Flute” is a vividly colorful spectacle you don’t want to end. But the theater experience, we realize, is just as ephemeral as a serpent’s shadow, just as fleeting as the trills of a flute. That’s why we keep going back.
Claire Christine Spera is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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April 20, 2011
Fusebox Festival: Critic's Picks #1
So much Fuseboxin’ to do, so many options.
Here’s the first of our critic’s picks for the Austin
“Cédric Andrieux”
When: 7 p.m. April 21-23. Rollins Studio Theatre, Long Center. $24
“Let us think of these things always. Let us speak of them never.”
When: 8 p.m. April 21-23. Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road
How do theater artists in Croatia and the United States collaborate if they aren’t on the same continent and don’t share language? They find a creative third entity to mutually riff. The films of Swedish master Ingmar Bergman formed the creative mettle for an inventive live theater piece by Croatian artists Selma Banich and Mislav Cavajda and Chicagoans Stephen Fiehn and Matthew Goulish. Co-commissioned by the Fusebox Festival, Performance Space 122 and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
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April 11, 2011
Review: Tapestry Dance Company's "Are You Listening to Me?'
In the hushed theater, this quotation seemed appropriate: “It takes silence to create rhythm.” So said Tapestry Dance Company’s executive artistic director Acia Gray Friday evening during the opening number of the local tap company’s show, “Are You Listening to Me?” Gray, along with six of her company’s dancers and guest theater artist Zell Miller III, then proceeded to treat audiences to a wonderful array of sounds in the Rollins Theatre at the Long Center. The loud, the quiet, the weird, the routine — nothing was off limits for this seasoned troupe of tappers.
Tapestry Dance Company, now in its 21st season, explored the inter-rhythms between the shuffle-shuffle of the feet and the modulations of the voice. In the first piece, “The Voices in Your Head,” the dancers lined up across the stage and spoke rapidly all at once, until they were silenced by some inexplicable force, though still left to gesture wildly with their arms, their mouths simultaneously moving like a fish’s underwater. One by one, Gray touched them, giving them voice, before relinquishing their power.
The voice often functioned as a source of comedy. In “Find the Quiet,” Brenna Kuhn was the object of jibber jabber as each of her fellow dancers approached her to utter nonsensical sounds. Tanya Rivard laughed herself into hysterical crying; Matt Shields voiced what can best be described as a whiny Italian cadence; and Thomas Wadelton’s jig/jibberish combination induced the audience to laughter.
At other times, words were powerful. “The opposite of courage is not cowardice. The opposite of courage is conformity,” pronounced Miller. The dichotomy between courage and conformity was very much present throughout the evening. It was highlighted in “The Journey,” in which the group of six — perfectly synchronized — moved forwards and backwards in profile. One by one, they broke from the herd to forge their own path in this world of daily routines, before rejoining the group. The music, by Jani Sieber, sounded like it could have come off the “American Beauty” soundtrack (though it didn’t) — whimsical, with a touch of melancholy.
There’s no denying the fact that Tapestry’s dancers are talented. In many ways, the most compelling bits of the evening were when they were all-out dancing, pure and simple. As an audience member, it was almost as though I could feel every fiber of my being getting sucked into the vortex of their energy. In one solo, Wadelton performed quick, tiny movements, at times standing up on his tippy toes like an awkward ballerina. Lost in his own world, we came to understand: Life isn’t about perfection. It’s about being you, about being “free,” as Wadelton himself said.
In another solo, Shields tapped in a mini sandbox at the back of the stage, the friction between his shoes and the sand producing a sound like a needle scratch on a record. Although his nimble movements were limited to a small area, he hardly looked constrained.
Conformity or courage? Tapestry chose the latter.
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March 29, 2011
Review: Ballet Austin's 'Studio Theater Project'
Mixing it up can be a good thing.
Ballet Austin makes it work with the “Studio Theater Project,” the mixed repertory program playing through Sunday in the Austin Ventures Studio Theater, the intimate venue inside the company’s downtown headquarters.
Nicolo Fonte’s vigorous, intelligent “Lasting Imprint” brought out both a hard-edged physicality and cool intellectualism in the company’s dancers, something not always seen.
Fonte’s piece — the last of three dances presented and the most stunning — began with the dancers in half light, moving with an almost Butoh-like slowness, then halting to form sharp angled poses. The static hiss of brown noise was the only sound accompaniment. A riveting Paul Michael Bloodgood emerged as the lead in opposition to the corps, his body taut and fluid, his movements more pronounced than others in the pattern of movement and stillness. Then without transition or warning, the frenzy of Steve Reich’s ‘Triple Quartet’ broke the silence, red light flooded the stage and the movement accelerated into continuous rush of dancing. Then it stopped it again. The slowness and silence returning yet this time with a more world-weary tone.
With “Silence Within Silence,” Ballet Austin artistic director Stephen Mills created a jewel of a short dance. Set to Brahms’ stirring, romantic Four Ballades for solo piano — and beautifully yet sharply danced — “Silence” found four couples working through the intricacies and vicissitudes of love. Movement fluctuated — sometimes sensuous and sometimes shot through with athleticism, each duet ending with a striking, inventive pose. “Silence” enters the company’s repertoire as a thoughtful, sensual pas de deux showcase.
Mills’ “Luminaria,” getting its Austin premiere after being made for San Antonio’s festival of the same name, was spirited and simple romp to the gorgeous sounds of Jordi Savall’s interpretations of Spanish New World baroque music.
“Studio Theater Project” continues 7 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. Austin Ventures Studio Theater, Ballet Austin, 501 W. Third St. $45. www.balletaustin.org
Photo by Tony Spielberg.
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March 4, 2011
Ballet Austin announces 2011-2012 season
Ballet Austin announces 2011-2012 season which includes the premiere of a new concert, ‘The Mozart Project,’ by artistic director Stephen Mills. The company will also re-mount its critically acclaimed ‘Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project.’
From the Ballet Austin release:
The Mozart Project (World Premiere)
Sept 30 - Oct 2, 2011
Choreography by Stephen Mills
Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Graham Reynolds
The world premiere of The Mozart Project with choreography by Stephen Mills features an evening-length ballet set to live performances of the music of Mozart as well as Mozart-inspired newly commissioned music. The production will reunite Mills with indie-classical composer/pianist Graham Reynolds and pianist Michelle Schumann.
The 49th Annual Production of The Nutcracker
Dec 3 - 23, 2011
Choreography by Stephen Mills
Music by Peter Illyitch Tchaikovsky
Accompaniment by The Austin Symphony Orchestra
The 4th Biennial New American Talent/Dance
Feb 17 - 19, 2012
For the first time at The Long Center, Ballet Austin’s 4th biennial juried choreographic competition, New American Talent/Dance, brings together three of the country’s most compelling mid-career choreographers to create new work. Culled from a national pool of candidates, these three choreographers will compete for cash prizes of up to $20,000. To build their works, each finalist is brought to Austin and given 40 hours of studio time with Ballet Austin’s Company dancers. The three world premiere works are then presented, as audiences and nationally renowned jurors decide the winner of the cash prizes.
Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project
Mar 23 - 25, 2012
Concept/Choreography by Stephen Mills
Music by Steve Reich, Evelyn Glennie, Michael Gordon, Arvo Pärt, Philip Glass
2012 marks the return of Stephen Mills’ nationally acclaimed Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project, which explores the devastating outcomes of unchallenged intolerance and discrimination as revealed through the story of a Holocaust survivor. Light was originally produced in 2005 as the culmination of a community-wide human rights collaboration that brought Ballet Austin into partnership with UT Austin, Holocaust Museum Houston, the Anti-Defamation League, the City of Austin, the Jewish Community Association of Austin among other
Romeo & Juliet
May 11 - 13, 2012
Choreography by Stephen Mills
Music by Sergei Prokofiev
Accompaniment by The Austin Symphony Orchestra
Mills brings back one of Austin’s most beloved works. Accompanied by the Austin Symphony Orchestra performing the Sergei Prokofiev score, the production brings classical ballet to the stage Mother’s Day Weekend.
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February 18, 2011
Review: Chaddick Dance Theatre
Dance is often a natural platform for exploring human relationships, as its manifestation is as emotional as it is physical. Such was certainly the case Thursday at Chaddick Dance Theater’s “Tender Voices in Flight” at the Austin Ventures Studio Theater. Though the evening’s four pieces were created by three different choreographers, it was impossible to ignore the through-line of humanity.
“Exceptional Utopias” marked veteran choreographer Kate Warren’s first piece for Chaddick Dance Theater. Four women in black dresses perform partner work to string quartet Ethel, exploring those moments — those “utopias” — that make life worth living. Repeated leg extensions evoke elegance. In one moment, a trio lines up one behind the other, posing in arabesque with their legs stretched out at different heights. These women are clearly individuals, yet their lives are inextricably linked.
In artistic director Cheryl Chaddick’s “Ask No More,” projected images of voluptuous women in pre-Raphaelite paintings are contrasted with photos of modern women — namely skinny, angular supermodels, with a few images of Barbie thrown. The six dancers fly about the stage with total freedom of movement, as though they know they can choose to be whoever they want to be.
Largely set to the music of Czech violinist and singer Iva Bittova, the piece’s vivacious choreography matches the costumes, consisting of white circle cut skirts with tops in bright colors. A costume change introduces a precious segment. Donning white togas (Greek goddesses come to mind), four women move slowly and tenderly on and around a bench. They embrace each other, accepting one another wholeheartedly through a series of tableaus. They are a living, breathing image.
Two Left Feet’s “Films Are No Longer Silent (Smile, Even Though It’s Breaking…)” explores the silent film medium. The three dancers, portraying a husband, wife and maid, exquisitely capture what it means to act in a silent film. Their exaggerated body language and freakishly comical facial expressions make the scenes of domesticity a riot, as they scurry and scamper across the stage.
“The Exchange Quotient,” another piece by Chaddick, also calls for dancers with acting skills. The powerful, driving music, combined with the number’s extensive partner work, lays the groundwork for investigating the hottest of emotions: anger. Throughout, a sensation of push and pull takes us on our own personal journey, even as we watch what’s unfolding onstage. How do we deal with our anger? Do we cover our mouths, as some of the dancers do, and hold it in, only to suffer violent outbursts? Or do we release it for the world to see? “It’s just not ladylike or pretty to be angry,” says one dancer, who is clearly repeating what her mother has taught her.
One thing was evident by the end of the night: Chaddick Dance Theater’s women are multi-talented, capable of hitting the mark across the spectrum.
“Tender Voices in Flight” continues 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. www.chaddickdancetheater.com
Claire Christine Spera is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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February 14, 2011
Review: Ballet Austin's 'La Sylphide'
Possession. It’s what Scotsman James wants in the 19th century romantic ballet “La Sylphide” when he tries to tame a free-spirited forest fairy by binding her wings. We’re presented with the age-old question, at least in the world of ballet — can love between a mortal man and a woman in white lead to a happy ending? If you’ve seen “Giselle,” “La Bayadère” or “Swan Lake” to name a few, you can guess the answer: No.
Ballet Austin’s production of Danish ballet master August Bournonville’s “La Sylphide” at the Long Center Friday marked the first time the ballet has been performed in the city. In some ways, it’s an unconventional choice of ballet to present on Valentine’s Day weekend — because James is unable to touch the sylph until he ties her up with a magical scarf, the ballet is devoid of a single luscious pas de deux between its two leads. The realization of their love is unattainable, especially evident when the sylph dies at James’ touch.
To embody the otherworldly role of the sylph, the ballerina is required to be light on her feet, while playfully mischievous at the same time. Aara Krumpe, in flowing stark white tulle, danced the character beautifully. One moment she would move across the stage with the help of her pointe shoes on her tippy toes, the next tilt her body towards the floor with one leg as her anchor, the other gorgeously extended behind her. She always remained an enticing few inches outside of James’ grasp.
James is the polar opposite of his would-be lover. Donning a kilt with furs belted around his waist, Frank Shott illustrated the character’s connection to the earthly. His huntsman’s lodge, complete with a deer-antler-and-candle chandelier, is seen in contrast to the sylph’s realm of the forest, flooded with girls in white. Both sets as well as the costumes were on loan from Boston Ballet.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Christopher Swaim took the role of Gurn, desperately in love with James’ betrothed Effie, and turned him, appropriately, into a galumphing doofus. Swaim’s priceless facial expressions brought forth such laughter from the audience that, by Act II, all he had to do was walk onstage to elicit giggles.
In the end, the sylph’s lifeless body floats up, up and away in a leafy vessel. It’s a poignant moment for James, who realizes once and for all the foolishness of his need for possession.
Claire Christine Spera is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
January 7, 2011
Review: Tango Buenos Aires
Onstage, a man and a woman become one. The music — rich, deep, melancholic — magnetizes them, until they’ve lost all sense of self-identity. They are living for each other.
Those at the Long Center Thursday evening for Tango Buenos Aires’ production of “Fire and Passion of Tango” were fortunate to be able to witness what tango is all about. The 10-dancer company exemplified subtlety, coordination, union and passion to the music of a live five-piece ensemble, eliciting ooohs and aaahs from the audience.
To hear tango music live is to feel something shift at the very core of your being. Tango Buenos Aires’ combination of the deep notes of the upright bass and bandoneón (an accordion-like instrument) with the sweet melodies of the violin, guitar and piano, is orchestrated by the company’s musical director Emilio Kauderer, perhaps best known in the U.S. for co-composing the score for 2010’s Oscar-winning foreign film “The Secret in Their Eyes.”
Love is at the heart of the storyline the dancers enact via 24 vignettes, choreographed by Susana Rojo. In the opening number, all five couples build momentum together by dancing fabulously in unison.
In a brief but odd detour to the world of classical ballet — splits and all — the company’s lead dancer removes her tango shoes to don slippers; fortunately, her stiletto heels make a quick return, and the rest of the evening is pure tango.
The most breathtaking partnering comes in the first half of the production. A woman in a lavender chiffon dress and her partner effortlessly dance a series of electrifyingly different moves: He lifts her, and she pedals her feet, as though running on air; they begin a lightening-quick series of legwork, their lower limbs weaving in and out of each other, and one almost expects an intricate tapestry to appear out of nowhere as a result.
The next couple is also skilled at legwork, moving so concisely it appears as though their legs are unattached to their torsos. Another optical illusion is created when the lead dancer dons a dress half red, half fuchsia. Her partner, in flipping her from side to side, shows off a woman split down the middle, torn between two men. In another vignette, two couples meld to become a quartet, arms sideways on each other’s shoulders.
Perhaps that’s what is most beautiful of all about tango — becoming one with another soul. But even though Tango Buenos Aires’ dancers were wrapped up in each other, they still drew us into their intensely satisfying experience.
Claire Christine Spera is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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December 13, 2010
Review: Ballet Austin's 'The Nutcracker'
It hit us the day after Thanksgiving — wham! Christmas is here. We see it in storefront windows; we hear it in Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” score, played on loop since shops opened in the wee hours of the morning Black Friday.
Bunheads know Christmas is here when “The Nutcracker” cast list is posted and rehearsals begin, demanding every spare second of their time. The 118-year-old ballet, with its many character roles, is a natural opportunity for dedicated young dancers to perform in a full-length, professional production. Ballet Austin’s 48th annual “The Nutcracker” at the Long Center is no exception to this rule.
Children from the Ballet Austin Academy fill the supporting roles of Act I’s party scene kids, fight as soldiers against the three-headed Rat King, serve as sweet angels, and dash out from under a 25-foot-tall Mother Ginger’s skirt. Blake Cooper and Caroline Ward, both Academy students, share the coveted role of Clara.
Ballet Austin’s “Nutcracker” is as traditional as can be, minus the fact that the classical choreography is actually Artistic Director Stephen Mills’ work. The music is enjoyed as it should be — live, played by the Austin Symphony Orchestra. Tony Tucci’s lighting makes everything a little more magical. When Clara shrinks to doll size, the Christmas tree growing ever larger behind her, the lighting blinks every color imaginable, and it is as though we are looking at the twinkling bulbs on the tree from much too close.
Tommy Bourgeois’ elegant costume designs are perhaps best exemplified by the first act’s matching boy-girl dolls. In Friday’s performance, Beth Terwilleger, donning red pointe shoes, white face makeup and an emerald-green dress, was wonderfully mechanical. Ian J. Bethany sharply executed a series of jumps and beats with the legs as the doll, then pulled out all the stops as the lead in Act II’s Russian variation.
En route to the Sugar Plum Fairy’s domain, Clara and her Nutcracker Prince are caught in a snow flurry. Mills’ choreography, which calls for concise movement and perfectly placed lines by the snow corps de ballet, mimics the crispness of a snowflake landing on one’s nose. As Snow Queen, Anne Marie Melendez was stiff, a performance that translated to her role as the lead in the Waltz of the Flowers, which calls for a more sumptuous interpretation.
The bouncy Brittany Strickland and Matthew Cotter were a delightful pair in the Spanish variation, while the combination of Mills’ choreography and Kirby Wallis’ supple back in the Arabian number lent a dreamy air to the theater. As Sugar Plum, Aara Krumpe demonstrated her technical prowess, particularly in the solo variation as she stretched the movement like one pulls taffy candy.
We all have our holiday traditions, but those in ballet world — professional and amateur alike — can count the thrill of performance among them.
Ballet Austin’s ‘The Nutcracker’ continues through Dec. 23 at the Long Center. See www.balletaustin.org for ticket information.
Claire Christine Spera is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Photo by Tony Spielberg
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December 6, 2010
Review: 'Here.Me.Now.'
What is the power of human touch and connection? What does it mean to be an individual?
These huge questions are explored both seriously and playfully through the twists and turns of modern dance in “Here.Me.Now.” a new production from the Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company currently running at Salvage Vanguard Theater.
Set and lighting designer Stephen Pruitt has transformed the intimate space into a blank canvas — literally. The theater is filled with rectangular and square frames overlay with neutral burlap, a visually pleasing but enigmatic backdrop.
The elegantly expressive Erica Santiago dances into this space with ease and comfort, making eye contact with the audience as if to invite us in. Other dancers enter, dressed identically in pairs of blue-green pants and maroon tops, and a series of movement vignettes play out, with dancers connecting and disconnecting from each other in different combinations. An evocative soundtrack by Austin-based instrumental group Balmorhea underscores the show.
“Here.Me.Now.” features choreography by Hamrick and the powerful dancers in the ensemble. The dynamic shifts frequently (and satisfyingly) between sustained, elegant motion and bursts of energy and lightness. Many of the performances are infused with underlying emotions, as the dancers alternate between longing, confusion, and joy.
In the show’s most engaging section, dancers connect in weight-sharing duets. The physical touch seems to energize and lift them, their faces lighting up. A brief but dynamic duet between the two male dancers, Dane Burch and Ryan Parent, reveals their agility and strength.
“Here.Me.Now” loses momentum a bit toward the end, as it builds toward moments that seem like endings but aren’t. Still, in the second half a loose (but open to interpretation) storyline has emerged.
The dancers trade in their identical tops for new ones in a range of bold colors, marking them as individuals rather than the group they were before. At the same time, they take visible pleasure in embraces and small physical gestures of support, seeming to suggest the importance of creating connections between individual, and constantly in motion, lives.
“Here.Me.Now.” continues 8 p.m. Dec. 9-11 at Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road. Tickets $12-15. 512-934-1082. www.kdhdance.com
Claire Cananvan is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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September 28, 2010
Review: Ballet Austin's 'Carmina Burana' and 'Kai'
Ballet Austin opened its new season this past weekend with three sold-out performances at the Long Center — with 6,920 attendees, a record-breaker for the company, more than any other season opening program its presented.
Likely it was the reprise of one of Ballet Austin’s most popular creations — Stephen Mills’ dance interpretation of Carl Orfff’s super-popular choral piece ‘Carmina Burana,’ sung by Grammy-nominated Austin choir Conspirare with the Austin Symphony Orchestra that was first presented in 2005.
Musically, this ‘Carmina Burana’ was spectacular with Conspirare director Craig Hella Johnson and the choir magnificently handling Orff’s challenging rhythm-based score and ever-changing tempo with aplomb and style. Baritone David Small, tenor Tracy Jacob Shirk and soprano Suzanne Ramo skillfully sung the challenging solo arias with Ramo bringing impressive warmth and clarity to her solos. In the pit, conductor Peter Bay and the Austin Symphony Orchestra clearly reveled in Orff’s musical histrionics.
Mills’ choreography finds an ultimately celebratory and revolutionary mood in Orff’s colorful interpretation of medieval songs of fate and fortune. Never mind the ominous and distracting metalwork contraption that loomed above the dancers clad in short colorful unitards. Was that contraption an abstract Wheel of Fortune? It was impossible to tell.
Groups of dancers romped and even tumbled at times during the 60-minute piece, sometimes evoking contemporary balletic spin on folkdance or maypole celebrations. But the corps — particularly the male dancers — lacked basic unison and synchronicity made all the more noticeable given the percussive, rhythm-driven nature of Orff’s raucous music and Mills vaguely abstracted choreography. As the polished sounds of Conspiare’s voice surged forward at Saturday night’s presentation, the dancers seemed pressed to keep up.
The program opened with ‘Kai,’ another reprise of a work by Mills and wholly opposite in mood to the sturm-und-drang of ‘Carmina Burana.’ Set to the music of John Cage, ‘Kai’ employed Mills’s signature angular geometries of ballet movement.
As the lead duo, Jaime Lynn Watts and Frank Shott proved again why they are always a rewarding pair to watch. But again, an inattention to unison of movement by the ensemble weakened any sophistication to this performance of ‘Kai.’
Review: Blue Lapis Light's 'One'
Blue Lapis Light, under the artistic direction of Sally Jacques, has been animating the spaces of downtown Austin for years, staging site-specific aerial dance in places like a nondescript federal building or the abandoned Seaholm Power Plant. Often their performances transform drab or forgotten spaces by bringing them back to life through dance.
The company’s newest performance, “One,” is staged at the City Terrace of the Long Center, and in this case the setting is the real star of the show.
The audience sits in the middle of the outdoor terrace while Austin’s ever-expanding skyline pulses with light and sound in front of them. When dancers emerge from darkness and fill the space atop the concrete ring encircling the patio, the audience takes a collective deep breath.
The fantastic backdrop of the city allows the company to play with scale in striking ways. When Theresa Hardy, a lone human form, dances her heart out on ground level, she is dwarfed by the cityscape behind her, a visual metaphor for the way the larger world can swallow up an individual. Indeed, “One” seems to loosely tell a story of human loneliness abated by connection with others and with larger forces.
The choreography stays in the realm of the company’s previous work. Dancers twist and twirl as they climb into the air on pale blue silks, and they appear to fly around the terrace’s pillars, suspended from harnesses.
For most of the hour-long performance, “One” sustained a slow-to-medium pace, and some of the evening’s best moments were when unexpected movement jolted the viewer out of the slow reverie. As the primary soloist, Theresa Hardy is eye-catching. Her movement is graceful, articulate, and tinged with emotion.
To complement the dancers, lighting designer Jason Amato creates dramatic visual effects. The music (by various artists) is often meditative, at times soaring, always actively giving the performance a sense of event and otherworldliness.
As “One” began, a few people taking their dogs for a late night romp at Auditorium Shores collected along the street, transfixed (and maybe a little confused) by the sight of dancers dangling in the air. But that’s part of the joy of site-specific art — it takes performance out of the theatrical black box and creates images of beauty in unexpected places.
“One” continues at 8:30 p.m. through Oct. 3, City Terrace, Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Dr. $22-$52. www.thelongcenter.org.
Claire Canavan is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
September 13, 2010
Movie version of 'The Trash Dance' raises funds for completion
Last year, Austin choreographer Allison Orr staged “The Trash Project,” a stirring, spectacular dance peformance involving municipal sanitation works and their trucks exacting a ballet of sorts on a rain-slicked former airport runway. The singular performance drew a crowd of 2,000. And it netted Orr and her collaborators a slew of nominations and awards from the Austin Critics’ Table.
Following Orr on her year-long development of “The Trash Project” was filmmaker Andrew Garrison who has created an hour-long documentary.
Principal shooting is complete. Now, Garrison needs to raise the funds to finish editing with an aim to release the “Trash” documentary next spring. So he’s reaching out through Kickstarter to gather $10,000. And he has until Sept. 27 to do so.
Watch the trailer and donate here: http://kck.st/9T7cm4
Photo by Kelly West/AA-S
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August 26, 2010
Tapestry Dance Company to offer free Saturday intro classes
The professional hoofers at Tapestry Dance Company are offering to share their secrets for free.
Beginning next week, the company will offer a series of free Saturday classes for adults and teens in tap, ballet, modern and jazz dance.
The first Saturday of each month Tapestry co-founder and artistic director Acia Gray will lead in intro tap class. Gray was recently elected to the National Tap Hall of Fame.
Every second Saturday, Tapestry co-found Deirdre Strand will teach an introductory ballet class. Third Saturdays it will be modern dance and fourth Sundays, jazz dance.
No experience is required; no obligation to sign up for anything else.
Introduction to Dance Series
11 a.m. Saturdays beginning Sept. 4
Tapestry Dance Studios, 2302 Western Trails Blvd.
www.tapestry.org
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August 25, 2010
Ballet Austin hosts free day of dance class, opens new studio
Think you can dance?
Ballet Austin invites you to give it a try Sept. 12 when it hosts its third annual free day of dance and fitness classes. “Come Dance! 2010” will offer classes for adults and children in ballet, yoga, jazz dance, hula, hip hop, pilates and broadway and musical theater dance, among other offerings.
The celebration will also include the opening of a new 1,910-square-foot studio within the ballet’s Butler Education Center— a direct response to the growing demand for dance classes. Ballet Austin has seen a remarkable 472% growth in demand since opening its new downtown center in 2007.
WHAT: “Come Dance! 2010” Celebration: A day of free classes and opening of a new studio
WHEN: 2 to 6 p.m., Sept. 12
WHERE: Ballet Austin’s Butler Dance Education Center, 501 W. Third St.
Free admission
INFO: www.balletaustin.org
image: Free day of dance classes 2008. Photo by Kelly West/A-AS.
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July 1, 2010
Big Range Dance Festival dances on
Big Range, the indie dance festival of new modern choreography continues with three different programs this weekend:
— The ‘Choreographer’s Challenge.’ 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday. This challenge pairs six choreographers (Meredith Cook, Shawn Nasralla, Kendra Slack, Cristina Jesurun, Amanda Jackson and Katherine Hodges) with three composers (Adam Sultan, Graham Reynolds and the team of Amalia Litsa and Aaron Dugan) to see how dancemakers do their thing differently but to the same music.
For ‘Making music that can dance”, a new interview with Reynolds, click here.
— ‘Music and Movement Improvisation.’ 9:15 p.m.Thursday and Friday. See the results of what happens when dancers work together to improvise a score and movement to bring a new dance to fruition.
— ‘Mix Showcase.’ 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. New contemporary dance, multimedia- and movement-based performance art from established and emerging choreographers from Austin and across the country including Lily Sloan, Bethany Nelson, Elizabeth Rose, Anuradha Naimpally, NobleMotion Dance, FootNotes and Spank Dance. Dances include live music, elaborate costuming, collaborative choreography and timely subject matter.
Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road
$15 ($12 for students and seniors)
www.bigrangeaustin.org
Image: Noble Motion Dance. Photo by Jon Nalon.
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June 20, 2010
Review: Califa Arts Collaborative
It’s been the year for Ballet Austin dancers to venture out on their own. The latest example: Califa Arts Collaborative’s premiere performance Friday at Salvage Vanguard’s smaller theatre. BA company members past and present joined with local visual artists and musicians in three new pieces. The sold out show — people had to be turned away from the 6:30 performance — suggests there’s ample support in Austin for the new group.
The tiny space forced intimacy on the audience, offering a close-up view of lovely dancers. The evenings’ two larger pieces, “The Greatest of These” by former BA dancer Reginald Harris and “Hiding Places” by Michelle Thompson, benefited from the dancers’ professionalism. They found a way to move freely and fluidly despite space constraints.
Lisa Del Rosario’s comedic solo “Home with Yellow Fever” was the evening’s loosest, most comfortable work. Del Rosario plopped into the piece, springing up and over a well-worn couch. Through three songs by band “Yellow Fever,” Del Rosario battled her living room furniture hilariously. She rode an ottoman like a horse, turned a love seat into a carnival ride, and made a fall off a sofa arm into a parody of a death-defying cliff leap. The three sections, particularly the central dance that saw Del Rosario emerge from beneath a cozy Snuggie, felt like fits of comedic sleepwalking (sleepdancing?). Often Del Rosario only had to widen her eyes or scrunch her face to evoke laughter, slyly sidestepping slapstick in favor of more nuanced physical comedy.
Harris’ piece, described in program notes as being about “the relationships I have with my husband and my friends, had a warm sense of community built from a variety of couples’ dances. It’s heartening to see a series of couples, some composed of a man and a woman, some composed of two men, and the expansion of choreographic possibilities that happens when choreographers see multiple ways to pair dancers.
In Michelle Thompson’s “Hiding Places,” the only piece on the program to
explicitly highlight visual artists’ and musicians’ contributions, there was a
whole lot of hurtin’ going on. Live musicians accompanied each piece, ranging from
big groups to quiet solos, and the band’s quality was good, even sometimes
evocative. Projections of Caroline Wrights’ videos of paint slowly, unpredictably
webbing its away across a wet paper surface worked as colorful, vertical
counterpoint to the arcing, aching choreography. But with little change in tempo and
few attempts to counter the slow, sad song lyrics, the piece grew visually and
emotionally monotonous.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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Review: KDH Dance Company and Guests
Three dance companies on one bill do not constitute a crowd.
Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company’s hosted Austin’s Chaddick Dance Theater and College Station’s Armstrong/Bergeron Dance Company Thursday at Ballet Austin’s AustinVentures Theatre. The three companies’ aesthetics overlap significantly. All three tread in the mainstream of American modern dance, shifting between asking dancers to make clear shapes with their bodies and focusing more on energetic qualities in other moments.
But each group (all now somewhat familiar to Austin dance audiences) also have distinctive strengths. Cheryl Chaddick directs a gorgeously diverse company, who excel in their soft phrasing. Armstrong/Bergeron, still a young ensemble, has terrific intensity. And KDH continues to have one of the strongest, most polished ensembles in the area.
Chaddick offered only one piece, “Ask No More,” a lengthy meditation on pre-Raphaelite paintings of communities of women. It was difficult to discern an arc through the entire, multi-sectioned work. Most of the choreography emphasized women coming together, lending a hand or a shoulder. The sense of community was most compelling in the barest movement of the piece. Four women, draped in long toga tunics, shifted almost statuesquely over and on top of a small bench. Chaddick’s eye for less movement being more evocative can be quite keen. In larger sections, Chaddick and Lynn Forney had a stunning softness in their joints, gifting a sense of pleasure and ease to the work. Kristen Studer’s well-phrased solo felt like one of the most complete dances in the entire evening.
KDH contributed two works: Lisa Nick’s fluffy, physical “Intervention: the day by BFF gave me the real scoop” and Hamrick’s “Her Majesty’s Well-Played Adventures.” Nicks has an excellent hand on making over-the-top choices in everything from facial expressions to music selection to make accessible comedic dances. The six dancers in Hamrick’s piece looked fantastic together—on stage and on the video projected behind them. But the two parts of the work, the projected and the live, did not gel.
Armstrong/Bergeron’s three works demonstrated the company’s continued growth. A duet, “And at 36, she hit a crossroads,” featured Sara Kitterman and Andrea Sheridan walking across a long line of more than 40 pairs of shoes. One seemed content to choose from the selection offered, while the other tested the floor on her bare feet. The piece initially composed an intriguing question about conformity versus individualism, but too easily settled into an either/or answer to the question—wear the pre-set shoes or strike out on your own—rather than exploring a variety of identities the presence of so many different shoes seemed to suggest.
Five women pushed through Kathleen Byrne’s “Discard the Broken Cassette” with
precision and clarity. The program also included company co-artistic director Carisa
Armstrong in her solo “Fallen,” a hearkening back to modern dance’s origins in
the solo work of strong women.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts writer.
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June 17, 2010
One evening of dance, four choreographers
Beginning tonight, Austin choreographer Kathy Dunn Hamrick gathers three of her fellow dancemakers for three nights of new work: Armstrong/Bergeron Dance Company, Lisa Nicks and Cheryl Chaddick.
‘An Evening of Contemporary Dance’
8 p.m. today through Saturday
AustinVentures StudioTheater, Ballet Austin, 501 W. Third St.
$12-$15
www.kdhdance.com
Hamrick will premiere a new dance in collaboration with videographer Kakii Keenan and composer Tim Kerr. “Plan on being wildly entertained,” Hamrick says. “The company is having a blast creating this new piece, both in the studio and in front of the green screen. Tim incorporates seemingly incongruous samples for an extremely fun and surprising score. And you will want one of Renee Nunez’s costumes.”
Armstrong/Bergeron Dance Company will present three works including “Discard the Broken Cassette,” a high energy work choreographed by Kathleen Byrne and Christine Bergeron’s duet, “And then at 36, she hit a cross road.”
When queried about her choreographic plans, Lisa Nicks responded by asking if it would be okay to get ice cream on the floor. Lisa is premiering “Intervention,” a fun, intense and ultimately eloquent duet.
Chaddick Dance Theater will be performing a work created and performed in San Francisco in 2000 called “Ask No More.” “I became inspired and fascinated by the body language of the pre-Raphaelite paintings of Laurence Al Tadema and one of the most beautiful paintings of that era, ‘Reclining June.’” says Cheryl Chaddick. “I appreciated the suppleness, curvature, and the pure beauty of the female body.”
Photo of Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company by Kevin Gliner.
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June 16, 2010
Review: BAM Fest's 'New Dance'
A person’s posture can be very revealing. The dancers of Dallas Black Dance Theatre struck defiant, powerful postures in every moment of their performance Tuesday, part of the Black Arts Movement’s New Dance program at the Carver Center.
DBDT and the other companies on the program, Creative Outlet Dance Theatre of Brooklyn and Austin’s Ballet Afrique Youth Ensemble, displayed many of the best features of dance borne in the African American community. All the evening’s dancers were strong and precise physically and artistically.
DBDT has become a fixture of BAM’s programming, and it’s easy to know why. The company’s repertory includes new stars in modern dance choreography, like Camille A. Brown and Nejla Yatkin, as well as treasures of American dance history.
Brown’s duet “Our Honeymoon is Over,” performed by Nycole Ray and Zach Law Ingram to Aretha Franklin’s deep crooning, offered a refreshing look at familiar choreographic structures. The dancers’ fast, frenzied entrance in perfect unison did not communicate a solidarity between them, as unison movement often does, but instead demonstrated two people in the same space, unable to speak to one another. It was the danced equivalent of a screaming match that has gotten so loud no one can be heard. The duet also rejected the easy end to couple dances: resolution. Brown allows Ray, the woman, to decide she’s had enough, leaving Ingram behind at the fight’s end.
But a man had the final say in Asadata Dafora’s classic 1932 solo “Awassa Astrige/Ostrich.” Christopher McKenzie, Jr., embodied the regal ostrich, carefully replicating the characteristics that connect African and African American dance, particularly in his undulating spine and grounded, mobile pelvis. (Dafora came to New York from his home country of Sierra Leone in 1929.) Historians’ emphasis on movement vocabulary in defining African American dance can overshadow the spirit of the dancing. McKenzie did not just do the steps the right way. He stilled the sold-out audience, commanding our attention and calling forth dancing spirits.
DBDT’s other offerings included an excerpt from Yatkin’s solo “Journey to the One: A Tango,” which is practically duet between Janine Beckles and a long, rippling red skirt; and two dances by company members, Richard A. Freeman, Jr.’s balletic drama “Trial & Error” and an excerpt from Ingram’s “Phoenix.”
Jamel Gaines’ Creative Outlet company was a new, welcome addition to BAM. The company has a strong core of dancers, who can handle Gaines’ mix of African and modern vocabulary, as well as an ample number of virtuosic tricks. Bahiyah Sayyed Gaines stands out. She moves with lovely ease and musicality, clearly making choices about when to punctuate the choreography and when to slide gracefully through a long phrase.
Ballet Afrique’s Youth Ensemble opened the evening, displaying solid training in a variety of styles. There’s reason to hope Austin might one day see one of these young women dancing with the kind of companies that filled the rest of the evening’s program.
The Black Arts Movement Festival continues through Saturday. www.bamfestaustin.org
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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Movement is healing for choreographer Lisa del Rosario
Summer’s always a good time to try something new. That’s the case this weekend with the new arts collaboration, Califa. The group is mainly composed of choreographers familiar to Ballet Austin audiences: former dancer Reginald Harris and current star Michelle Thompson. The third choreographer on the free program, which runs Friday and Saturday at Salvage Vanguard, is Lisa del Rosario. A teacher at Ballet Austin’s school and one of Austin’s most thoughtful, yet quirky performers, del Rosario will perform her new solo, “Home With Yellow Fever.”
Austin American-Statesman: How do you straddle being inside a solo as the dancer and outside of it as the choreographer?
Lisa del Rosario: I do little bits at a time because I need to repeat it over and over just to get it into my body. It takes time for me to process what’s going on from the outside. I also have to make sure I’m pacing myself. This piece is really energetic, so I have to make sure the movement isn’t going to kill me.
How did visual artist Allyson Fox inspire ‘Home With Yellow Fever’?
She draws furniture, and she draws people. I chose to use my living room furniture in the piece because I saw that she was an interior designer, too. I like to change the perspective of the space. I use the living room space in a nontraditional way — very distorted and very physical.
‘Yellow Fever’ has a variety of connotations, including xenophobia toward Asians or the idea of white men who only date Asian women. You took the phrase from band’s name — the band that created the music you use. Do the other connotations matter for you?
I think it’s ironic that that was the band’s name, and that I’m an Asian woman. But I’m not personalizing it or taking offense to it at all. I just find it really funny.
You’re a Feldenkrais practitioner. How has that approach to studying movement, the focus connecting movement and thought, changed how you dance?
My repertory of movement blossomed, and now whenever I’m creating movement it almost seemed endless because I can do so much with my body now. Feldenkrais also helped me recover from injuries. My sophomore year at UT I had a stress fracture and started having lots of pain in all my joints. Feldenkrais helped me get out of that really injured place. Then about 7 years ago I was in the Philippines to dance professionally, and a tree fell and crushed half my body. My left arm was totally paralyzed. Once I began to heal, Feldenkrais meant I had the idea that I can think differently. I can still work with what I have, and I was able to heal at the same time.
‘Home With Yellow Fever’
When: 6:30 and 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Where: Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road
Cost: Free (donations appreciated)
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Photo by Nadine Latief.
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June 15, 2010
Review: Tapestry Dance Company's 'Friends in Time'
Tapestry Dance Company’s shows often feel part performance, part family reunion.
Saturday’s “Friends in Time,” the faculty concert for the company’s annual summer tap festival, continued in the same friendly vein. The show featured several of Tapestry’s current dancers, including artistic director Acia Gray, as well as a full slate of out-of-town guests from the best of the national tap scene.
The most spectacular, moving performance of the evening came from a dancer who was both a guest and a hometown hero. Jason Janas was a strong member of Tapestry’s ensemble for years, and now has returned with an even more sophisticated style. Janas evokes a mood with his entire body, letting the rhythms of his lower body travel up through his torso and into his face. Dancing to the live music of the Eddy Hobizal Jazz Trio playing an almost unrecognizable, but evocative version of Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror,” Janas looked liked a genius made of rubber, soul and sound.
The evening’s other guests demonstrated the wide varieties of tap from Terry Brock’s classical tap in “Essence of Ellie,” an ode to Eleanor Powell’s style, to Bril Barrett’s fast, hard-stomping, stand-up comedy bit.
Among the Tapestry regulars, Brenna Kuhn highlighted the syncopation of tap as not just a matter of the feet. Kuhn continues to develop a complex battery of rhythms in her shoulders and arms.
The annual showcase is always the culmination of the festival, and the sense of ongoing learning fostered by ‘Soul to Sole’ filled the theatre. The audience, which seemed to have a large number of students in attendance, could not have been more excited about the show. Every single number got a standing ovation. It’s hard to argue with that.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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June 14, 2010
BAM Festival hosts a night of dance
The Black Arts Movement Festival hosts a show case of modern dance Tuesday night featuring Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Brooklyn’s Creative Outlet Dance Theater and Austin’s Ballet Afrique.
8 p.m. Tuesday
Boyd Vance Theater, Carver Museum, 1165 Carver Museum
$15. 236-0644, www.bamaustin.org
Creative Outlet Dance Theatre of Brooklyn
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June 11, 2010
Ballet Austin now on TWC local-on-demand
Need a dance fix? Now, you can watch Ballet Austin anytime on Time Warner Cable local-on-demand channel 1400.
The cable provider has given Ballet Austin its own category on channel 1400 where viewers will find “Truth & Beauty” and “Bounce,” two pieces from the company’s celebrated February performance.
Both choreographed by Ballet Austin artistic director Stephen Mills, “Truth & Beauty” features the live musical accompaniment of Austin Chamber Music ensemble. “Bounce” has an original score by Austin composer Graham Reynolds who performs it live with a big band.
A pilot in 2009 with TWC offering Ballet Austin’s “Cult of Color: Call to Color” iwas so well received that cable company decided to take the project further.
Also now available on local-on-demand (channel 1400 in Austin/San Marcos and channel 200 in Waco/Temple/Killeen) is “Symphony of Clouds” an educational production of Ballet Austin’s ArtsBlitz program performed by the company’s trainees in collaboration with Pollyanna Theater Company and Umlauf Sculpture Garden. “Symphony of Clouds” recounts Mozart’s life from childhood through dance, acting and music.
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May 25, 2010
2010 Big Range Dance Festival announces line-up
The indie Big Range Dance Festival has announced its line-up for its 2010 iteration. Big Range — which runs June 25-July 4 — is organized by Ellen Bartel, long-time Austin indie choreographer and artistic director of Spank Dance Co.
All Big Range performances will be at Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road. For tickets see www.bigrangeaustin.org.
Program A: Mix Showcase
8 p.m. June 25-26
A mixed showcase of new contemporary dance, multi-media and movement based-performance art from established and emerging choreographers from Austin and across the country.
Choreographers: Leah Smiley Tubbs, Ann Berman, Sheep Army (Lisa Del Rosario), Mary Chase Rosalyn Nasky, Ariel Dance Theatre, Toni Bravo,
Program B: Composer Challenge
8 p.m. July 1-2
Six choreographers create dance to the same pieces of music by three Austin composers.
Composer 1: Adam Sultan- Choreographers: Meredith Cook, Shawn Nasralla
Composer 2: Graham Reynolds- Choreographers: Kendra Slack, Cristina Jesurun (NYC)
Composer 3: Amalia Litsa/Aaron Dugan- Choreographers: Amanda Jackson, Katherine Hodges
Program C: Music and Movement Improvisation
9: 15 p.m. July 1-2
See how genres can complement each other in new and unexpected ways through music and movement improvisation. The performers developed the score together, setting boundaries and bridging new ideas.
Musical Director: Owen Weaver. Movement Director: Pat Stone. Dancers/Creators: Whitney Boomer, Matthew Cumbie, Karen Carlson, Melinda Chanson, Emily Babb, Lilly Slone, Amanda Jackson, Meredith Cook
Program D: Mix Showcase
8 p.m. July 3, 2 p.m July 4
A showcase of new contemporary dance, multi-media and movement based-performance art from established and emerging choreographers from Austin and across the country.
Choreographers: Lilly Sloan, Bethany Nelson, Spank Dance, Elizabeth Rose (Seattle), Noblemotion Dance (Houston), Brenna Kuhn, Anuradha Naimpally
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May 12, 2010
Review: 'A Chorus Line'
Everybody can sing “One,” the best known song from “A Chorus Line.”
“One! Singular sensation every little step she makes.”
Seeing the song performed in the context of the national touring show Tuesday at UT’s Bass Concert Hall imbues the lyrics with new meanings. The song doesn’t just describe the force of a chorus line performing as one dancing unit. The musical, with its focus on dancers’ dreams and lives, demonstrates that inside that singular sensation known as the kick line stand a number of very different people who bring a variety experiences to the stage.
The 1975 musical, directed and choreographed by Michael Bennett with music by Marvin Hamlisch, a book by James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante, and lyrics by Edward Kleban, is much richer than the 1985 movie.
The musical, revived by Baayork Lee who originated the role of Connie Wong and Bennett’s co-choreographer Bob Avian, shines the spotlight on 26 dancers competing for 8 spots in a Broadway show’s chorus. The group dances and sings, but they also talk—not an opportunity often afforded dancers. The stories the men and women tell felt surprisingly fresh Tuesday, despite the musical’s now iconic nature.
The most moving story belongs to the character Paul, played Tuesday by Nicky Venditti. One of the best dancers in the cast, Venditti brings an anxious sensitivity to the role of the young man struggling with how to reconcile his gender—a more feminine masculinity—and sexuality—he is gay. When the unseen director forces Paul to describe how he began dancing, Venditti smartly combines his body posture and vocal delivery with his lines. He keeps his hands mostly inside his pants’ pockets, but moves them as through they are struggling to escape, and he talks in the kind of breathless, run-on sentences of a person telling a story long kept secret.
Like Venditti, many of the actors build character through movement. Hilary Michael Thompson conveys Kristine’s inability to sing by hunching her back every time she tries to croak out a note in “Sing!” Sheila, the show’s older diva, wouldn’t be recognizable without Ashley Yeater’s shoulders back, chin up posture that becomes a sort of full-bodied sneer throughout the show. (Yeater was easily one of the strongest among Tuesday’s cast.) The show’s simple set, a wall of mirrors the run across the back of the stage, sometimes highlights the group’s fixation on how they look, and other times becomes something of a stand-in audience. As Cassie (Rebecca Riker) fights with the director to stay in the audition, the mirrors brighten as she dances. Michael Bennett’s choreography for this number—at least the actual movement vocabulary—is surprisingly dated and odd, but as Riker covers more and more space, the freedom Cassie feels when dancing becomes palpable.
When the cast first sings the line “I really need this job” in the opening number, it seems their desire for employment equates to anyone looking for a job. But as the dancers keep singing and keep dancing, their desire to perform takes a different shape. Being a dancer is who they are, not just what they do. That passion and a strong cast make seeing the two-hour musical performed without an intermission fly by.
‘A Chorus Line’ continues 8 p.m. through Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Bass Concert Hall, 23rd Street and Robert Dedman Drive, University of Texas campus. $20-$69. www.BroadwayAcrossAmerica.com
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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May 10, 2010
Review: Ballet Austin's 'Coppelia'
Some men may want dolls, but a real woman is always a better deal.
In Ballet Austin’s Coppelia, performed this weekend at the Long Center, the real live woman, Swanilda, bests the doll that shares the ballet’s name. Swanilda’s spunk and artistic director Stephen Mills’ gift for comedic staging capitalized on the “Coppelia’s” charm and humor.
Coppelia is a women’s ballet. Women do most of the dancing, and Swanilda is their ringleader. Both of the dancers cast as Swanilda — Ashley Lynn Gilfix and Jaime Lynn Witts — were sassy Swanilda’s and dealt ably with the role’s extensive mime and dancing demands.
Gilfix has a softness to her upper body that allowed her to alternate between dainty and fierce. Witts showed great personality and technique throughout the ballet. She gleamed in the third act’s wedding pas de deux. Her performance, her first evening-length principal role, seems likely to be the first of many leads for Witts.
Neither lead woman could have pulled off the ballet’s comedy without help from their male partners. Paul Michael Bloodgood and Frank Shott alternated as Swanilda’s flirtatious lover Franz. Both men were generally strong, but Bloodgood struggled in his third act solo Saturday night.
Anthony Casati, who retired from the company two years ago, returned as the eccentric, older dollmaker Dr. Coppelius. Casati handled the slapstick well, while also tapping the role’s pathos.
A pack of strong dancers surrounded the leads, particularly in the extended dance for Swanilda and her six friends in Act I. In pairs and as a group, the seven women barreled through the space in a torrent of turns and jumps. Two of the friends, Michelle Thompson and Kirby Wallis, returned in the third act, as Aurora and Prayer respectively. As the sprightly Aurora, Thompson delivered one of her best solo performances to date. Wallis, who usually gets cast as more of a firecracker, brought a lovely serenity to the Prayer solo.
The corps had solid performances Saturday and Sunday. Their character dances were
well-executed but lacked the pride and exuberance that usually make Coppelia’s
character dances explode from the stage. Mills’ Waltz of the Hours, one of the new
choreographies for this production, looks lovely from the theatre’s higher
reaches. Its patterns loop and intertwine among themselves quite pleasingly.
Unfortunately, Anna Marie Melendez and Christopher Swaim seemed quite tense as the dance’s leading couple, undermining the lilt of the piece.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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April 29, 2010
Fusebox 2010: Review of 'Comme Toujours'
The spirit of exploration at the heart of disciplinary-crossing art making — blending dance and theatere or visual arts and music — can be an interesting, but messy affair.
Big Dance Theater’s “Comme Toujours Here I Stand” proves boundary crossing can also be slick, without sacrificing complexity. There’s no better place to ponder such gradations of performance approaches than the Fusebox Festival, which presented New York-based Big Dance Theater’s popular work Tuesday at the Long Center. New York critics hailed “Comme Toujours” as the most compelling example of the company’s work, and Tuesday’s performance demonstrated a stunning, unsettling sophistication in a range of vocabularies.
Since founding Big Dance Theater in 1991, co-directors Annie-B Parsons and Paul Lazar have always purposefully straddled the line between dance and theatre. “Comme Toujours” riffs on Agnes Varda’s 1962 French New Wave film “Cleo de 5 a 7 (Cleo from 5 to 7),” which follows a pop singer through two hours as she awaits biopsy results. Big Dance Theater combines the film’s plot and making of the movie to comment on the diva’s brush with mortality as both a moment filled with everyday occurrences as well as deep sorrow and fear. The mix of songs, dance and dialogue exchanges result in a very funny piece whose final moments have a gut-punching beauty that brilliantly sidesteps sentimentality.
“Comme Toujours” refuses to ever locate the story in one place or time. Dressed in black suits, the cast’s men constantly re-configure the space to shift the action between a movie set and the fictional pop star’s life. The men roll several rectangular cloth pieces, which sometimes serve as walls to frame vignettes performed by the cast’s women, sometimes to serve as screens for Jeff Larsons’ atmospheric videos. Molly Hickok is a most convincing, yet sympathetic diva. She combines an extravagance of gesture with a slightly flat affect, allowing her to read sometimes as pouting and other times as sad. Claudia Stephen’s costume design and Joanne Howard’s set enhance Hickok’s excess. As the show progresses, it seems almost as if Hickok gives birth to yards of white fur that cover more and more of the set and the characters’ props. One cannot help but notice how she changes the spaces she inhabits. She is funny, and she is overwhelming.
To some degree, all of the performers traffic in the same paradox of largesse and flatness that Hickok wields most extravagantly. Everyone in the cast plays a variety of roles, but the style suggests it’s never that important who the character is — a whiny girl involved in a series of melodramatic fights with an over-the-phone boyfriend or a macho male lover.
The acting style and insertions of quirky dance numbers keep the characters just beyond the audience’s grasp. The performers are in such control of their choices and the work overall has a sense of careful construction, creating an amazing world to enter, but never to be understood.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Photo by Mike van Sleen.
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April 15, 2010
Fusebox: Kaiji Moriyama, free shows at the Paramount April 21-22
One of Japan’s foremost contemporary dancers Kaiji Moriyama combines the grace and technique of ballet with the precision of butoh dance for an emotionally charged, visually stunning solo performance, ‘The Velvet Suite.’
‘The Velvet Suite’ was originally created to fit the theme of ‘Body and Eros’ for the 2007 Venice Biennale. It features Moriyama’s magnetic, compelling movement as he is by violinist Koichiro Muroya.
Moriyama first began his career with a musical theater company in Japan, and moved to the world of professional choreography. He has worked with a number of leading contemporary dance companies and innovative Japanese choreographers such as Kota Yamazaki, Yukio Ueshima, and Aki Nagatani. Kaiji is style has been likened to a sword, tearing through space with a smoothness and sensitivity which crosses over generational boundaries. In January 2005, his U.S. solo debut “katana”(sword) was reviewed by Anna Kisselgoff of The New York Times as “a dance of amazing concentration by an amazing dancer”.
‘The Velvet Suite’ plays two nights as part of the Fusebox Festival. And thanks to sponsorship by testperformancetest — an endowment started by arts patron Julie Thornton to bring international performance art to Austin — the shows are free.
You will need to RSVP to reserve a seat though.
Click here for the April 21 show and here for the show on April 22.
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April 13, 2010
UT's Texas Performing Arts announces 2010-2011 season
Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, pianist Emanuel Ax, the National Theatre of Scotland and L.A. Theatre Works are just some of the acts coming to Austin via the University of Texas’ Texas Performing Arts for the 2010-2011 season, officials announced Tuesday night.
Also on the season lineup is the Ornette Coleman Quartet, famed chamber orchestra the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, an evening with food writer Michael Pollan and the last ever tour of the renowned modern troupe, Merce Cunningham Dance.
New music fans have plenty of temptations. Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche will perform with the ultimate al classical group Bang on a Can All-Stars. Indie chamber ensemble Eighth Blackbird will present ‘Slide,’ an unconventional work of musical theater that has the ensemble taking on onstage roles along with a pair of actors. Pioneering composer and video artist Jean Piche brings his multi-media work to Austin. So will composer John Zorn when the Miro Quartet and percussionist Colin Currie performs his work in March.
Perhaps the biggest news though is that TPA is extending its reach by collaborating with several Austin arts organizations, bringing them on as co-sponsors of certain shows. Austin Classical Guitar Society, the Fusebox Festival and the Long Center — which is hosting one next season’s touring Broadway shows — are co-sponsors of several events throughout the season. And that’s wonderful to see that kind of town-and-gown collaboration.
See www.texasperformingarts.org for complete information.
‘Slide’ with Eighth Blackbird, Rinde Eckert and Steve Mackey.
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April 6, 2010
New American Talent/Dance audience award winners
And now, the crowds have spoken and the audience prizes for Ballet Austin’s ‘New American Talent/Dance’ choreographic competition are:
Dominic Walsh of Houston garnered six wins for $3,000 in prize money plyus $500 for being the overall audience pick. Nelly van Bommell of New York received two wins for $1,000 and KT Nelson of San Francisco netted one win for $500.
Last week, Ballet Austin announced the winners of judges’ prizes.
‘New American Talent/Dance’ brings together three choreographers as chosen by three internationally renowned judges. Choreographers are given a stipend and the opportunity to create new work for the Ballet Austin dancers.
When the new dance works are premiered, each judge had a $5,000 discretionary fund to allocate. And at each performance, the audience could vote for their favorite as well.
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March 29, 2010
Ballet Austin's 'New American Talent/Dance' winnings announced
The judges have decided. And their $15,000 in discretionary prize monies have been allocated.
Judges for Ballet Austin’s ‘New American Talent/Dance’ — the biennial choreography competition now in performance at Ballet Austin’s Austin Ventures Studio Theater — have announced their awards decision.
Houston’s Dominic Walsh and Nelly van Bommel of New York each received $6,000. KT Nelson of San Francisco’s ODC/Dance was awarded $3,000.
The jurors were Alicia Adams, the Kennedy Center’s vice president of international touring; Julie Nakagawa, artistic director and co-founder of Chicago’s DanceWorks’ and Paul Vasterling, artistic director of the Nashville Ballet. Each judge had a $5,000 discretionary fund to allocate.
A ground-breaking biennial competition, ‘New American Talent/Dance’ brings together three choreographers as chosen by three internationally renowned judges. Choreographers are given a stipend and the opportunity to create new work for the Ballet Austin dancers.
Additional prize money of will be awarded to the choreographer garnering the most audience votes each night. Those prizes will be announced next week.
Click here for a review of ‘New American Talent/Dance.’
Review: KDH Dance's 'Alone, Alone'
KDH Dance went to new places with ‘Alone, Alone,’ a new hour-long dance work that premiered this weekend in three sold-out shows at the Salvage Vanguard Theater.
In more ways the one, too.
Artistic director Kathy Dunn Hamrick rallied the ambient rock band Hill Ma as collaborators — a pretty daring choice even for the self-proclaimed ‘Live Music Capital of the World.’ So often live musical accompaniment to modern dance remains acoustic.
Not so with ‘Alone, Alone,’ The Hill Ma foursome played live from behind a scrim at the rear of the stage. And if their more charging, louder sounds made for a bit of an aesthetic disconnect at times with Hamrick modern moves, for the most part the band’s ethereal lyric-less wall-of-sound and moody style made for a good fit, adding plenty of energy to Hamrick already energetic manner of dance.
Indeed, Hamrick’s signature athleticism provided the underpinnings to ‘Alone, Alone.’ (Hers are usually some of the most vigorous dances on Austin indie modern dance scene).
But rather than take her usual humor-infused approach to creating abstract non-narrative dance, Hamrick went for thoughtful: ‘Alone, Alone’ was an emotionally resonant hour-long exploration of the state of being alone.
Though at time the company of eight dancers filled the stage together, they were really been dancing solo, each working out a way of being through dynamic angular moves, each glancing sideways assessing how others were doing it. Clad in first pink then chartreuse tunics, the dancers partnered each other only briefly and distractedly. Even when pairs or trios or quartets danced through sequences together, there was a marked but effective disconnect between them.
Slowly, the emotional gaps between the ensemble closed as ‘Alone, Alone’ progressed. But not before we saw a series of striking variations on the movement of singleness.
Review: Ballet Austin's 'New American Talent/Dance'
Saving the best for last may be a cliche, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea.
Ballet Austin definitely saved its best new ballet until the end of Thursday’s New American Talent/Dance (NATD) program. Nelly Van Bommel’s Fanfarneta is smart, funny, and rich.
Fanfarneta was one of three ballets commissioned for the third biennial NATD competition. Three jurors—this year Alicia Adams of the Kennedy Center, Julie Nakagawa of DanceWorks Chicago, and Paul Vasterling of Nashville Ballet—select three finalist choreographers from a pool of video applications. This year’s finalists were Dominic Walsh of Houston’s Dominic Walsh Dance Theatre, KT Nelson of San Francisco’s ODC Dance, and Van Bommel, a French-born choreographer now based in New York.
Van Bommel chose La Cor de la Plana’s music for Fanfarneta, using the songs of the all-male French group for a series of vignettes. Sung in Occitan, a language indigenous to southern France and Catalonia, the throaty voices and the songs’ rhythmic complexity generate a folksy feel. Van Bommel ably couples music and choreography so the dance becomes another rhythmic layer. The two artistic elements feed one another, rather than one channeling the other. She accentuates this relationship by having the barefoot dancers slap the floor with their feet. The dancers may all have shin splints soon, but the foot-stomping provides a joyous, calamitous tone.
Fanfarneta’s sense of intense community captures folk dance’s spirit with a modern dance vocabulary. In a simple series of arm gestures, Jaime Lynn Witts and Joseph Hernandez demonstrate how performers can really see one another and connect. The piece seems intensity seems social (even in Michelle Thompson’s fabulous solo). Van Bommel brought the dancers together.
It’s reductive to compare dance pieces, since every work has unique successes and failures. But the NATD format—audience members use their cell phones to vote for their favorite work—makes comparisons hard to avoid. Next to Fanfarneta, Walsh’s “The Whistling” seems underdeveloped. Walsh chose an excellent cast and used their balletic skills well, but he also gave Hernandez a bad ballet version of breakdance popping and locking as a solo. The piece was littered with moments that screamed, “This gesture is very meaningful” without providing narrative or kinetic interpretive contexts.
KT Nelson’s “When Love is Hard” lacked sophistication. Nelson’s choreography generally followed a single instrument through Borut Krzisnik’s dense score. Couples paired by repeating a movement motif of poking one another with outstretched fingers: one couple poked with tenderness, another slashed with rage. But for all the different emotions expressed, the end result was monotonous.
‘New American Talent/Dance’ continues through April 4. See www.balleaustin.org.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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March 22, 2010
Combining passions: A most distinct aritistic collaboration
Choreographer Kathy Dunn Hamrick and her son Jacob Hamrick have pulled off a kind of creative collaboration that family experts would probably marvel over.
Together, the mother and son have made it happen: Hill Ma. Jacob’s band, will play live when Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company performs ‘Alone, Alone,’ a new program this weekend.
KDH Dance is know for its vivacious, athletic modern dance styles. Hill Ma makes thoughtful, ambient rock music. Together, the pair of creative entities bring an hour-long exploration in sound and movment of the emotional shades of aloneness.
Click here to read the story and hear music samples of Hill Ma.
‘Alone, Alone’
8 p.m. March 25-27
Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Road
$12-$15
www.kdhdance.com
Making Dances 4: Hill Ma from farid on Vimeo.
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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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.]
