Preview: SMU Fall Dance Concert 2019

Gleaming Ballet

Ballet Dallas’ Carter Alexander takes us to the gardens of Vienna in his new ballet Luisant, part of the Meadows School of the Arts’ Fall Dance Concert at SMU.

Carter Alexander’s Luisant. Photo: SMU Meadows School of the Arts

Dallas — Carter Alexander has made quite a name for himself in the Dallas dance arena since moving back to the area in 2013. His name and choreography has been attached to many local dance institutions, including Chamberlain Ballet, Contemporary Ballet Dallas (now Ballet Dallas), Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (BTWHSPVA) and the dance department at Southern Methodist University’s (SMU) Meadows School of the Arts. He was also the creator of AKA: Ballet, a collaborative project that brought local choreographers and professional dancers together for one night at the Dallas Latino Cultural Center in July 2018.

In addition to teaching and choreographing for dance schools around town, Alexander is also the co-artistic director of Ballet Dallas, a role he accepted because of his great rapport with the company. “What really drove my decision was my relationship with the dancers. They were interested in what I had to give. And that is such a wonderful thing when people are hungry for what you have to say and what your aesthetic is and they’re really hungry for that kind of relationship to work together.”

Alexanders adds, “I think that the dancers see their improvement as artists and not just technically. And I think the work that I have done there has been really good for them and I’ve brought in some interesting people for them to work with.”

Photo: Ken Smith

Carter Alexander

Alexander’s ballet training started at his mom’s dance studio in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He then moved to Dallas to finish high school at BTWHSPVA. After graduation Alexander joined the Hartford Ballet, which is also where he first met his wife, Jeanne Elser Smith. After Hartford Ballet he joined Kansas City Ballet and also began teaching in the Kansas City Ballet School. After four years at KC Ballet Alexander moved on to Pennsylvania Ballet where his wife was also a company member.

As a ballet instructor Alexander has taught at the Ballet Workshop New England/Massachusetts Youth Ballet, the School of Ballet Arizona and the Miami City Ballet School, which at the time was under the leadership of Edward Villella.

Mostly recently Alexander was asked to set a new piece for the SMU Meadows School of the Arts’ Fall Dance Concert, which runs Nov. 13-17 at the Bob Hope Theatre on the SMU Campus. The program also includes a new work by award-winning jazz/tap artist Caleb Teicher and a revival of Robert Battle’s 2001 Battlefield.

Regarding the ballet’s title Alexander says he chose Luisant, which means “glowing” or “gleaming” in French, because he wanted to create an atmosphere where the dancers appear to shimmer as they move on stage. Alexanders says he is hoping to accomplish this glimmer affect with the aid of stage lighting and set design.

Alexander explains, “There’s going to be gray Marley flooring with white leg and there won’t be any borders at the top so you’ll see the color of the lights. You know the blues, reds and purples. So my idea is that these are colored lights in a garden and maybe in the fast movements it’s like little sprays of mist with the lights hitting the dancers giving them a glimmer affect.”

The 24-minute balletic work features 20 dancers (17 women and three men) in four sections set to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C Major. Without giving too much away Alexander says the ballet starts with the entire cast on stage before they break out into smaller groups as well as duets and solos. And sticking to classical tradition the ladies will be performing on pointe and in tutus.

As to why he chose to create a large ballet number, Alexander says, “It’s been a long time since they had a real, classical large work. I wanted to do something light, not angsty because there is something else on the program that I knew would fill that kind of role. I also wanted to give the students an opportunity to do a ballet where everybody really danced.”

Creating a large classical ballet isn’t as easy as it may appear. Alexander says one of the key things to choreographing a large ballet number is knowing how to move people around the stage. “It’s balancing when people come in and when people go out so it’s not the same the whole time. You’re giving the eye different things to look at, but you’re also giving the audience a focus.”

In Luisant, Alexander says sometimes there will be 20 people on the stage and sometimes there will be only one or two. He did this because he wanted to give audience members a lot of different looks, but notes that even though the number of dancers on stage is constantly varying, he says it’s not so fast that viewers won’t be able to see what’s happening. “It was one of my goals to make the ballet visually very pleasing. It’s a classical piece of music, but the ballet also has some jazzy parts in there as well as some contemporary movements. But it is essentially a classical ballet, which is something not a lot of people are doing now.”

He adds, “So with this piece for SMU I really wanted to give the students the opportunity to dance something very classical. But they are also wonderful in their modern and contemporary work so I wanted them to be able to relate the two and understand how the classical has all of that movement from the back and the flow through the movement, but also quick and sustained movement.”

>This preview was originally posted on TheaterJones.com.

 

Preview: Dallas Black Dance Theatre’s Spring Celebration Series

Dance Vibes

 

Dallas Black Dance Theatre’s Jasmine White-Killins on revealing a new layer of herself in Darrell Grand Moutrie’s Execution of a Sentiment, part of the Spring Celebration Series.

Dallas — A recent video posted to Dallas Black Dance Theatre’s (DBDT) Facebook page (seen above) caught my eye for it sheds a new light on company dancer Jasmine White-Killins who, in the clip, is practicing her adagio solo in choreographer Darrell Grand Moultrie’s new work, Execution of a Sentiment. Known for her powerful technical execution and poised stage presence, White-Killins surprised me with her quiet control and raw vulnerability.

I reached out to White-Killins to find out more about Moultrie’s new piece, which premieres at DBDT’s Spring Celebration Series, May 17-19, at the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre. The jam-packed program also includes Jamal Story’s aerial duet What to Say: Notes on Echo and Narcissus; a new work by DBDT company member Claude Alexander III entitled A Tender Pardon; and a performance from special guests Ballet Hispánico.

Originally from Cincinnati, White-Killins moved to Dallas after high school to attend Southern Methodist University where she earned a B.F.A. in dance performance and a minor in Arts Management. Her dance training has also included The Ailey School, Martha Graham School and the Cincinnati Ballet Academy. White-Killins performed two seasons with DBDT: ENCORE! before joining DBDT where she has spent the last four seasons.

“It was a very refreshing thing to do. It feels almost like meditation,” White-Killins says about performing the short solo. “And I owe a lot of that ability to Darrell because he was very good at looking at each dancer and accepting where ever you were at that moment.”

Photo: Brian Guilliaux

Jasmine White-Killins

She continues, “He said I needed to just center myself and kind of find my inner strength and my vulnerability and being okay with going to that place. So, when I do the solo I always get very emotional because it really makes me look inward.”

While White-Killins makes every move in the solo look effortless she tells me that getting it to this point was harder than she initially thought. She explains, “There are a couple of moments were he has me holding some very technical balances like a passé or arabesque, but he’s like ‘just hold it and get to it with no wobbles and no shakes. Just be there.’ And I think that as a professional I got this and then you get up there and try to do it with all the emotion and you realize that you are not as strong as you thought,” she laughingly says.

One of the most challenging moments in the solo is where White-Killins is balancing on one leg and then she has to drop her body three times without wobbling. As for how she accomplishes this feat White-Killins says, “Darrell said you have to be invested so much in that space and that weight that you’re going down to, which is just taking you into a deeper and deeper place. And so, once I started to look at it from that perspective it’s so much easier to get wrapped up in that. And when I do it now I just feel so right there!”

Overall, White-Killins says it was a very refreshing experience working with Moultrie again. She had the pleasure of working with him in high school and then later at The Ailey School. “He treats us very much so like individuals and he was very clear that he wanted each person to express their individuality and that no one is going to look like the other person.”

She continues, “The experience was just eye opening for us. He literally gave us so many technical notes, but also just notes about being interested in what we are doing. He said that as artists and professional dancers it’s our responsibility to figure out what each step means and what each step represents. Even down to the smallest gesture. He was very big on that.”

She adds, “He also had us focus a lot on showing emotion through your body and not so much in your face. A lot of times he would tell us that our face is doing all this stuff, but he wasn’t seeing that in our body. So he was very big on the vocabulary coming through the movement and not necessarily putting it on like we would do in more theatrical pieces.”

White-Killins describes the work as physical demanding with a concept that doesn’t follow a particular narrative or chronological order. “There isn’t just one sentiment being shown. There are lots of sentiments being shown in the three sections of the work. We start out moving big and fast, which leads into an adagio section and then the pace picks up again.”

As for the feeling of the piece White-Killins says, “I think everybody is very individual and their journey is something completely different. Everybody’s path is different.”

She adds, “When Darrell taught us the movement he would always start out by saying ‘so the feeling is’ and then he would do all this movement and it would happen single time. So we would always start with the feeling of it and everybody’s feelings and steps were completely different.”

This preview was originally posted on TheaterJones.com.

 

The Year in Dance

Here are my favorite new dance works of 2018!

Face What’s Facing You by Claude Alexander III for Dallas Black Dance Theatre. Photo: Anne Marie Bloodgood

This year saw the creative juices flowing from well-known local dance artists, including Joshua L. Peugh, Katie Cooper and Kimi Nikaidoh as well as guest artists who brought styles that had yet to be seen in Dallas such as Yin Yue’s FoCo contemporary dance style and Gabrielle Lamb’s bird-like quality and theatricality. We also saw the resurgence of authentic jazz technique from Southern Methodist University (SMU) Artist-in-Residence Brandi Coleman and the expansion of Bombshell Dance Project’s technical fortitude in a new piece by visiting choreographer Amanda Krische.

A few of the works on my list this year also featured live accompaniment, including Cooper’s The Little Match Girl Passion, Nikaidoh’s The Face of Water and Peugh’s evening-length work Aladdin,حبيبي. We also saw more musical collaborations with local talent such as Cooper’s Avant Chamber Ballet with Verdigris Ensemble and Peugh with SMU alum Brandon Carson who worked on both Aladdin and Lamb’s Can’t Sleep But Lightly.

Relatability also played a big part in my decision making for this list, and while every piece made me feel something, the one that spoke to me the loudest was Claude Alexander III’s Face what’s facing you! He managed to address a number of issues affecting individuals with humility and an uninhibited movement quality.

As far as what I’m looking forward to in the coming year I am excited to see what Bridget L. Moore is cooking up with her new company, B Moore Dance, as well as Dark Circles Contemporary Dance’s winter showcase, Avant Chamber Ballet’s Romance and Ragtime and Bruce Wood Dance’s gala fundraiser entitled Dances from the Heart. I am also looking forward to seeing Dein Perry’s Tap Dogs at the Winspear Opera House in March.

And my wonderful husband got me tickets for both Anastasia and Hamilton at Dallas Summer Musical in Fair Park. I am already counting down the days!!!!!

My dance writing goals for 2019 include talking and visiting with even more local dance companies and choreographers as well as attending some shows outside the dance realm, including plays, musicals and opera. Can’t wait to get started.

Until then, here are my favorite new works made in 2018:

 

The Little Match Girl Passion by Katie Cooper

Avant Chamber Ballet and Verdigris Ensemble

December

Moody Performance Hall, Dallas

Always one willing to break the mold when it comes to classical ballet, Katie Cooper paired her company, Avant Chamber Ballet, with the vocalists of choral outfit Verdigris Ensemble for a very sobering and elegantly danced performance of David Lang’s A Little Match Girl Passion at Moody Performance just a few weeks ago. Cooper took a very different approach for the choreography in this performance. Instead of bouts of group allegro and adagio movements Cooper had the corps act as scenery and story imagery, which only added to the balletic lines and character portrayal of lead dancer Juliann McAloon. ACB took a risk with such a somber show, but while the show brought to the surface the feelings of loss and sadness, it also presented airs of beauty and spiritual awakening.

 

Aladdin,حبيبي by Joshua L. Peugh

Dark Circles Contemporary Dance

October

AT&T Performing Arts Center, Wyly Theatre, Sixth Floor Studio Theatre, Dallas

Peugh stretched his artistic boundaries with his first evening-length work, Aladdin, Habib, which Dark Circles Contemporary Dance performed back in October as part of the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Elevator Project. Known for giving very few details about his pieces to his dancers, Peugh admitted Aladdin was a completely new experience for himself. He stepped outside his comfort zone with repurposed set design, strong character portrayals and live music. The movement was a blend of Peugh’s signature heavy-footed walking steps, twisty curvy floor work and subtle gesturing with more accented hips, body ripples and staccato movements typically associated with Middle Eastern dance cultures. The narrative is based on “The Story of Aladdin” as well as company member Chadi El-koury’s own personal story of coming to America with his family as a young boy, which he approached with calm determination and an emotional intensity we had yet to see from him.

 

Brandi Coleman’s And One More Thing… at SMU. Photo: Meadows Dance Ensemble

 

And One More Thing… by Brandi Coleman

Meadows Dance Ensemble

October

Southern Methodist University, Bob Hope Theatre, Dallas

One of the few jazz choreographers in the U.S. trained in Jump Rhythm Technique, Coleman wowed the audiences with her funky and loud jazz number, And One More Thing…, at Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of the Arts Fall Dance Concert in October. Originally created in 2015, Coleman added on three new sections with a grand finale that featured a large group of females dressed in casual street clothes moving and grooving to “Tell Me Something Good” by Rufus and Chaka Khan. The piece played between the juxtaposition of stillness and hotness, which the dancers demonstrated through subtle gestures and sassy expressions as well as their sudden bursts energy and scat-singing, a fundamental element of Jump Rhythm Technique. It was fun and rambunctious and definitely a work worth seeing again.

 

LUNA by Amanda Krische

Bombshell Dance Project

June

Moody Performance Hall, Dallas

Repetitive phrases that travel every which way was the foundation for New York-based choreographer Amanda Krische’s LUNA, which was part of Bombshell Dance Project’s Like A Girl performance at Moody Performance Hall last June. Emily Bernet and Taylor Rodman tapped into their inner beasts in order to maintain their energy levels throughout the 10-minute work which started out with the two of them walking a specific number of steps before the monotonous phrase was broken up with gestures, pauses and abrupt floor work. The girls described the piece as a slow burn and they definitely had to dig deep as the intensity continued to build and the music switched from meditative to pulsating. It was a pleasant departure from the bombshells signature robust movement style.

 

Can’t Sleep But Lightly by Gabrielle Lamb

Dark Circles Contemporary Dance

March

WaterTower Theatre, Addison

New York-based choreographer Gabrielle Lamb challenged the dancers’ mathematical skills as well as their artistic sensibilities in her piece for Dark Circles Contemporary Dance’s showing at WaterTower Theatre’s Detour Festival back in March. Methodical walks, balletic lines and alien-esque body shapes are woven throughout this cleverly crafted piece. What I liked most about this piece is its lack of physical partnering; instead the dancers relied on simple human contact to produce authentic connections with one another. It was a very trippy ride indeed and a complementary pairing of artistic minds.

 

The Face of Water by Kimi Nikaidoh. Photo: Sharen Bradford/The Dancing Image

 

The Face of Water by Kimi Nikaidoh

Avant Chamber Ballet

April

Moody Performance Hall, Dallas

Nikaidoh used a range of emotions and the highs and lows within Argentine composer Osvaldo Gojilov’s 2002 chamber piece Tenebrae to drive the movement in her new work for Avant Chamber Ballet’s 2018 Women’s Choreography Project last April. Nikaidoh described the piece as more of an emotional journey focused primarily on hope and new beginnings, which was depicted in the longer, sweeter notes in the music. The combination of classical movements such as pas de deuxs and standard corps body lines and formations with Nikaidoh’s penchant for subtle musical gesturing and unlikely body shapes was a delightful juxtaposition for these talented dancers. Add in the dancers’ emotional conviction and you had a winning work.

 

Begin Again by Yin Yue

Bruce Wood Dance

June

Moody Performance Hall, Dallas

Bruce Wood Dance did an admirable job of presenting New York-based choreographer Yin Yue’s FoCo contemporary techniques to audiences at its Harmony performance last June. The cyclical nature of the piece is an extension of Yue’s movement style that features liquid body rolls, continuous arm circles and wide, sweeping leg lifts and floor work. The piece showcased the bond of the group, a staple of many of Bruce Wood’s works, in which the dancers appeared as one living organism before breaking off into smaller pairs and individual movement sequences. A musical mover Yue’s choreography came across as one continuous line of thought that dips, daps, weaves and loop-de-loops around an individual’s personal space, which led to some unexpected and visually pleasing moments.

 

Face what’s facing you! by Claude Alexander III

Dallas Black Dance Theatre

May

AT&T Performing Arts Center, Wyly Theatre, Dallas

Dallas Black Dance Theatre tackled their own unresolved issues in Claude Alexander III’s Face what’s facing you!, part of the company’s Spring Celebration Series back in May. As a rising choreographer Alexander delivered a strong voice in this work, which centered around some unresolved issues in his life in order to start the healing process. The piece was cathartic and heart pounding at the same time as the dancers meshed smooth walks and sustained lines with explosive jumps and multiple turns. Alexander didn’t waste any time getting to the theme of the piece and the action-packed stripped-down choreography was a breath of fresh air.

 

This list was originally posted on TheaterJones.com.

 

Preview: Dark Circles Contemporary Dance’s Aladdin, Habibi

MAGIC MOVES

Dark Circles Contemporary Dance takes us to a whole new world in Joshua L. Peugh’s Aladdin, Habibi, part of AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Elevator Project.

DCCD Company Member Chadi El-Khoury. Photo: Brian Guilliaux

Dallas — Over the last seven years Dark Circles Contemporary Dance’s Artistic Director Joshua L. Peugh has wowed us again and again with his insightful and unique perspective on the human condition as well as today’s social norms. He transfers this information to his dancers using a combo of classical and modern movements infused with his own special blend of grounded footwork, knee-bruising floor work and happenstance partnering. His aesthetic demands that the dancers be comfortable in their own skin, yet open and vulnerable on stage.

Peugh is asking this and much more from the company in his first evening-length creation, Aladdin, حبيبي, part of the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Elevator Project, Oct. 11-14, at the Wyly Theatre. The immersive 75-minute production focuses on American rhetoric regarding the Middle East and the stereotypes associated with Middle Eastern races and cultures. The work is based on the folk tale of “The Story of Aladdin” or “The Wonderful Lamp,” first written in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (or The Arabian Nights).

Peugh says this process all began while browsing through a book store one Sunday morning. “I found a copy of Arabian Nights and the first line in the book is once upon a time in China. See when most people think of Aladdin they think of the 1992 Disney movie, but Aladdin was actually Chinese and the story was added later on by Frenchman Antoine Galland.”

He continues, “This was one aspect of the work. The other being company member Chadi El-khoury’s personal story, which includes his mom bringing him and his brother to America when he was 11 years old. We go to his Mom’s house every Sunday and she always calls her children Habibi, an Arabic endearment like ‘sweetheart,’ and it’s why the title of the work is called Aladdin, Habibi. We put the term in Arabic to signal to these people that their voice is being represented here.”

Peugh also points out that the work will feature a new score from Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of the Arts alumnus Brandon Carson and will be performed live by a six-piece band. The production also includes costumes designed by Susan Austin and lighting by Bart McGeehon.

“I honestly didn’t know what the music was going to look like until I got started with the dancers, but we needed music before rehearsals began and so I ended up sending Brandon a list of plot points and asked him to make them musical numbers. We started off with 20 minutes of music and have gone back and forth a lot until we got to today’s product.”

In the work the dancers also double as stage hands, which was evident during the run through I saw at Preston Center Dance in Dallas last Wednesday morning. When not executing movement in the center, the dancers are constructing a tent out of canes and fabric, playing a game of cards and actively observing their surroundings, just to give a few examples.

Peugh explains, “We played a lot of theater games and one of them was about making yourself very present and aware and basing everything you do on things outside your circle so you are inviting things to happen instead of making them happen, which is already the principles that I run the company on in the first place, but we are now expanding that in different directions.”

The example he gives is in regard to the architecture of the room. Because this show follows a narrative, Peugh had his dancers do a lot of exercises that had to do with using what is there in the space. “Everything you see in the show is stuff that was laying around the studio. So, everything is sort of a found object and not a created one and that mirrors the world we are trying to create in this dance.”

There were a lot of moving parts just within the first 20 minutes that I got to see of the show, so I will try to break it down for you without giving too much away. Company veteran El-khoury portrays the role of Aladdin and we get to witness his inner struggle of questioning certain rules and customs of the culture that he was born into and then coming to America and trying to fit in here. El-khoury’s journey of discovery involves two genies: the genie of the ring played by Jaiquan Laurencin and the genie of the lamp played by Lena Oren.

El-khoury moves with laser focus and incredible control during rehearsal. Deep lunges, swirling arms and rhythmic hip isolations are at the crux of most of his individual movement phrases. Over the last two years he has put on some noticeable bulk and his technical execution and artistic depth continues to flourish with every new piece the company puts out.

“He works really hard to make this happen,” Peugh says about El-khoury’s artistic growth. “He still works a full time corporate job and he works really hard to dance the way he wants. He has grown incredibly in the last several years. He’s fighting for it and he really loves dancing and it give him pleasure so that’s ultimately where it all starts from in the first place.”

Peugh admits that the creative process for this show has been a completely new experience for him. He doesn’t like to give his dancers too many details because he likes to see how the dancers take the material and make it their own. So, sitting down with the dancers after every rehearsal to talk about the narrative is really a foreign concept for him. Peugh says on the second day of rehearsals he asked the dancers to bring in a list or make a presentation to the group about the question ‘What is Middle Eastern?’ and from there he had the dancers take their lists and make a movement phrase based off one plotline in the story, and that is how the choreography for the show came to fruition.

“It was a really organic process,” Peugh says. “This has been one of the most fun, creative processes I have ever had. I have learned a ton and I am super proud of the work everyone has done. Everyone has put in a lot more than a few hours of learning steps.”

>This preview was originally posted on TheaterJones.com.

 

Dance Council of North Texas Announces Line Up For Dallas Dances, Formerly Dallas DanceFest

Texas Ballet Theater at Dallas DanceFest 2017. Photo: Sharen Bradford/The Dancing Image

The save the dates are out Dallas dance peeps!

I was starting to wonder if Dallas DanceFest was even going to happen this year, but my reservations were laid to rest last week when the Dance Council of North Texas announced on its Facebook page the dance companies that will be participating in this year’s festival, which has been strategically renamed Dallas Dances.

The festival has received criticism from the beginning about its focus on mainly local dance companies and for its inclusion of pre-professionals from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Local Dance Critic Manuel Mendoza touched on these sore points in his review of last year’s Dallas DanceFest, which boasted the question “Why doesn’t Dallas have the dance festival that it deserves?”

In his review Mendoza basically says that by including the pre-professional dance studios, high schools and university programs in the area the festival is actually doing a disservice to the more established dance companies in the area.

He writes, “North Texas professional companies are the ones putting the area on the dance map even as they struggle to find suitable places to perform in a town starved of small, affordable venues. They are the groups competing for public and private grants so they can aim high, so they can someday pay their dancers something close to what their New York counterparts earn.”

He continues, “Most important, they are the ones doing the most complex, interesting work.”

What I think people are overlooking is that the mission of the Dance Council is not to exclusively support and promote just the professionals in the area, but also the up and coming professionals that stem from the local studios, performing arts schools and universites. And I think this is where the mission of Dallas DanceFest starts to get murky. Is the festival suppose to only highlight the professionals in the area? Or is its main target the young professionals and giving them a unique performance opportunity?

Apparently festival organizers have decided it’s a little bit of both if this year’s line up is any indicator.

I think the Dance Council has come to realize that they should stick true to their overall mission, which is fostering and promoting every type of dance and dancer in the Metroplex and I believe the name change better reflects the vibrancy and diversity of the Dallas dance community.

With that said, here are the dance companies performing at this year’s Dallas Dances:

Avant Chamber Ballet

Ballet Dallas, formerly Contemporary Ballet Dallas

Ballet Frontier of Texas

Big Rig Dance Collective

Bombshell Dance Project

Booker T Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts

Brandi Coleman Dance

Bruce Wood Dance

Chamberlain Performing Arts

Dallas Ballet Company

Dallas Black Dance Theatre

Dallas Youth Repertory Project

Danielle Georgiou Dance Group

DBDT: Encore!

8&1 Dance Company

Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts

Jordan Fuchs Dance

Kathak Rhythms

KJ Langford Dance

kNOwBOW Dance

ImPULSE Dance Project

Rhythm In Fusion Festival

Six 0’Clock Dance Theatre

SMU Meadows Dance Ensemble

Texas Baller Theater School

Texas Ballet Theater

Tejas Dance

Vanditha Mohan

Dallas Dances will take place Sept. 1-2 at Moody Performance Hall in the Dallas Arts District!

More information is available at www.thedancecouncil.org.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preview: Bombshell Dance Project

Photo: Katie Bernet

Emily Bernet and Taylor Rodman of Bombshell Dance Project on their unique partnership and creating their first program in Dallas.

Dallas — Together, Emily Bernet and Taylor Rodman tenderly cup their faces before slowly moving their hands down their bodies in a mildly seductive manner to the sweet sound of Marilyn Monroe’s voice as she answers a reporter’s question about whether or not she is happy. “If anything I am genuinely miserable,” Monroe states as Bernet and Rodman walk, glide and jump from one side of the space to the other, stopping intermittently to engage each other in catch and release action and simple gesturing such as a hand to the chest or a head on the other person’s shoulder. As the music changes so does the dancers’ movement quality, which becomes more aggressive and robust before once again slowing down and eventually fading out.

Meant to Be Seen showcases both Bernet and Rodman’s classical and modern dance backgrounds as well as their curious nature and instinctual approaches to movement, which they explored deeper during their time with Dallas-based Dark Circles Contemporary Dance. The eight-minute duet also features the dancers’ penchant for more explosive and full-bodied movement, which the dance partners and best friends point out is the main reason they formed Bombshell Dance Project in 2016. “The name has an ironic ring to it since neither of us are blonde or very curvaceous,” Bernet says.

Rodman adds, “I just feel like the word ‘bombshell’ in itself is pretty universal and empowering, which ties in nicely with what we want to achieve with the company.”

So, it seems quite fitting that the two would gravitate to text and music by their movie icons Monroe and Aubrey Hepburn in their first company work, Meant to Be Seen. The piece will be presented along with There I Said It and Kismet in the Bombshells’ first Dallas program at the Sammons Center for the Arts on Oct. 20. When asked what ties these three works together Bernet says it’s not so much a theme as it is a feeling. “For the last year we have been caught up in this feeling of angst, but it’s contrasted,” Bernet explains. “We talk a lot about contrast and underlying feelings such as what something looks like versus what it is or how it feels. And also what people look like on the outside versus what’s on the inside.”

Bernet and Rodman met their sophomore year at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, but say they didn’t get close until their junior year when they joined the repertory dance company. “We just clicked right away as friends and creatively speaking,” Bernet says. “We are both pretty easy going and are drawn to movement that is big and powerful more so than soft and structured.”

Meant to Be Seen. Photo: Lynn Lane

The two say that they never saw themselves as the balletic type—instead preferring the challenges and artistic freedom associated with modern and contemporary movement. “I never really saw the ballerina in me,” Bernet says. “I started in a competition studio, but the second I found modern and contemporary in high school and later in college, I knew that is where I belonged.”

Rodman shares a similar story. “My body is just not meant for ballet, which I am totally fine with because I think it has helped me find different pathways and areas that I can use my body and challenge myself in various ways, which really became evident in high school. I just always wanted to be moving really BIG!”

During high school both dancers also found the same mentor in Professor Kyle Richards. “He definitely helped me to trust in what I was creating and to not be afraid to make work,” Bernet says. “One of the first things I learned from him was that the work doesn’t have to be perfect.”

She adds, “He was also big on starting from text and using feelings for inspiration, which has definitely influenced our work.” Nodding in agreement Rodman adds, “He was always really good about telling us not to take ourselves too seriously because in high school you know all the pieces in the shows are going to be super dramatic and intense and he really pushed us to see the lighter side of creating movement.”

After graduation the dynamic duo parted ways, Bernet heading to Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of the Arts, where she focused on modern dance and performance; with Rodman moving up north to attend Boston Conservatory, where she studied improvisational techniques and choreography. Bernet credits their diverse college experiences with adding more depth and intrigue to their rehearsal process, which she says has made the work something that it wouldn’t be without the two of them.

Explosive, aggressive and full-bodied are just a few of the choice terms Bernet and Rodman use to describe their movement, which the duo says they haven’t been able to do until now. Both dancers learned early on that opportunities to move in such a forceful way would be limited due to their gender, a realization that strongly irked Rodman. “The seed was planted in high school because I always seemed to be in a dress or standing in the wings wanting to do the men’s section because it was so full-bodied and aggressive, yet soft at times and very textured.” This archaic approach to the female’s role on stage really started to bother Rodman in college where she remembers learning the men’s sections on the side just to fulfill that void for more demanding movement.

For those unfamiliar with the general rules of classical and contemporary dance, Rodman explains that in a lot of the roles she has performed since high school she has either been asked to play the damsel in distress or the femme fatale. “I was either made to feel like I couldn’t complete this task without a partner by my side or asked to be overtly sexual in a non-sexual kind of way, whereas the men’s sections were always extremely big, exciting and used the entire stage.”

Walking into Preston Center Dance where the Bombshells were rehearsing a couple of weeks ago I knew I was in for a very relaxed and fun experience if the dancers giggling from down the hall was an indicator. Bernet and Rodman were very considerate of each other during the rehearsal, taking turns answering questions and later taking turns with suggestions or critiques when going over movement. The two could also communicate with one another using just a look, which they say is one of the advantages of being such close friends.

“As far as creating movement I think it has been easy for us because we know each other so well,” Bernet says. “When we work collaboratively a lot of the time I will do a move and then she will do a move and eventually it kind of blurs together.”

Rodman adds, “Just being the two of us in the room this first year has been great because we work so well together that most of the time we don’t need to talk we just keep moving.”

>This preview was originally posted on TheaterJones.com.

 

Dance News: Desmond Richardson and Dwight Rhoden join SMU dance faculty

 

 

Desmond Richardson. Photo: Gene Schiavone

WOW! I can not believe two of the industry’s most in demand choreographers will be joining the dance faculty at Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of the Arts for the 2017-2018 school year. Desmond Richardson and Dwight Rhoden really started the contemporary dance movement with their founding of Complexions Contemporary Ballet in 1994. The idea was to reinvent dance using a mix of methods, styles and cultures, which have lead them to create some groundbreaking dance works, including  Higher Ground (2001), Moody Booty Blues (2006), Cry Me a River (2009) and Moon Over Jupiter (2010).

Desmond Richardson. Photo courtesy of individual.

I got to speak with Desmond back in 2013 for TITAS’ annual Command Performance, which also marked his last season of dancing on stage. I was blown away with his openness both in the interview and on stage. It’s no wonder he has been called one of the greatest dancers of his generations. His extensive dance career includes The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theater and Ballet Frankfurt under the direction of William Forsythe. He has also appeared with the San Francisco Ballet, Royal Swedish Opera Ballet, Washington Ballet and many others. Desmond is a Tony-nominated actor and the first black American principal dancer of American Ballet Theatre.

Dwight Rhoden started dancing at the age of 17 and has performed with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Les Ballet Jazz De Montreal and as a principal dancers with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Under his and Richardson’s direction, Complexions has become a dance institution that is much in demand. Their need to create work that delivers a profound passion for diversity has really framed its vision and become the company’s hallmark. Rhoden is a beneficiary recipient of various honors and awards, including the New Yor Foundation for the Arts Award, The Choo San Goh Award for Choreography and The Ailey School’s Apex Award in recognition of his extensive contributes to the field of dance.

Dwight Rhoden. Photo courtesy of individual.

I have meet both of them and I can honestly say they are the most down to earth individuals I have ever met in the dance industry. Both have strong viewers when it comes to presenting work and are very poetic with their descriptions of what they do. But, alas, I have never had the opportunity to take class with either one of them so you SMU dance students are pretty darn luckly!

I can’t watch to see the piece they set on the students!!

 

The duo will be teaching advanced ballet classes in the fall and spring and will also be choreographing a new work for the students.

 

Dallas DanceFest Announces 2017 Performing Companies

Indique Dance Company will be performing at DDF 2017. Photo: Sharen Bradford/The Dancing Imaging

Dallas DanceFest has announced its 2017 line up which shows a lot of hometown pride.

Wow! It is hard to believe that this year marks the 4th installment of Dallas DanceFest (DDF) which was created in 2014 under the guidance of arts patron Gayle Halperin and the Dance Council of North Texas. It looks like the festival’s mission of presenting high caliber and well-rounded dance performances will continue this year with a program that features all the major local players as well as the largest showing of pre-professional companies to date and a handful of relatively unknown dance companies from around and outside the Metroplex.

Dallas Black Dance Theatre. Photo: Amitava Sarkar

Let’s start with the bigwigs in Dallas dance. For the fourth straight year Bruce Wood Dance Project, Texas Ballet Theater and Dallas Black Dance Theatre will be featured at DDF as well as their smaller counterparts DBDT: Encore! and the  Texas Ballet Theater School.

We will also see pieces from some repeat dance companies, including Dark Circle Dance Company, Contemporary Ballet Dallas,  Indique Dance Company, Southern Methodist University’s Meadows Dance Ensemble and Houston-based NobleMotion Dance.

Danielle Georgiou Dance Group in War Flower. Photo: Steven Visneau

DFF 2017 will also feature a number of first timers, including Danielle Georgiou Dance Group, Center for Ballet Arts, Impulse Dance Project, Uno Mas and Grandans. Southern Methodist University Meadows dance student’s Kat Barragan and Arden Leone will also be showcasing work for the first time at this year’s festival.

I am also pleased to see so many familiar pre-professional ballet companies on this year’s roaster, including Ballet Ensemble of Texas (Coppell, TX), Ballet Frontier of Texas (Fort Worth, TX), Chamberlain Performing Arts (Plano, TX), Dallas Ballet Company (Dallas, TX) Royale Ballet Dance Academy (Dallas, TX) and LakeCities Ballet Theatre (Lewisville, TX). I have seen these companies perform a variety of dance styles from classical and neo-classical to more contemporary and jazz movements and I am eager to see how these aspiring professionals handle the pressure of sharing the stage with the more seasoned artists on this year’s program.

LakeCities Ballet Theatre performs in Music in Motion. Photo: Nancy Loch Photography

We have also seen a surge in the number of dance festivals occurring around Texas over the last couple of years so,  it didn’t surprise me to see the Rhythm and Fusion Festival and Wanderlust Dance Project in this year’s line up. If you’re interested in reading more about the rise of dance festivals in Texas then you should read Nichelle Suzanne’s 2015 article for Arts+Culture magazine entitled Talent, Training, Festival & More: Fueling Contemporary Dance in Texas.

The 2017 Dallas DanceFest will take place Sept. 2-3 at the Moody Performance Hall, formerly Dallas City Performance Hall. More information about the festival can be found on the Dance Council of North Texas website.

I hope you see y’all there!

 

 

 

 

Homeward Bound: Bruce Wood Dance Project Journey’s Performance Preview

Bruce Wood Dance Project humanizes the refugee crisis in Albert Drake’s Chasing Home, part of the company’s Journey’s performance this weekend.

Dallas — Emily Drake tenderly cups David Escoto’s face in the palm of her hand before he scoops her up and spins her around in childlike glee while the rest of the dancers quietly celebrate in the background. As the duet progresses, the two twist, duck and arc around one another while always maintaining their connection through physical touches and eye contact. This marriage ceremony is just one of many poignant moments viewers get to witness in Albert Drake’s new work Chasing Home, which depicts the day-to-day activities of those currently living in refugee camps as they seek to reclaim their identities. The work features an original score by Joseph Thalken, which will performed live by the Dallas Chamber Symphony at Bruce Wood Dance Project’s (BWDP) Journeys performance June 16-17 at Moody Performance Hall, formerly Dallas City Performance Hall. The program also includes Bruce Wood’s Schmetterling (2004) and Zero Hour (1999).

Out of the full 20-minute piece, it’s the duet with Emily Drake and Escoto where we really get to see who Albert Drake, Emily’s husband, is becoming as a choreographer. Yes, Wood’s aesthetic is visible in the dancers’ swooping arm and leg movements and nuanced gesturing, but there is a vulnerability and sensuality in the couple’s partnering that is uniquely Albert Drake. “It is not sexual at all,” Albert Drake says. “It’s sensual in that it’s more about seeing, touching, hearing and feeling. It was about finding those intimate connections between the dancers.” Wood’s influences can also be found in the couple’s silky smooth transitions and momentum-driven partnering and floor work, whereas the dynamic bodying shaping and contrary movement phrases showcased in the dancer’s individual moments cater more to Albert Drake’s artistic sensibilities.

When asked about his evolving movement tastes Albert Drake says, “There are definitely a lot of influences from Bruce in my work just because I adore and respect him. I have also found a lot of connection to his work from my concert training at Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of the Arts.” Before attending SMU in the fall of 2008 Albert Drake says his knowledge of concert dance was limited. It wasn’t until he took Graham technique with Professor Myra Woodruff that he fell in love with the art form. It was also during this time period that he met Bruce Wood who came to SMU looking for dancers to perform in the first concert of BWDP.

(Woodruff’s teaching methods were recently praised on Dance Teacher magazine’s website by former student Corinna Lee Nicholson. Check it out here.)

“There were a lot of connections between my Graham classes and Bruce’s work, so I never felt as if I was starting over with a new aesthetic,” says Albert Drake about his first year with the BWDP after graduating from SMU in 2012. “And these connections definitely and heavily translated in my first work Whispers. That piece kind of came out of nowhere and so, I definitely played from what I knew.” Since the premiere of Whispers last season, Albert Drake says he has been trying to find more of his own self in the movement. “Dynamic range has always been important to me. Also, suspension, release, contraction, expansion, soft and aggressive. I like playing around with all these elements and I hope this comes across in my work.”

Circling back to the marriage ceremony mentioned earlier, Albert Drake says the idea came from one of the multiple documentaries he has watched pertaining to the refugee crisis. He was particularly touched with a story about a couple that had met, fell in love and gotten married while living in a refugee camp. “I was inspired by the fact that even with everything else that was going on people came together and found items like pieces of fabric and makeshift flowers to adorn the bride and groom in. It’s these moments of hope and of being able to move forward and progress while still living in this situation that is really what this piece comes down to for me.” A wedding isn’t the only communal activity featured in the piece. Albert Drake also brings soccer and the dabke, a Middle Eastern dance, into the fold with movement sequences dedicated to fast, syncopated foot work similar to an Irish jig and rhythmic soccer drills performed by the men.

Albert Drake (Left) and composer Joseph Thalken (Right). Photo: Brian Guilliaux

After watching Albert Drake and Joseph Thalken converse at the end of rehearsal about the music for the final section it’s clear the two have an amicable working relationship and seem to be on same page in terms of the bigger picture. When I mentioned this to Albert Drake later he chuckled and admitted it has taken a lot of time and mind mapping for them to get to this point. “In our first meeting we wrote a lot of stuff down on paper in terms of content, tune and mood and then we just starting tying all these things together.” He adds, “Joseph and I broke everything into sections with working titles, so there really is no beginning, middle or end to the piece. Instead I created different chapters or vignettes with the hope audiences will focus more on the dancers’ connections than following a narrative.”

<<This preview was originally posted on TheaterJones.com.

 

Dancing in Tongues

Fabio Liberti works with DCC on Here Is Not There. Photo: Dark Circles Contemporary Dance

Dark Circles Contemporary Dance explores movement through text in Italian choreographer Fabio Liberti’s Here Is Not There, part of the company’s Spring Series in Fort Worth.

Fort Worth — The number of new works being produced in the area by international emerging artists continues to climb as Italian choreographer Fabio Liberti gets ready to make his U.S. debut with Dallas-based Dark Circles Contemporary Dance (DCCD) this weekend. His new work, Here Is Not There, explores the underlying meaning behind different individual’s responses to the question “how are you,” as well as our constant struggle to find balance in our lives, which the dancers depict through a variety of modern and contemporary movements and individual monologues based off past memories. “The question ‘how are you’ refers to those moments when out past and present meet and how we feel when we are trying to find balance between our past and present lives,” Liberti says. “I have always been interested in the combination of text and dance, so it was a natural choice for me to use both in this piece for DCCD. They are a talented group of dancers and it has been great experience working with them.”

The text-driven work features six dancers (DCCD Company Members David Cross, Chadi El-Khoury, Alex Karigan Farrior, Sarah Hammonds, Artistic Director Joshua L. Peugh and Kelsey Rohr) and includes minimal music by Marguerite Monnot and Nancy Sinatra. Liberti’s Here Is Not There will premiere at DCCD’s annual Spring Series, April 29-May 1, at the Erma Lowe Hall Studio Theatre on the Texas Christian University Campus in Fort Worth. The program also includes Peugh’s prom-inspired version of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring which the company premiered at Dallas City Performance Hall in March.

Since graduating the Codarts-Rotterdam Dance Academy in Italy, Liberti has performed professionally with Conny Hanssen Danst in Holland, Stadttheater Hildesheim in Germany, Stadttheater Saint Gallen in Switzerland, AIEP-Ariella Vidach in Italy and most recently with Danish Dance Theatre in Denmark. He received third place at the Copenhagen International Choreography competition in 2013 and received the Critics’ Award at the Hannover International Choreography competition in Germany. It was at the Hannover competition where Liberti meet Peugh backstage and their artistic friendship only blossomed from there.

Watching DCCD rehearse Liberti’s Here Is Not There at Southern Methodist University back in January, it was easy to see what drew these two curious minds to one another. Liberti and Peugh both have similar movement tendencies such as expansive gesturing, heavy tailbone traveling steps and the use of unlikely body parts like the stomach or elbow to connect with one another, as well as a knack for finding humor in even the most intense situations. Authenticity also plays an important role in both choreographers’ creative processes. “I am always searching for authenticity in my movement,” Liberti says. “So, I add in what I like, but I also keep in the personality of the person I am working with and what feels good to them when it comes to the choreography.” In Here Is Not There, Liberti accomplishes this feat by assigning each dancer a composition task to which he later adds more layers too himself. He also sent out a questionnaire to the dancers prior to arriving in Dallas which Liberti used as the foundation for the text in the work. The responses, which Liberti says could be answered truthfully or not, became poignant monologues reflecting on specific moments and memories from each dancer’s past and present.

While the idea of combining movement and spoken word is not uncommon in the modern dance world, this is the first time DCCD is exploring this particular avenue. When asked about the challenges of moving and talking at the same time company member Hammonds says, “It was definitely a learning experience as I am not the best at memorizing text. Kelsey and I spent a lot of time working on the text we have to say together. We had to sit down and break down which words we were going to emphasize and which ones we weren’t.” The section Hammonds is referring to is what the group calls the twin section where Hammonds and Rohr reflect on the various questions twins get asked such as do you finish each other sentences and do you even like each other in a sing song cadence while Cross and El-Khoury slink, roll and army crawl across the floor decked out in matching striped tops. “The challenge for us was to execute the phrasing without thinking about what is coming next while also keeping pace with the text, but not relying on it for movement cues,” Cross says.

>>This preview was originally posted on TheaterJones.com.

>>Also check out my preview of Josh Peugh’s Rite of Spring.