Uptown Dance Company — Dance Infusion

Uptown Dance Company threw its hat into the Houston ring of contemporary dance ensembles not much more than a year ago, becoming an all-professional troupe after focusing for several years on providing pre-professionals at Uptown Dance Centre (the company’s affiliated school) an outlet to hone their performance skills. Their latest project, Dance Infusion, staged October 18th at Zilkha Hall, displayed a capable cast of dancers performing entertaining and tasteful choreography. Though the repertoire was eclectic in mood and theme, the mix of contemporary styles lacked innovation and occasionally charisma. However, with support from another of Houston’s mixed-rep ensembles, Revolve Dance Company, as well as guest artists on loan from Houston Ballet, Uptown Dance Company presented a classy show.

The core ensemble consists of five primary members, Adrian Ciobanu, Phoebe Waggoner, Lindsay Cortner, Martha Perdomo, and Ray Dones, along with three apprentices rounding out the group. Many not only have a history of training with Artistic Director Beth Gulledge-Brown, but also do double duty as teachers at Uptown Dance Centre. On the whole, these accomplished professionals consistently dance well together and display technical finesse. Dones has an electric energy on stage, his high level of attack often draws the eye. Waggoner is another standout, exuding a mature confidence in her approach to each work.

Chano, by Chet Walker (most famous for his work on the award-winning musical FOSSE) was a lively end to Act I and a choreographic high point of the evening. The work, set to Lalo Schrifrin’s spirited Afro-Cuban jazz composition of the same name, is a fun and provocative frolic. The dancers executed the broad and energetic movement with clarity. They looked hot, they moved with conviction, but missing was the go-for-broke personality and flirtatious spark (dancer to dancer, and dancer to audience) that would have made this piece a show-stopper.

A similar problem occurred in the production’s finale, Gulledge-Brown’s Dancing Days, which was set to selected tunes from the Led Zeppelin catalog. Ciobanu and Waggoner kicked off the work with a dramatic duet that was suitably rock and roll. Lighting designer Jeremy Choate makes the color green sexy, silhouetting the pair against an emerald backdrop. Later, the entire cast engages in some playful shirt exchanges which are delightful surprises but are not enough to fill the expansive accompaniment. Though a robust passage of unison choreography comes close to hitting the runway, the piece never manages liftoff.

Paola Georgudis’ more tranquil contemporary dance piece Orbita successfully integrated young student, Emily Healey, who showed great poise throughout her appearance. Orbita seemed innately suited to this small band of dancers. An introspective expression of relationships and the expanding circle of family, the choreography is imbued with cultural dance traditions and shows clear development. It was also the one piece I would have liked to see Ray Dones approach with more subtlety and nuance. His own work, The Beauty of Being Numb, was a better vehicle for his supercharged fluidity. A clanging industrial score (in this case, by electronic musician, Richard Devine) as a metaphor for detachment is not a new idea. However, as an opening number, it highlighted the polished dexterity of the five-member company.

As always, the talented dancers of Revolve Dance Company performed with passion. A series of solos and duets, their work Everyone has a Story features some gorgeous phrasing within the context of a collection of moody love songs. However, there is little else tying each section together. Watching these dancers, it is easy to sit back and just enjoy the aesthetics. When the work ends, however, questions linger. “Who are these people?” “What brought this mismatched group together?” “Why were they huddled around a trash can fire?”

Gulledge-Brown’s In The Moment, performed by Houston Ballet corps members, Lauren Ciobanu and Alex Pandiscio was a beguiling addition to the production. Gulledge-Brown’s sensitive and melodic composition was  befitting this well-matched duo. Free of narrative, the contemporary ballet piece had a mesmerizing affect, as did Ciobanu’s stunning line which was fortunately unconcealed by Laura Phillips Hampton’s graceful costume design.

Overall, Gulledge-Brown has chosen quality and sophisticated material for her company to perform. Good dancing is the core and strength of this fusion (or infusion) of artists. It will be interesting to see how Uptown Dance Company take things to the next level as they strive to distinguish and promulgate their voice and vision within the Houston dance community.

Reprinted from Dance Source Houston

Dominic Walsh Dance Theater Collaborators Celebrate Ballets Russes Centenary

Throughout the year, venues and dance companies all over the world have been staging tributes to The Ballets Russes and its impresario, Serge Diaghilev. Honoring the centenary of the influential ballet company’s formation with re-imaginings of four of its most noted works, Dominic Walsh Dance Theater recently presented its own salute, 1909-2009: The Great Collaborators of The Ballets Russes.

The bill included three world premiere performances. Each stamped by Walsh’s innovative approach to movement and partnering, The Firebird, The Afternoon of a Faun, and The Dying Swan are delivered to the audience with their original titles and musical accompaniment in tact. However, aside from the program’s one previously mounted work, Le Spectre de la Rose, Walsh submitted compositions increasingly divergent in context and atmosphere from their inspirations.

Bakst's Firebird

The focal point of the evening was the company’s adaptation of The Firebird. Gone are the traditionally lavish costumes, sets, and exotic tale of good versus evil. Alternatively, this version’s characters, The Woman and Her Husband,  are at war with each other within a stark and uninviting prison of despair and disenchantment. Stravinsky’s brooding and vigorous score is fitting support for the cerebral crisis that unfolds between the two lovers.

Though not a crime drama (unless murderous reverie counts), the one-act ballet is reminiscent of the film noir style. Frederique de Montblanc’s scenic design has a dark and dingy realism. Everything seems slightly off-kilter, from the crimson chandelier recalling Leon Bakst’s original Firebird costume designs, to sadistic shadow plays, to the moody contour cast by gooseneck lamps. Robert Eubanks’ expressionistic lighting evokes the frequently black and white world of this dark genre of cinema.

Walsh’s program notes describe a “contemporary and adult relationship,” one that has “lasted for a while” and for which the added stresses of kids, work, money, a secret, and a “general sense of disillusion” may have led to a lost sense of self. Frankly, having been married for over 12 years, I thought I might sense that familiar wrench of isolation that can occasionally develop between two united souls, or breathe relief when the couple resolve to move forward together. Despite strong collaboration and solid rendering, the work didn’t have the emotional impact I expected. Walsh’s choreography, however, is distortedly beautiful, sardonically sexual, and consistently bold. The one-act ballet features exquisite performances by company member, Domenico Luciano and guest artist, Marie-Agnès Gillot, the statuesque Étoile of the Paris Opera Ballet. Whether sparring, insidiously attacking, or destructively sulking the pair are captivating.

DWDT’s interpretation of Le Spectre de la Rose remains relatively faithful to the original. Domenico Luciano, as The Spirit of the Rose, is fluid and sinewy. He does not leap through an open window, but believably winds his way into the fantasies and dreams of The Young Woman, played in the closing night performance by Felicia McBride, who projects sleepy-eyed innocence even in her ecstasy.

The Anna Pavlova vehicle, The Dying Swan, was originally choreographed by Mikhail Fokine. Though both were Ballets Russes collaborators, the impassioned, and often parodied, solo was created before the origination of the ballet company. Walsh’s swan appears at first as a glamorous and stoic figure. She sips from a cocktail glass while smoke from her cigarette creates a circlet for her blonde crown. Left alone at a crowded party, her vulnerabilities are revealed. Dancer Rachel Meyer’s intermittent tremble and angular form are subtly bird-like but the solo is too understated and remote to be deeply moving. Dispossessed of the spirited avian beauty which is its signature, The Dying Swan, emerges lifeless.

Rodin's Nijinsky

In Walsh’s satisfying Afternoon of a Faun, the mythical beasts of Nijinsky’s notoriously controversial (in its time) ballet mingle in a garden of reverence for Nijinsky, a being of legend in his own right, and homage to the artist Rodin. The cast of dancers are miraculously lithe and supple. Ty Parmenter and Randolph Ward, both in their first season with the company and playing The Faun and Orefaun, respectively, are especially dazzling when paired for Walsh’s complex partnering. Marissa Gomer, Felicia McBride, and Rachel Meyer stride across stage en pointe as The Nymphs. The illusion of increased length on already leggy bodies is staggering. Walsh, making a cameo appearance as The Creator grants awareness to his creation with skillful authority. Choreographically, he utilizes Rodin’s familiar sculpture of Nijinsky as an inception point and from there Afternoon of a Faun blossoms. It was a high point on the assorted program which most certainly represented a milestone of growth and maturity for Dominic Walsh Dance Theater.

Reprinted from Dance Source Houston

A Well-Built House Stands Up

Photo by Deborah Schlidt

Members of a large Catholic family who experienced childhood in southern Louisiana during the 1950s, sisters Becky Beaullieu Valls and Babette Beaullieu build upon a rich soil of memory for their dance theatre collaboration, Memoirs of the Sistahood. Nearly two years after the debut of Chapter One, the duo has delivered their second installment, Chapter Two: House. A video recap opens the show. Even to the uninitiated, however, the visual prologue is nonessential. This production is sufficiently distinct. Like a house, it is intelligently designed with pattern, substance, and mortar structured around a supportive framework.

Of course, every house needs a hostess. In a vintage cinch-waist dress, narrator Kathy Hallmark delivers an introduction with the saccharine, matter-of-fact tone of a 1950′s television housewife. “All houses are dwellings,” she quotes Paul Oliver’s reference book on vernacular homes throughout the world, “but not all dwellings are houses. To dwell is to make one’s abode: to live in, or at or on, or about a place.” Like Oliver’s book, Chapter Two: House, examines different types and ways to dwell.

Valls glides between choreographic modes as easily as one might move from room to room. She begins with a minimalist, pure movement approach, then displays skillful confidence as the work shifts to burlesque. In Act I, which examines dwellings as structure, Valls shows restraint, choosing not to hide or overdress the circles, lines, and spatial devices that form the skeleton of her choreography. Later, Busby Berkley inspired formations give way to a lively mambo, danced by sepia-toned housewives armed with cornflake boxes and kitchen gadgetry.

Veteran performers, including Valls herself, anchor the company. Dancers, Toni Leago Valle, Jenny Dodson (formerly Magill), and Joani Trevino are consistent in their actualization of Valls’ smooth, expansive movement style, and they transition easily to comedic and presentational delivery.

Clearly, the collaborators are all on the same page with House. Deborah Schlidt’s dreamy film collage weaves in and out of the action as naturally as any performer making an entrance. Images of various types of dwellings, from hovels to tract houses, segue to demolished and water-logged homes. Reclaimed by nature with the brute force of Hurricane Katrina, these homes (or ones like them) may have given up parts of themselves for repurposing in Babette Beaullieu’s found object sculpture and set pieces. Dancers first appear in costumes the color of clay and mud. Attentively designed by Cherie Acosta, these basics are detailed with netting and natural fabrics that echo the weathered patina of the doors, windows, and boxes Beaullieu has fashioned to represent the family homestead. Among these pieces, a playful dinner scene and a bed of sleeping children are given a hazy luminescence by lighting designer Kris Phelps that recalls precious home movie footage of the Beaullieu family.

It all works together, even as these collaborators rather craftily bring their 1950s backdrop to the forefront. I Love Lucy clips play dreamily as the childhood game of playing house transitions effortlessly to a satiric portrayal of real life domesticity. Text from Housekeeping Monthly’s “The Good Wife’s Guide” illustrates the expectations and constraints placed on women saddled with running a home. Fifties era musical selections such as the Dean Martin classic, Sway, fuel the wry comedy which culminates in a kitschy “mobile home” show. The dancers flaunt their best runway sashay in a segment that in lesser hands could have capsized the production.

The milieu of 1950′s iconography remains upright however because Valls and Beaullieu, with their collaborators, thoughtfully maintain a through line. It is no small feat to coalesce this array of concepts. Chapter Two: House reaches coherence because the team has built a solid framework and follows-through with strong images and clear ideas. The enchanting and harmonious collaboration brought the audience to their feet on opening night.

Memoirs of the Sistahood, Chapter Two: House continues next weekend, Oct. 23 & 24 at Barnevelder Movement Arts. Click here for ticket info.

Reprinted from Dance Source Houston

Playing the Field — Week 4

Some quick notes, lessons, perceptions from Week 4 of the Fieldwork workshop (last Wednesday – Sept. 30, 2009). I did not show this week.

• I am reminded of the power of silence, pause, and stillness in all types of work.
• Art is powerful when it nourishes the continuation of thought and provides images which the brain continues to process afterward.
• Laughter is a gateway.
• Never underestimate the appeal and effect of a well-placed zinger.
• Memory is shadow – a glimmer, a remnant, a silhouette of reality but no less real and significant… just intangible.
• Each person brings to the viewing of art, not only their own background, perceptions, insights, but their own desires and expectations.

Some notes on my own process…

I have developed some clarity in the goals for myself. Now I’m working out how to get there. Obligations in other aspects of my life sometimes leave me with little time or energy for the process. Finding moments to myself are difficult and ideally would be more carefully set aside.  With the workshop nearly half over, I’m feeling a bit pressed for time.

As for movement vocabulary, I’ve been working with isolated parts or regions of my body – compartmentalizing them. Though this “part” is the initiator and/or focus for designated periods in the movement phrases the rest of me seeks to estrange or alienate this “part”. Sometimes the body part is affecting transition, or change, or affecting nothing at all.

Descriptions and questions by viewers of my last rough draft: Torment. Buffeted. Puppet. Primal. Intimate. Vulnerability. Outside forces. Vertigo. Tension.

Today’s Summit on Arts Journalism

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