Houston Met Dance Confronts the Ground with jhon r. stronks

Last spring, Houston Metropolitan Dance Company premiered jhon r. stronk’s Not Yet Soaring as the finale of their Mixing It Up concert. Its fresh and joyous movement language was a highlight on the program and the company encouraged stronks to develop the work further. The resulting collaboration, Still Confronting the Ground is a dance theater work that “finds them attending to the serious business of happiness in an evening of choreography and performance created in honor of growing up, and what it takes to get there.”

Clair Hummel, a graduate student at the University of Houston Theatre, Dance, Costume Design and Technology department has created costumes for this piece. Kris Phelps serves as Houston Metropolitan Dance Company lighting designer. Meanwhile, Houston composer, DJ, and sound designer, Jerahmiah DiMatteo is live-mixing an electronic score that mingles with spoken text, some written by stronks himself.

I caught up with jhon to find out more about the work, its rehearsal process, and what audiences can expect from Still Confronting the Ground.

A Peek at Company Clare Dyson’s Voyeur

Dance on the proscenium stage, movies on the big screen, and television have something in common. Individuals watching peer through one window, a single view upon which their perceptions are based. In contrast, the latest work by choreographer Clare Dyson and collaborators, invites the audience onstage to choose the vantage point (or points) from which they’ll watch as Voyeur explores “notions of intimacy, desire and the performative act of revealing.”

In contrast, the latest work by choreographer Clare Dyson and collaborators, invites the audience onstage to choose the vantage point from which they’ll watch as Voyeur explores “notions of intimacy, desire and the performative act of revealing.”

Clare Dyson has been creating innovative performance works in Australia since the early 1990′s. She has collaborated with brother and lighting designer Mark Dyson for over 10 years, forming their production company Dyson Industries in 1998. They blend dance, visual installation, light and visual metaphor, occupying spaces rather than theaters and often involving the audience.