LehrerDance Review: Buffalo Welcome to Roam in Houston Any Day

Photo by Nate Benson

LehrerDance, on loan from Buffalo, New York last weekend for JCC of Houston’s 30th annual Dance Month celebration, didn’t have me at “hello.” But it only took until the “how are ya?” for choreographer Jon Lehrer’s musical and intuitive repertory and his plucky cast to ensnare me.

When a company is more than 1200 miles from home in an unfamiliar city for only two performances, it can feel like there’s only one chance to get it right. The dancers were perhaps shaking off some jitters in the opening moments of Iambus but the long and short was they seemed a bit stiff in a rendering of Bobby McFerrin and Yo-Yo Ma’s “Grace.” They hit their stride with the energetic bounce of McFerrin’s “Kalimba Suite” but at the start of the company’s second offering, Loose Canon, I found myself uncertain about where my encounter with LehrerDance was headed.

Tap is Back in Space City

New Festival Welcomes All-Star Faculty

Jason Samuels Smith

Texas New Tap, a newly established production company whose purpose is to promote tap education and enthusiasm throughout the greater Houston area will launch Space City Tap Fest on February 26, 2010. Faculty will include astonishing young talent and 2009 Dance Magazine Award winner, Jason Samuels Smith, as well as emerging leaders Chloé and Maud Arnold. Organizers Mary Lee Kennedy and Emilie Koenig hope that the weekend-long event will give “lift-off” to an annual tradition and put Houston back on the circuit of American and international cities that bring together hoofers to woodshed, jam, pass down their skills, and recount their lineage.