Revolve Dance Company: Premieres6

 

Wake by Matt Dippel - Revolve Dance Company | Photo by David Bullanday Photography

 

 

Revolve Dance Company is the kind of ensemble that makes dancing look effortless when you know full well it isn’t. On Friday, December 10 they made this abundantly clear to a packed Barnevelder Movement/Arts audience with their sixth full-length concert, Premieres6.

The performance included, you guessed it, six premieres with works by foundational members, Amy Cain, Dawn Dippel, and Matt Dippel, plus guest choreography by Houston dance artist, Lindsey McGill, and nationally known choreographer, Wes Veldink, a frequent Revolve collaborator.

The eleven-member company’s repertoire is decidedly contemporary and somewhere in the jazz genus, but they show restraint when it comes to movement pyrotechnics, particularly for a professional company born and cultivated at a suburban competitive dance studio. All of the overstated power moves and flashy stuff are MIA, unless you consider consistently good dancing, flash.

In the middle of a mostly mellow lineup, Matt Dippel’s Wake is a welcome diversion. Opening under the midnight blues of Jeremy Choate’s contoured lighting, the company sits bowed and kneeling like monks before eventually engulfing Dawn Dippel in a pulsing, dystopian but not quite menacing mob. Ms. Dippel’s flame red hair shines like a beacon in the half-light hues, but it is her command of the stage that makes it difficult to tear your eyes away.

Science revealed recently that Earth’s moon does, in fact, hold water – more than we ever thought, actually. Yet, when has the moon not ‘held water’ for those that look upon it? Lindsey McGill’s romantic ode to moon gazing, …when the moon holds water, is layered with articulated, if not mysterious, gesture. At first it whispers, inviting witnesses to a private slow dance between dancers Amy Cain and Matt Dippel. Nuzzling, tracing, and measuring both the corporeal presence and the space once occupied by the other, the duo are folded into the geometric undulations of the full company. The choreography builds to a splash of unison at its climax, then wanes like the lunar surface, all under the ever-present double orbs in Choate’s orange heavens.

Ms. Cain’s Of This World is an exploration of the four terrestrial elements, capped with an earnest coda set to Antony & The Johnsons’ rhapsodic lament for the natural world. Houston Ballet Academy instructor and former HB dancer, Beth Everitt completed a goddess-like Air trio that also included Cain and Dawn Dippel. But, it is Matt Dippel and Lauren Difede who almost single-handedly cleanse the work of platitude with their breathtaking partnering as Water. (Jennifer Stricklin performed with Dippel in the Water duet for Saturday’s performance.)

Dawn Dippel’s Restful Retreat has familial charm and lives up to its title, though a jumble of images and props sometimes amount to contextual clutter. Everest featured three of Revolve’s junior company members and guest performances by the Senior Performance Company of North Harris Performing Arts, the studio co-owned by multiple Revolve Dance Company members. The dancers looked at home among professionals even if the dance in this context amounted to an exclamation point that NHPA is running a top-notch program. Veldink’s lyrical And I Love You, Bye is winsome but doesn’t fight hard enough to be more notable than its accompaniment. It was Cain and Ms. Dippel that demonstrated they could rival a song as big as Florence and The Machine’s Dog Days Are Over in a go-for-broke torrent of movement that morphed into a curtain call on steroids.

Contemporary dance can sometimes be identified by its boring apparel parade of pants and tunics. Therefore, deserving of mention is dancer and resident costumer, Jane Thayer who works with each choreographer to create a mosaic of costumes that manage to be individual and sometimes even surprising without being ostentatious.

Revolve Dance Company puts on a satisfying show that runs with the same kind of precision shown in the dancing. Their work is imaginative without breaking any rules. A homegrown collective, Revolve’s members are easily some of the best contemporary dancers performing in Houston and can be counted on to impress with a dignified elegance.

 

Reprinted courtesy Dance Source Houston

H-Town Get Down

Dancer Nasty Nate in the middle of a cipher. Photo by Eric Hester.

Dance Houston has been presenting hip hop festivals annually on proscenium stages at the Wortham and Hobby Centers for the last 5 years. Last Friday night they brought the city’s best dance crews back to the club with a debut event, H-Town Get Down. Held at Warehouse Live, the interaction was more palpable and conversational between fans and performers in this informal setting.

Woven throughout eleven dance crew performances, were national acts like hip hop luminary, Mr. Wiggles (Electric Boogaloos and Rock Steady Crew) and Mike Song of Kaba Modern, known for their appearance on America’s Best Dance Crew (ABDC), plus performances by rappers K-Rino and Cl’che’ from So South.

Over 25 bboys, many from the dance crews presented, entered the qualifying round of a tournament-style battle included in Dance Houston’s crowded event mix. Late in the evening, two dancers, Joel “Judo” Rivera and Emilio Dosal remained. The winner, declared by Mr. Wiggles himself, was Rivera of HIStory dance crew.

In energy and entertainment, the eleven crews on the roster brought their A-game. The combined talent in Houston’s fledgling and fixture hip hop companies is considerable. Still, just out of reach from any one group’s performance was the optimum blend of virtuosity, ingenuity, and storytelling. A few came close.

HomeGrown, recent winners at World of Dance Chicago, gave a fiercely tight performance. The troupe, reared at SoReal Studio (as in SoReal Cru, runners up in ABDC Season 2) hammers its musically dynamic choreography with precision. Dramatic shifts in speed or mood are inserted with scientific accuracy to stir up the crowd and leave them wanting more.

About half of HIStory’s core members performed at H-town Get Down, their small troupe bolstered in number by special guests, many from emerging crew, Inertia. HIStory’s trademark theatricality was not lost when forces joined for “Somebody To Love Me.” Missing were some of the physical zingers I’ve witnessed in past HIStory performances. However, with a trio of female dancers added to the cast, the buoyant choreography included some glistening moments of partnering that would fit easily into any contemporary dance performance.

Planet Funk Team USA’s otherworldly ELC 14: Fire & Ice featured elaborate costuming and sets. Thematically, it was all over the place but many of the night’s most jaw-dropping skills were on display amid the clutter.

In case you thought hip hop was a boy’s club, forget it. Wyld Styl’s ladies, especially, hit it every bit as hard as the guys, and 8^th Edition and JD Showtime increased the temperature in the room with a whirlwind of Salsa footwork and pair dancing. Other performances by FLY, Fatal Fever, Ghost Crew, and Fuzion Dance Company highlighted the raw talent found in Houston.

The transition from theatre to club wasn’t without bumps. Though Dance Houston’s promotions indicated a start time of 7:30, there were delays behind the scenes and doors to Warehouse Live didn’t open until 8pm. Attendees, who had waited in line to see their favorite crews, waited another 40 minutes before the first company appeared onstage. While the battles and rap artists are certainly a fit for the event, these additions meant some crews didn’t hit the stage until after 9:30 – a late and long time for the all-ages audience to stick it out in a standing room only environment. A good portion of them didn’t make it.

Most notable about H-Down Get Down is the evident camaraderie and positivity that charges the hip hop community Dance Houston brings together under one roof. A cross section of Houston, members mingle in an inclusive and supportive way that is rare in a group so diverse in style, race, orientation, and background. Kudos to Dance Houston for continually working to spread Houston’s awareness of its own outstanding and thriving hip hop community.

Reprinted from Dance Source Houston