Working on Multiple Dances

Getting work done!  While I'm hanging out in Chicago for the next 2 weeks, I'm often between rehearsals.  The big Mordine and Company show is next weekend at The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago and it's shaping up very well.  We're performing with members of Mucca Pazza, and having musicians in the room while we dance is creating much electricity.

In the mean time I'm (of course) working on the next piece I'm setting on The Collective in Baltimore for their performance on 11/16-17 at The Theater Project.  I've just finished editing the music and re-recording a couple of monologue tracks (my 2nd favorite thing to do).

If you want to see how fast I can talk and how tongue-tied I might get while dancing, come to this show!

http://www.collective-dance.com/performances.html

NOW, if you want to dance with me while I'm in Chicago, come to Company Class with Mordine and Company at Extensions Friday, 9/26 10-11:30 for $10.  I'm teaching an advanced modern class focusing on easy, easy hips.  We'll open them up and see what we get.

Then come see me dance, of course.

And if you're a Northwestern University student, I'm teaching a Laban-based Composition Masterclass on Sunday, Oct. 6th in the ballroom of the Marjorie Ward Marshall Dance Center.

Summer SHORTS Aug. 9

My first performance as a new resident of the east coast is coming up!

I'll be performing in the show Summer SHORTS with The Collective in Baltimore, MD on August 9th.
This is The Collective's annual show filled with short performances by company members (limited to 5 dancers and five minutes) along side guest artists Christopher K. Morgan & Artists and DishiBem Contemporary Dance Group.  It's the perfect little dance version of hors d'oeuvres.  Small, varied and a taste of what modern dance has to offer.  They'll be serious, funny, fast, ponderous, strange, ordinary, and certainly different than your typical friday night fare.

I'll be performing in 2 pieces.  One of my own and one as a dancer for someone else.  A nice little introduction to my new dancing family and community.

If you'd like to join me, or spread the word, Summer Shorts will be:
Friday, August 9, 2013 at 8pm
Creative Alliance at the Patterson
3134 Eastern Ave
Baltimore, MD 21224

Tickets are $15/adults, $10/students, seniors , and CA members
call 410-276-1651 or purchase online at www.creativealliance.org

Goal Met! I'm going to Chicago!

So, as some of you know, I have been raising travel expenses to get to Chicago.  Why?  Because when I was living there, I was a company member with Mordine and Company Dance Theatre, and right before I left, it was decided that Mo&Co would be one of the season openers on The Dance Center of Columbia College's 40th Anniversary Season.  As The Dance Center is one of the major places to see dance in Chicago, I was very excited.  

Then my husband and I moved.  

I talked to Shirley (Artistic Director of Mo&Co) and said, "If you'll have me, I'll be back to do my role in the piece All At Once" (I'm in the maroon v-neck t-shirt).  She said yes and everything was fine and dandy until...

My husband and I moved to D.C. and because of various misfortunes, went through our pitiful savings at an alarming rate.  After 3 maxed out credit cards and many familial loans later, I was facing calling Shirley and telling her to replace me unless I could fundraise enough money to get to Chicago.  

WELL, I am so happy to announce that with all of your help, I have raised enough to get my tush out to Chicago for rehearsals and the show!  

Thank you so much to my generous donors:
A big thank you to my generous donors on GoFundMe who helped me with travel expenses for the trip!  
Anonymous
Anonymous
Sarah Coffey
Mom & Dad Drake
Diego, Lauren, & Monica
Andrew Lomen
Paula Biasi
Brad and Megan Vollmer
Bart Griepentrog
Anonymous
Kelly Anderson

If you would like to see this exciting show in Chicago on October 3-5, 2013,  click RIGHT HERE for ticket information through The Dance Center's Box Office.  

If you're not in Chicago, then check back here as I blog my way through the rehearsals and show.

Thank you!

Chicago/Washington D.C. Dance Exchange

I am proud to announce a new project!

I miss my old city already and am setting up a dance exchange between my new city and my old one to encourage the flow of ideas from the east coast to the third coast.

Check out my website for new information updated regularly or if you would like to participate.
Chicago/DC Dance Exchange

Zoe/Juniper

Last night I saw Zoe/Juniper at The Dance Center of Columbia College.  65 minutes of dark, strange and intriguing visuals.  My husband didn't care for it, but he's no dancer, so I pulled rank on him and told him although he's normally free to have his own opinion, he'll have to agree with me on this one.

Were there lulls in the action? Yes.  Especially during the quiet moments when we could all hear percussion practice going on in the Sherwood Music School next door.  Someone should really make sure that on performance nights, no one practices the drums after 8pm.  Seriously.

There were also some Greek-chorus/baroque court dancing sections that went on a bit long with unending repetition.  This is where I would have cut at least 2 minutes off the end of each "chorus" section.

Some other comments I got from fellow patrons were that the scenes seemed disjointed and the piece was not cohesive.  I didn't mind the separate "scenes".  It felt like wandering through a gallery and looking at the individual pieces in a visual art show.  My only beef was that I wanted more of the fantastic video that appeared in the first third of the show.  Ghostly mirrored video images haunted each of the dancers as they appeared and disappeared from the stage.  The human-sized images danced as much as the real dancers and I wanted more.  I rarely feel such a connection from video in dance.

The vocabulary of the piece was low, feral, and glitchy.  You felt like you were watching a grainy video feed that intermittently skipped frames.  It was technically very difficult and quite unique.   Yes, legs went up to the ceiling and toes pointed (you should know that these things are loath to me), but all for the sake of attaining the praying-mantis/scorpion/gollum feel of the movement.  The dancers all embodied this so well, and then Zoe entered the scene and blew them all away.  Insect-dancing is clearly her specialty.  Entirely made of long limbs that are evidently able to rotate at least 270 degrees (yes, I had to look up the rotation of an owl's neck to get an accurate figure), Zoe is able to go anywhere and stop momentum to change direction at breakneck speed.

Did I mention the shiny floor that made each dancer look like they were avatars because of the light that seemingly shone up on them from the floor?  It's hard to describe, but it looked like a very specific follow-spot on each dancer... coming from underneath the floor.  Cool.  Cool, cool, cool.  Besides that, it made their footsteps sound completely different from any regular dance floor.

To wrap it all up, despite some quibbles on the editing, a desire for more of Juniper, and the drummers next door, I thoroughly enjoyed the collaboration of Zoe/Juniper.

I'd see them again.  For sure.

Miguel Gutierrez and The Powerful People

Last weekend I saw Miguel Gutierrez and The Powerful People at the MCA.  They performed And Lose the Name of Action to a bemused, stunned and sage crowd.  As I sat there with my old Milwaukee friend that just moved to something like 30 different states and then to Chicago within a year, I pointed out no less than 10 Chicago dance makers that I could name.  There were more dancers that I recognized from classes, but you get it.  Sage crowd.

Then I read this review by Laura Molzahn for See Chicago Dance... that was less than enthusiastic.  I was instantly reminded of the kerfuffle over Macaulay's review of Tere O'Connor.  Why do things have to "develop", have to elicit emotion?

I thought the piece was brilliant and that the performers were so amazing I kept staring at each of them in turn and re-reading their bios because their performances were so unaffected.  And for this reason alone I could call the performance brilliant, but there was much more.

Yes, it was 10 minutes too long, but that could've been because I was on a completely unforgiving metal chair.  The rest of the experience was a breath of fresh air in a town full of high legs and pointed toes.

Tech Time

It's that time of year again! The winter show. It's also the reason my posts are scarce. Once my piece has been performed by my fabulous students at UW-Milwaukee next weekend, I'll breathe easier and be back at it.

Double Dance Show Weekend

My single dance date turned into a double dance date! My husband and I met my dancer friend Kelly Anderson at Kate Corby's show "Passing" at Links Hall this past Saturday. We had a chance to chat with Kristina Fluty about life and school and Kate, herself, about the dance scene in Chicago. Then I scored a cheap-seat at Hubbard Street's Show "Transcendent" today at the Harris Theater to see Mats Ek's premier Casi-Casa.

Kate's show, about life and death, was made more full in the intimacy of Links hall by the ambient sounds from the passing trains and party-goers on the busy Saturday night.  It was only a welcome intrusion because the casual nature of the choreography.  Dressed in street-clothes and alternately tossing themselves about or lightly placing their gestures about the space, we felt as if the cycle of life and death wasn't too heavy or heady of a topic but something that just happens or slowly floods into one's experience.

The highlight of Kate's show was definitely the duet between Josh Anderson and Michelle Scurlock. Vacillating between linear movement phrases and repetitive gesture we get a glimpse into a relationship that is complicated, a little competitive and often hilarious in the most understated way.  This understated hilarity is mostly in thanks to Michelle Scurlock's deft looks at Josh which manage to be just at the right moments and neither too subtle or too imposing.  She also has the fastest arms in Chicago.

My dance weekend then went from 10's of seats to 100's of seats with my trip to the Harris.  I've been dying to see more European choreographers.  It's not often that I get to see their work live (money, proximity, etc.) so I was so excited to see this show.  Although Canadian Aszure Barton's piece "Untouched" was a dramatic hit, the highlight of the show was certainly Swedish choreographer Mats Ek's piece Casi-Casa.  Finally a break from the relentless ballet vocabulary!  It was full of emotion without beating you over the head with it.  The emotion came from the pedestrian movement, the spare household objects that had a life of their own and the little bursts of sound and often incomprehensible words from the dancers.  I bumped into Dr. Green and his wife from Columbia College afterwards and they were discussing how the Ek piece had a taste of Pina and a clear influence from Ek's time spent working with Nederlands.  I could go on, but I want it to settle first.  I'm sure I'll have dreams tonight of roll-stepping pedestrians, militant housewives, and complicit furniture.