Monday, May 30, 2005

Big Range Show the Range of Houston Dance

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Barnevelder’s Big Range Dance Festival swings into its third year with big ambitions. Travesty Dance Group premieres Karen Stoke’s much awaited new work, The Pronoun Pieces, along with works by fellow Travesty members, Rebecca Malcolm-Naib and Kimberly Karpanty.

Stoke’s large scale theatrical work, The Pronoun Pieces consists of five sections: She, He, You & I, We, and They. The Pronoun Pieces evokes a strange mythological world inhabited by mannequins and eccentric characters. The mannequins are ghost-like characters, perhaps reflecting the puppet like behavior in the world,” states Stokes. “It suggests elements of human nature, questioning repeating patterns of action and consequence. The audience is led from an initial sense of humor to a sense of a society gone wrong. If history repeats, then what have we learned.”

The festival opens on June 1st with the a Dance Gathering featuring 20 choreographers presenting 4 minute dances and the official launch of Dance Source Houston (a new dance service organization). Houston’s most established choreographers Roxanne Claire, Leslie Scates, Becky Valls, Jane Weiner, Lisa Gonzales, and Kathy Wood share an evening while young artists are featured in New Around at the JCC. Dance made for Video takes place at the Aurora Picture Show.

Big Range closes with its annual presentation of the “Buffy” Award, Houston’s only dance award, on June 18th. This year Chris Lidvall and Linda Phenix, prolific choreographers, dancers and founders of Chrysalis Dance Company, will be honored for their years of service to Houston dance. This year’s range boasts 45 choreographers harking from several places across the U. S.

The Big Range Dance Festival takes place from June 1-18 at Barnevelder and other venues. Travesty Dance Group performs on June 4, 5, 9, & 10th. Call 713-529-1819 or visit http://www.bigrange.org/.

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Tharpian Moves: Movin' Out at Hobby

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Moving is the operative word Movin’ Out. This dansical (term coined by critic, Clive Barnes) combines the pop music of Billy Joel with the snazzy moves of post modern goddess, Twyla Tharp. A thin story about the ups and down of the late sixties into the post war seventies lends just enough glue to hold it all together as a viable theater experience. The story revolves around a group of friends that face break-ups, marriages, the Vietnam War, the drug culture and the “me” generation of the seventies. Tharp’s finesse in getting inside the nuances of Joel’s catchy tunes propels the story and captures the feeling of those decades. Grandiose moves that evolve into natural gestures dominate Tharp’s vocabulary. Fusing modern, ballet, popular dance forms, and old fashioned Broadway showmanship, Tharp kept the kinetic engine stoked.

Men rule Movin’Out, hands down. David Gomez plays Tony with a double edge of Tharpian lyricism combined with a testosterone-fueled bravado. Gomez’s fluidity gives the dancing an organic edge that enlivens the skimpy, but effective, story. He demonstrated his extraordinary range in Big Shot. Brendan King does the bad boy, war boy, drug boy, with an uncommon athletic wit. King proved he can breakdance, do multiple back flips, and master the post-modern aesthetic with ease and big time flash. The ensemble danced with ample pizzazz although the ballet sections looked oddly placed and extraneous. Matt Wilson’s vocals provided enough of a Joel imitation to make fans feel at home. In the end, Movin’ Out seems more of a triumph for Tharp than Joel.

Reprinted from ARTSHOUSTON
www.artshouston.com

Thought Crimes: The Art of Subversion at DiverseWorks

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Michael Hernandez de Luna
Baby Bomb Sheet

Themes surrounding surveillance, the loss of the private citizen, secrecy, and empowering individuals make up Thought Crimes: The Art of Subversion at DiverseWorks. These works from collectives and individuals challenge the veil of secrecy that is rampant in post-Patriot Act culture. Thought Crime’s interactive stance gives the viewer plenty to do. Humor, subversive action, and revealed secrets, served as a potent subtext.

You can host your own pirate radio show at Gregory Green’s WCBS Radio Caroline 90.5. Sign up for a shift and own the air waves for an hour. Strap yourself up with a micro-camera attached to a giant pink balloon and take on a surveillance mission with Jenny Marketou’s Flying Spy Potatoes: Mission the Docks, Houston, TX. Preemptive Media’s Zapped! encourages us to release roaches at Wal-Mart armed with Radio Frequency Identification Tags (RFID). The roaches transmit messages like “Protect the 4th Amendment.” This Orwellian technology is being tested at Spring Branch ISD to keep track of students’ activities. Preemptive Media also conducted a workshop for school kids to teach them how to stay off the RFID radar.

The Yes Men pulled off the biggest coups in media history when they impersonated Dow spokespeople on the 20th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster (the worst industrial accident in history). Identity Correction presents the video archive from the impersonation to the aftermath when Dow’s stock plummeted. A handy bookmark instructs viewers on the ways of Identity Correction.

Trevor Paglen’s understated, but elegant, donor wall covered with odd names like “Moon Smoke” and “Omar Response,” identifies 1188 Active Classified Military Programs. Joe Wezorek’s War President looks like a Chuck Close rip-off until you get closer and realize George Bush’s face is made up of photos of dead soldiers. Thought Crimes leaves us with some mighty questions to ponder. Just what are we agreeing to through indifference? Have we become desensitized to the ongoing invasion of the citizen?

Thought Crimes continues at DiverseWorks through May 28th, 2005.
http://www.diverseworks.org/

Reprinted from ARTSHOUSTON
www.artshouston.com

Monday, May 16, 2005

Fairy Dust and the Reinvention of the Recital: A Conversation with Roxanne Claire

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Photo by Roxanne Claire

Roxanne Claire is a teacher, video artist, and choreographer. She began her professional dance training with Valerie Roche at the Omaha Academy of Ballet. After graduating from law school, she went to Europe. She studied primarily in Paris, taking regular class with Jean Gaudin and Ruth Barnes, as well as workshops with Carolyn Carlson, Suzanne Linke, and Angelin Preljocaj. She was one of 15 selected for a three month dance/theatre workshop with Hideyuki Yano. While in Paris she also studied African dance and flamenco. After returning to the United States, she studied Aikido for two years, earning a brown belt. In 1996, she was one of 12 to take a two week workshop with Lutz Forster, member of the Pina Bausch Company. In that same year, she opened the Claire School of Dance.

At present, she is editing the video Mehndi and preparing a new video, tentatively titled Wind. She is also currently working on a full-length evening piece entitled Paris/GE. The piece chronicles monthly trips between Paris and Geneva in what amounted to journeys between inner and outer lives. Roxanne will present an excerpt from this piece, entitled Salt, June 2 and 3rd at Big Range Dance Festival, held at Barnevelder.

I had the privilege of meeting Roxanne Claire shortly she got off the bus from France. In addition, I had the joy of working with her on the Artists’ Board of DiverseWorks for three years. I have always found her to be one of the most intelligent dance voices on the scene.


DH: Can talk about your how your training at a Royal Academy of Dancing (RAD) studio has influenced the way you handle the recital process at your own school.

RC: I am not a RAD studio in the formal sense, while some of my syllabus has been influenced by my own RAD training. I do not teach an RAD class or present my children for examinations.However, my formative professional dance training was in an RAD studio and this has influenced my ideas about how a dance studio should be run. The recital is a prime example of this. We did not do recitals at the studio where I received my training. We did have something called "demonstrations" where students got up on stage with their class, in classroom attire, and showed what they had been working on during the year. Because during the year we worked on material for the exams, that is what we showed. But the traditional dance school recital with "numbers" and glitzy costumes was not something I did once I began professional training.

DH: What is a typical recital like for a child at Claire School of Dance? What is it like for the parent?

RC: I try to make the experience as low key and stress free as possible for everyone concerned. Children are to dress in whatever they normally wear to class. While there is a dress code for the Level children, the ones in ballet class, the only requirement for children in our Early Childhood program, the creative movement classes, is that they have bare feet. Dance skirts and tutus are allowed.

I have a "fairy crown party" early in the year, to have parents come and help make the fairy crowns of flowers and ribbons (ivy crowns for the boys). Sometimes parents of a class get together and purchase matching leotards.The parent and child arrive at our studios at Lambert Hall for the Performing Arts about a half hour before show time. The parent usually helps the child get on her or his crown before heading to the theater. (We are fortunate enough to have a small jewel of a theater right in our building at Lambert Hall.) We have "room mama or dad" stay with the children while waiting for their turn on stage. One of the teachers goes around each room and sprinkles the children with "fairy dust" as a good luck gesture before the show starts.

We start with the youngest children and work our way up. That way, those with the shortest attention spans are in and out first. The children get up on stage with their teacher and demonstrate three or four things they've worked on during the year. Then they are handed a rose as they leave the stage and go to their parents in the audience. They collect their certificate on their way out the door.


DH: When you opened your studio did you have an idea of how to handle the recital idea? Did your ideas evolve over time?

RC: I knew I wanted to have something low key and inexpensive. There is no additional recital fee at my school. The registration fee covers the demonstration expenses.It has evolved over time, in part, because the school is growing. We now hold two demonstrations because I want to keep things short and sweet. Many parents are holding toddlers in their laps. My rule is the show must be an hour or under. I also noticed that many parents left once their child had performed so now we have the older girls perform at the beginning of each show so that the parents can see what the children can learn if they stay with our program.


DH: I understand you don't go in for all those commercial- looking costumes. How do you use costumes?

RC: No one wears costumes except for the upper level girls. There, as in my Nutcracker, the rule is simplicity, like a long skirt over their classroom leotards. One dance we did, for a special event not a recital, had a scarecrow theme. I made red felt and raffia hats, collars and wrist bands and the girls wore their leotards and a pair of their own jeans. I think my background as a choreographer influences me here too. I design costumes that are for performances. Most traditional recital costumes would never be seen on stage except at recitals.Also, now that we've been in operation for 8 years now, our older girls are working on more advanced material, including choreography, so our older girls do in fact show a dance in addition to classroom work and that dance also has costumes.

Two years ago we did an Alvin Ailey homage with long white skirts. Last year we did a piece with Martha Graham-like lycra dance "bags," although it ended up a great deal more light hearted than what Martha would have done!

DH: Do you feel as if you have reinvented the recital. I think you have but I would like to hear your take on this?

RC: I feel that I have developed an approach which best fits the personality of my school and the children and parents who come to me. I did go to a school that did recitals when I first started taking dance classes and I remember how exciting it was, how much fun. I want the children to experience being on stage and I want the parents to see what their children have learned. At the same time, I want to spend classroom time focusing primarily on learning "to" dance, not "a" dance. I think my approach allows me the best of both worlds.

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DH: What kind of response do you get from the children?
RC: The children are always very excited. We have very few melt-downs or crying children who refuse to go on stage - although we do have one every now and then.

DH: How about the parents? Do they ever long for spending large sums of money and sitting for hours at long recitals because that is what they expect?

RC: I learned early on to be upfront about the kind of recital we do when the parent first contacts us for information about classes. Many of my parents come to me because I do not do a traditional recital. Some parents do want that, however. They usually have had their own recital experiences they want to share with their children. And I certainly understand that so it's best that they know right away that we are not that kind of school.

DH: I understand you have a completely different take on The Nutcracker. Can you tell me about it?

RC: The school I went to for professional training, the Omaha Academy of Ballet, also was home to the Omaha Civic Ballet and every year we did a Nutcracker. So again I've been influenced by my own experiences. Now that my students are getting old enough to perform - in the beginning my students were all about four years old - I wanted to give them a more meaningful performing experience and the Nutcracker seemed like a good way to do that. However, being, well, me, I didn't want to do a traditional Nutcracker. Not to mention that everyone does the same Nutcracker. While I was doing research for a jazz camp I stumbled across Duke Ellington's arrangement of The Nutcracker and that was the beginning of our "New York Nutcracker."

Also, when I was a little girl, one of my favorite books was "Eloise" so I decided to combine the two ideas, throwing out the traditional story and using the story of a little girl who lives with her nanny in the Plaza Hotel in New York. The art work in the book - black, white, and hot pink - provided the color palette for the show as well. You know, like Truman Capote's Black and White Ball or the Ascot scene in "My Fair Lady." It adds that sharp, artist, New York chic.

Because the music has that jazz feeling to it, and because I feel that the children look better doing more natural movements than ballet steps they are not quite ready for, the choreography is distinctly contemporary in vocabulary. While some dances have themes which relate either to "Eloise" or to New York of the 1950s - for example, in the 50's it was popular to dye poodles pink, so in our "Marzipan" the girls dance with pink toy poodles - we also have some dances which do riffs off the original Nutcracker. So we have a "Spanish" number where all the girls are dressed in bolero jackets but have shopping bags, and a sultry "Sugar Rum Cherry" which is danced by one of our teachers.

DH: Thanks for taking to share your inventive alternative to the ‘recital.” We could all use a bit of fairy dust now and then.

To contact Claire School of Dance call 713-880-5565 or visit
http://www.clairedance.com/.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Ripe for Reforming? Dancers are Discovering Pilates Strengths and Limits

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John Gossett and Megan Spears
Photo by Tim Lesniak

Pilates has become the workout of choice among many dancers for all the obvious reasons. It helps build alignment and flexibility, lengthens and tones muscles, and helps dancers find their ‘center.’

But as Pilates continues to gain popularity—many dancers now teach it as well as take it—some have started turning to the regime as a shortcut for staying in shape. Working full-time and rehearsing at night (an economic reality for many dancers) puts a strain on attending morning class. What’s more, choices for morning class have diminished in many locales. It’s no surprise that dancers can be all-too-tempted to substitute a Pilates workout for class.

But relying on Pilates can have an impact on overall ability. Bessie Award-winning improvisational choreographer Jennifer Monson has noticed the toll on young dancers with whom she is working. “I see the impact of yoga and Pilates on peoples’ bodies and in their choreography: more unusual shapes and tight torsos,” says Monson. Dancing is three-dimensional, she points out, while Pilates tends toward the linear. The movement sequences are isolated, and performed solo. Although today it varies from studio to studio, traditionally, music usually isn’t used in classes. This can leave dancers who rely on Pilates too much at a disadvantage. “Dance requires musicality and phrasing —and these qualities are not inherent in Pilates exercise programs,” says Elizabeth Larkam, a Pilates teacher in San Francisco who often works with dancers. “Dancers can get fascinated with the biomechanical specificity of their technique, neglecting rhythm and phrasing.”

“Pilates’s limitation is its approach to space and flow,” agrees Karen Donelson, a New York City performing arts physical therapist. “The older dancers I work with notice an increasing lack of musicality in their younger colleagues. By replacing exercise for dancing, are we subtly perceiving and acting in a way that is reducing our ability to express ourselves fully?”
Dancers can’t expect to get everything they need in one place and Pilates’s real potency lies as a companion rather than as an equivalent of a dance class. The list of benefits it offers is impressive: Pilates allows a certain luxury of space, time, and internal awareness. With the exception of mat class, you work alone or one-on-one with a teacher. Dancers finally get off their feet as they are repositioned in gravity on the reformer. “Pilates and dance go hand in hand. It's the best form of exercise for placement and for building strength in your placement. I casn't believe some dancers are just coming to it now,” says Houston Ballet prima ballerina Lauren Anderson.

When dancers take Pilates, they explore their limits slowly and gently. Removed from competition and the need to coordinate with other dancers and with music, their self-awareness can have full reign. “Pilates offers dancers a chance to step back a little, to work on placement and technique outside of the structure of class,” says John Gossett, a former Pilates instructor for the Houston Ballet and owner of Pilates Concepts of Houston @ Eastside Studio.
Bryan Peters, a student of Alan Herdman (who studied with Joseph Pilates’s original assistants), trains dancers at the Houston Ballet. He feels Pilates can keep an injured dancer in shape, reducing her recovery time by half, and neutralize an exaggerated placement. Peters stresses the importance of choosing a Pilates teacher with a dance background. “Joseph Pilates was way ahead of his time,” he says. “Without scientific or dance training, he intuited the importance of the core muscles, and the power of internal sensing in executing movement. He is one of the first to bring the mind/body connection to the fitness arena.”

Yet nothing can replace the experience of gliding across the floor, leaping and landing, turning, carving shapes with your limbs, learning combinations and complicated footwork, and listening for the space between notes. Only dancing itself can offer such a promise, and only class can keep dancers in shape to do it.

The piece is reprinted from Dance Magazine, June 2004.

Sunday, May 01, 2005

French Rule: Jean-Baptiste Andre at DiverseWorks

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Jean-Baptiste Andre

Jean-Baptiste Andre begins Interieur Nuit looking like a dazed boy just waking up to find himself trapped in plain wood room complete with one tiny window and two small lights. At first, Andre orients to his environment with a sense of childlike wonder. His protean feet dance to show off his remarkable dexterity and ingenious choreography. Once Andre actually starts moving through space--look out. Andre dances with astounding grace, executing moves I didn’t know were humanly possible. He is as comfortable dancing on the wall as he is on the floor. Also, he spends a considerable amount of time standing on his hands while his legs wobble freely in the air. He seems immune to the laws of gravity as his unstudied style amazed and amused throughout the piece.

Enter the camera, adding an entirely new perspective. In one sequence, he balances on the wall in such a way that the camera places him causally sitting on the floor. The piece takes a sinister turn when he encounters a pile of clothes and attempts to put them all on resembling some kind of crazed rag monster. Still, he creates wondrous, almost clown-like, movements within the clothes. The piece ends with a stunning close-up of his hands and feet projected on the wall in a tender ballet. In the end, he transcends entrapment through his relentless probing of visual and kinetic possibilities.

Reprinted from the Houston Press. www.houstonpress.com