Artist Interrupted

Taken directly from artistinutah.blogspot.com Utah Artist, Interrupted (a chapter of the national organization Artist, Interrupted)  “is a group of local female dance artists aimed at providing experiences and resources to help women continue their artistic professional development while balancing responsibilities with home and family life.  As women who balance many areas in their lives, this organization is intended to support and provide short-term professional experiences that will offer performance opportunities, education, resources, and a supportive network for women artists to learn from local participants in their communities and continue to develop their artistic interests and talents.”

March 23rd and 24th marked the second conference for the group —  Friday night was the concert ARTiculate at Sugar Space and Saturday included a technique class taught by Robin Konie (play room for children included) followed with a luncheon and discussion with Jacque Bell, Sandy Brunvand, Laura Durham, and Eva Jorgensen.  Unfortunately I was not able to attend Saturday’s activities, but I will speak to the concert on Friday.

ARTiculate was unlike any dance concert I have been to.  First of all there were kids, and lots of them.  And these where real kids, so they squirmed and yelped and did other unpredictable things.  It was refreshing to infuse live performance with this new, raw, and even irreverent energy.  There were essentially 26 works, each taking their inspiration from a letter of the alphabet.  A ‘teacher’ opened the show with a quick lesson about the make-up and goals of Artist Interrupted, and later led the audience through jumps for ‘j’ and stretches for ‘s’.  The show included both live performance and dance films.

There was a strict time limit of one minute thirty seconds for each piece, so while of course no piece could really develop in the way that discerning modern dance viewers expect but this too could be seen as refreshing.  The concert was about providing ‘interrupted’ women with an opportunity to express themselves through movement, and perhaps once again connect to the power, freedom, and joy of the moving body.  While watching, I found myself being able to turn off (or at least turn way down) my inner critic and appreciate a collective of women moving and expressing themselves through a wide range of aesthetics.  Kristine Ward danced a solo (choreographed by Molly Heller), to a soundscore of her young family at dinnertime, all while with her nine week old son snoozed peacefully in a Baby Bjorn attached to her chest.  Elizabeth Hansen performed an upbeat musical theatreish piece with a kite, a huge smile, and an infectious child-like energy and wonder.  Sara Pickett, dressed in an oversized black hoodie seamlessly combined the truncated beat and articulated body parts of hip-hop with the ease and neutral performance quality of post-modern dance.  Kelley Glenn, with strong, specific, yet at times wilting and broken choreography, dressed in a costume and headpiece made entirely of newspapers (that seemed as if it would unravel at any moment), communicated a beautiful,  yet fleeting fragility.

This concert provided dancers, many who do not get to experience dance, choreography and performance on a regular basis, with an opportunity to do all three in a low commitment, low intimidation setting.  Utah Artist, Interrupted is a much needed organization in this state where so many of us still feel, or want to feel, like the dancers we once where, but work, family, or just the logistical practicalities of life are leaving us, well, interrupted.

Erica Womack teaches at SLCC and makes dances. She holds her MFA from the University of Utah.

RDT's Passage

In a recent review I mentioned the difficulty of locating a beginning while writing about a singular artist. Today, I eat my words and find it more difficult to write about a four-artist evening. So I ask, in advance, for forgiveness about the length of this review or its meandering path but I want to talk about each work on its own terms and also on the terms of the program which, true to the title, is a passage. The journey begins with the crispness and clarity of history, continues with comfort of recent classics, and concludes with questions from new investigations.

Passage was dedicated to the memory of Utah dance figure Susan McLain and the reconstruction of "Karyo" was a worthy tribute. The abstract forms and articulate phrasing remind me what draws many of us to dance in the first place – dancers can move through space in ways that echo daily life while simultaneously deepening the experience through the ever-expanding artistry of their bodies.

From this place of history there are the more immediate memories of "Songs I Wanna Sing (to you)" and "Ghost Ship" choreographed by Satu Hummasti and Eric Handman respectively. I confess that I did not see either premiere and I can’t speak to them as a true second viewing. What I can say is that they feel like reconstructions because each choreographer has gone on to deepen some of the idioms they explored in these earlier works. Just a few weeks ago, on a University of Utah program, Satu continued an exploration of text as it relates to music and performance while Eric dealt again with constructing situations designed to reveal virtuosity. Songs… and Ghost Ship also feel like reconstructions because unlike McLain’s work fixed in historical context, both of dances appear to be beginnings and as such they showcase curiosity about how much to edit and how to represent their choreographers’ own shifting identities.

In Songs… it is clear that despite the second performance some of the dancers are beyond their comfort zone. For a general audience maybe this discomfort wouldn’t read well but, in my opinion, it was a good thing. After seasons of attending RDT and feeling like I know what to expect, this piece left me with intrigue into directions the company could go. The technical range of the performers viewed alongside the vulnerable act of singing was satisfying, to put it simply, and I went along for the ride. While the oscillation between song and dance was a comfortable way to keep me engaged, the vast genres of singing illuminated the real lack of diversity within the company. While the company makeup is an immutable fact it was something I could not escape and my longing to watch diverse performers alongside the range of songs still resonates.

In Ghost Ship I have an inverse experience: the performers are deep within their comfort zone of intensive partnering and intricate yet full-bodied dancing but the structure comes into question. For example, I’m faced with the conundrum of choosing to watch rice do a dance from the rafters rather than watching the sheer physical feats before me. I’m also faced with the mystery of what exactly is printed on those costumes…in the Blackbox it seems like I should be able to tell but I can’t. Neither is a bad thing, they make me reflect on whether dance is enough and what, if anything, layered visual images can contribute to what I see on stage.

From these recent and not as recent histories there is a premiere by the collaborative team of RawMoves (Nic Cendese & Natosha Washington). "What You Leave Behind" is a true passage as it draws choreography from one of RDT’s own company members and features at least a handful performers that regularly perform with the choreographic duo. Seeing them in context of the program reveals the ways in which their relationships with RDT have fostered their choreographic identity – they know the strengths of the performers and cast them into new situations. For example, watching Nathan and Aaron partner one another was a rare joy and Toni and Sarah were both give precise and strong material that I feel they aren’t always given.

The criticism I levy however is that this interpersonal strength can, at times, become a dialogue that I’m left out of. There is a type of dance I’ve come to know as BOSWWIP which stands for “based on secret words written in private”. What You Leave Behind is one of those dances. The text, written by the performers obviously has weight and impact for each of them and perhaps to select audience members. But to me it’s a puzzle that I’m missing a key piece of. Maybe this is the choreographic point Nic and Natosha are trying to make but I’m not so sure; I think the goal is to have me find myself within the act of weaving of the narrative and that is something I hope happens more clearly in a future iteration of the work.

At the end of the evening it’s ironic that the most historical work appears the most fresh but it makes sense because it’s the most composed. The remainder leave me asking questions of how they are seen differently in relationship to one another and how they could be seen differently if I imagine them moving on their own historical path.

I close my eyes to imagine…

…how Satu’s work could translate to different performing spaces or dancers, how the songs she wants to sing (to someone) could change by the day…

…how Eric’s physical strengths appeared so close in the Black Box and how they persist in my memory even without rice, even without painted costumes….

…how Nic & Natosha struggle valiantly to create collective voice, a journey in democracy many have taken before and a journey without end…

Ashley Anderson

SUITE

In many cities it can be difficult for emerging and independent artist to find a venue to have their work shown unless they put on their own evening length concert, something  daunting for one artist to conceive of. Luckily, Salt Lake City has many opportunities for the emerging and independent artist to have their work showcased—from Mudson to the Sugar Show. This weekend the Sugar Space offers another opportunity for emerging, independent artists to be seen in SUITE: Women Defining Space. SUITE, an annual series that supports emerging women choreographers, opened last night. The series is meant to serve as space in which the choreographer can grow and create new work. This year’s concert showcased Cortney McGuire and Leah Nelson of fivefour, Erica Womack, and Laura Blakely, chosen out of a pool of applicants based on their idea, vision, and history of achievements. Each of the participants created a new work running 15-30 minutes long. Sugar Space provides each choreographer with ten hours of free rehearsal space, marketing and production support, administrative oversight, and other aid related to producing a concert.

SUITE opened with the piece sure, ok…bye by Cortney McGuire and Leah Nelson and included a variety of sections all revolving around the concept of social connectedness. The disjointed nature of digital social media was a theme in this work. One of the sections included dialogue that seemed to imitate various forms of digital social connectedness, i.e., status updates and tweeting. While this section was interesting, because of the disconnected nature of both the spoken word and the movement, the movement seemed to still revolve around one type of aesthetic, making it more coherent, rather than less. The piece was interesting throughout—taking requests from the audience for hold songs, talking to one another through tin cans, and on the spot choreography—but the sections didn’t seem to fit together completely, not yet. The intention of the piece may have been to be disjointed, but if so that theme could be taken farther, developed more.

In Laura Blakely’s Chipped Porcelain, the lights come up on Blakely with her dress pulled partially over her head. As the piece continued, this motif was repeated, embedded within the dancing, along with other intriguing images such as eating her dress, and stirring her “tea” with her belt. These memorable moments never seemed to develop, but to only to repeat without changing, yet they seemed to hold the essence of the dance within them.

The final piece, The Promise of a Daydream, included a wide spectrum of aesthetics within a singular work. While much of the piece still seemed to be in progress, the final section was striking. The single male dancer, Efren Corado, brings a boom-box on stage and pushes a button signaling the music over the loudspeakers. While this was disconcerting at first, i.e., why have a boom-box on-stage and still use the overhead speakers, this was soon forgotten. As Cat’s Cradle, by Harry Chapin plays, Corado begins a solo which, at first, seems unremarkable. However, after a few moments, Corado stops dancing, restarting the music and his solo. He does this again. And again. And again. By the fourth repetition, the solo in conjunction with the music begins to make its own meaning, about parenthood, about journeys, about life. And then the piece ended, just when it seemed to begin.

As a whole, SUITE has a lot to offer in terms of bringing emerging female choreographers to the forefront. It is worth seeing for that reason alone—but also because there are some beautiful, thought-provoking moments in each piece.

Rachael Shaw is graduating any day now with her M.F.A. from the University of Utah.

Rambling

I want to call Doris Humphrey up and let her know that not all dances are too long. In fact, The Rambler, presented this evening at Kingsbury Hall, was just the right length. Keeping me engaged with the thoughtful performance for one hour and then setting me free into the night before the predicted snowfall.

It’s perhaps foolish to write a critical review in total earnest since the show only ran one night. Additionally it’s toured all over the country so it’s not as though the Joe Goode Performance Group is desperately searching for a critical opinion on the record.

But I would be remiss not to reflect on the experience as a unique imprint on the Salt Lake dance scene which can be rich but often incestuous. Having a national guest reminds me where Salt Lake exists in relationship to other ways of making and seeing dance.

The performance centered around simple logic — vertical and horizontal traveling curtains framed small portals where vignettes emerged. The curtain might expand to further reveal the scene or it might stay confined around small happenings.

The vignettes ranged from theatrical monologues & sculptural interactions to more traditional movement composition alongside live singing. Each developed different ideas about the concept of rambling but left the audience with the comfort that the curtain would take us to the next scene.

Simple logic allowed for more complex experiences to emerge. Because each scene was freshly framed there was the freedom to go along for the ride without anxiety or expectation. This feeling extended to the very beginning of the piece where Joe strolls out in a cowboy hat, identifies that the day before he’d fallen off the stage in front of school children, and the dancing begins as he reads poems (more or less) about “felt movement”, something he’s known for teaching.

This casual approach, I have to point out, is also employed in Salt Lake at the Mudson performance series I run as part of loveDANCEmore. And the same way I find it demystifies art-making in that venue, it certainly demystified the evening’s performance for me. In a form where so much is unclear (where our paychecks will come from, how we will find resources to make work and how we persuade digital-age audiences to sit with us) it is nice to have a person walk before you and simply invite you to partake in what they’ve made.

There is a lot of freedom in rambling and this means the dancing, singing and acting are also free to be unapologetically intermingled. While his website refers to dance-theater and blurring boundaries the dance is really more an expression what dance can include rather than what dance is not. It deals with the limitless potential of the body to express ideas and identities whether with traditional partnering or the strain of a song.

This is another lesson that some Salt Lakers could learn — using elements of theater in a work is not an act that requires explanation and justification. It’s also not something that’s revelatory but rather, is a natural extension for the potential of the form. Living here I often I see work where the “more theatrical” elements don’t seem quite right and it’s because their inclusion isn’t always as organic as the Rambler might make it appear. They seem hesitant and careful but this evening suggests that hesitance is not the course.

I know this because even in this production there are things I’m not super keen on. A lit cyc has never been something I love, monologues that incite uncomfortable laughter give me nausea, old stand-by partnering lifts give me even more discomfort and the list goes on. But The Rambler creates and sticks to it’s own convoluted pathway, no apologies. I don’t find myself making a catalogue of my likes and dislikes as I might normally. I’m noticing instead the nuance of physicalized floundering in romantic or interpersonal relationships, the ways to seek adventure among a field of abstract cacti, a luscious disappearance and re-emergence into a field of hokey smoke.

This dance wasn’t too long but this writing is. I could go on and on, which in the case of a one-time show is probably a good thing.

Ashley Anderson

RW's Prism

When watching an evening of an artist’s shorter pieces, ranging from works in progress to older projects, it is hard to locate a place to begin writing. There is, of course, the desire to go piece by piece and offer the moments that seemed most filled with wonder (Tara McArthur hovering beneath a spiraling fan, the company being seen through and reflected upon layers of mirrors and Betsy Willberg finding new sensitivity in an older duet with Jo Blake) as well as the moments that leave you curious or skeptical. But that approach is hard to get to when considering the evening at large and the ways in which the concert, as a whole, is both wonderful and curious.

It is clear that as a choreographer Charlotte has worked on many projects since arriving in Salt Lake City and with each iteration she makes active decisions through even the longest project. Push (from earlier this year) seemed significantly edited and the use of mirrors in Touching Fire (2010) became more clear with time. It is nice, in this way, to watch and appreciate that she is rigorous in her practice and will continue to offer choreography that becomes more and more fully realized.

But as I watch the evening at large I notice some troubling aspects alongside these nice moments — similar costuming and musical selection throughout, music at precisely the same volume for that matter, and repetitive structures that ask the audience to watch the same lifts, falls and ultimate conclusions (with Jo balancing toward the sky in more than one work). In isolation from one another those lifts are alright and Jo balancing toward the sky is even sublime. But in repetition these moments have a tendency to be redundant and lessen the impact of those counterparts which do change from piece to piece (whether architectural elements or the projection of a sad, sweaty, standup comic).

In some cases it is more than the act of repetition that leaves me curious. The musical scores for example are consistently out-danced by the company (who are a strong unit and individually fierce as hell). Their movements are doubly strong as the Black Angels notes and their easy duets softer than the songs of Sigur Ros. Add to this that every BFA candidate has used these artists at every ACDFA since Merce checked them out at the age of ninety and I am left straining to find the dance within the context that they are massively exceeding.

Now, this isn’t to say I’m in the business of re-choreographing dances. I don’t know if there is an alternative to these choices, or if there is, what it would be. However, as a viewer I know the evening becomes cloudy as a result. And I desire for the clouds to part so I can continue watching.

I see some glimpses of a more evolving aesthetic with the newest work-in-progress, West, which the company worked on this year in Arizona. In these vignettes not only does the music seem more related to the context of the dancing but the group really finds their new relationships. Specifically, Bashaun Williams doesn’t appear to be dancing someone else’s part but his own. The material seems fresh and at the end the company watches one another, really watches, the same way I do. It reminds me that the act of watching, as an audience, is nearly as vulnerable as the act of dancing and being seen.

Ashley Anderson runs loveDANCEmore through her 501c3, ashley anderson dances. You can read her full bio on ashleyandersondances.com