Momentum

Momentum, the annual showcase of choreography by alumni of Ririe-Woodbury, took place this past weekend. For the first time, it was partially funded by the dance company and included on the season schedule for their fiftieth anniversary. So inclusive was this convocation, that the four performances were split into two programs. It was almost a miniature festival of fifteen dances—a smorgasbord standing in strong contrast to the thematic evenings we’re used to from this group. Much of the work looked rather collegiate, some in the sense of being immature, some simply in that they bore the mark of having been made at colleges and universities.

One of the most affable pieces was Stevan Novakovich’s “Urban Awakening.” Picture a metrosexual Daniel Nagrin, pretending to smoke a cigarette, drinking some bottled water, then trying to hail an imaginary cab. If you can imagine that, then you have a fair idea of what Novakovich was doing on stage Thursday night. Here was a prissy urbanite, the guy at Starbucks who orders twelve drinks and then immediately takes a phone call. He’s a joy to watch rendered in dance because he’s a character we love to hate.

Jillian Harris’ “In Crisi” was similarly silly but fun. Hierarchically, it’s worth noting that hers was one of four pieces set on the current company, commissioned last year by Charlotte Boye-Christensen before her departure. The piece made use of music, espresso demitasse and flamboyant gestures to evoke tired clichés of Italian-American gusto and bombast. I’m not sure why all of that was necessary, because it was a million times less interesting than watching the company engage in the complex, lush partnering that made the work worth seeing. The company looks better than ever.

“still no words” by Stephanie Nugent was a somewhat underdeveloped, but promising study of company dancers Yebel Gallegos and Alex Bradshaw. Engaging in a similar exploration of relationship and complementary performance textures was Chia-Chi Chiang’s “III”, a trio comprised of Scotty Hardwig, Florian Alberge and Yasin Fairley. Just that night I had been complaining to my companion about the pitfalls of dances with all-male casts. “III” suffered from none of the gratuitous posturing or misplaced theatricality I’d been whinging about. There was nothing obviously ingenious about this rather understated work, but it brought something out of Hardwig and Alberge that I’d never seen before–– a deep quiet, a sense of internal listening. (It was also a pleasure to be introduced to Fairley, I hope to see more of his work soon.)

The one truly ambitious work was Keith Johnson’s “The Green is the Unraveling”. As another strong male cast tenderly explored each others spheres of physical intimacy, a green rectangle slowly expanded to fill the cyc. John Allen, Juan Carlos Claudio, Efren Corado Garcia and Bashaun Williams are a quartet I’d love to watch together again. The work was an ode to four other Ririe-Woodbury men–– Paul Callihan, Robert Martinez, Lynn Walter Topovski and Dennis Wright–– who the world lost to the AIDS crisis.

Sam is a regular contributor to loveDANCEmore and SLUG mag in addition to making his own creative work. His review is posted in collaboration with 15 BYTES.

Flight of Fancy

Aerial Arts of Utah performed Flight of Fancy to a sold out Rose Wagner audience. The company’s debut was a showcase of the dancers’ impressive skills off the ground. I saw a lot of variety between the different pieces, and the performers were able to capture the nature of each apparatus for the audience. It was also refreshing for me to witness shorter pieces (11 dances in 90 minutes!) with a full range from serious to lighthearted themes. I also want to acknowledge the seamless tech team behind the scenes for a show that must have been complicated to rig and negotiate during the live performance.

There were a variety of apparatus on display, with some dancers performing on several over the course of the show. Elizabeth Stich and Amy E. Olson opened the show with the intricate Salty Sisters Trapeze. They performed in excellent unison with a variety of impossible poses that required increasingly complex partnering while one dancer was suspended from the trapeze while supporting, lifting, or being climbed upon by the other. The equally impressive duet of Stich with Trisha Paulos on fabric was able to emphasize a distance between the dancers as one performed high above the audience, and the other closer to the ground. The two dancers would also meet in the middle of the piece of fabric they shared in this mysterious piece that demonstrated strength and endurance.

To keep the program light, there was a fun performance by Nancy Simpson Carter on the aerial hoop, wearing bright colors in a reflection of childhood fantasies. Adriane Colvin was playfully awkward in her solo. It was a nice change to see her fabric moving and swinging towards the audience to begin the dance, breaking the dynamic of a purely vertical plane of movement. And Carter returned to the stage with Mikael Thelin in Just a Little Ditty, an amusing take on acroyoga and an ironic look at a partnership built on trust. I was confused about their simple choice for costumes in subdued grey that did not seem to compliment the comic mood of the performance.

A few performances were also of a more sensual nature. Amy E. Olson and Nicholas Irwin Kubilius wowed the audience while suspended from a rope. Amy danced a beautiful solo to begin the piece, but it took on new life when Nicholas joined her on stage and the two demonstrated their partnering skills. I found it interesting that the show’s female/female partnerships were equally impressive with the skills that were being performed, but the male/female duet automatically had dramatic sexual tension, either through choreographic choice, or through my own interpretation.

My favorite performances of the evening were solos by Jenny Lucas and Elizabeth Stich. Lucas was accompanied by musician Margaret Lewis on cello. Not only did the live music enhance the piece performed on fabric, but Jenny’s timing, fluid movement, and specificity were captivating. It was a beautiful performance with sudden drops, slow methodic climbing, and seamless transitions from one idea to the next. Stich mesmerized the audience with her final trapeze solo, Shedding Skin. Her choreography had a graceful strength that gave her a quality of being unreachable as she hovered above the audience, both physically and on an emotional level as well.

The final piece by Anne Kocherhans and Deborah Eppstein concluded the evening in a fitting way. The two owners of the company performed Duo Celeste on fabric. Each dancer was suspended on their own apparatus, donning sunburst unitards, designed by Valena Magill. The dance had a very ethereal quality and I was surprised at how easily I was taken into the world that these dancers created.

For me, the evening was a successful fusion of circus arts with a choreographic focus. Hopefully, the next performance will run for more than one night, and if the chatter during intermission was any indication, Aerial Arts of Utah will be getting a surge of new students soon.

Erin Kaser Romero is a local choreographer and dancer who can often be seen performing with Movement Forum.

Aerial Arts of Utah’s Flight of Fancy

This weekend saw the second annual “Flight of Fancy: Soar into a Magical World,” presented by the Aerial Arts of Utah. Starting with “Above the Mist”—a piece introducing a taste of what was to come throughout the evening, with the dancers in a cocoon-like folding of the silk around their bodies—featured five of the aerial artists that would be performing throughout the night, including Aerial Arts owners Deborah Eppstein and Anne Kocherhans. It was from this cocoon structure that the dancers evolved, starting with grace and apparent ease as they glided through the footholds and wraps of the silk in synch with each others’ movements. This piece, a little on the slower tempo, with deep, elaborate beats, showcased the concentration of the dancers’ conscience—not only is she (or he) moving their body to the music, but they have to cooperate with their respective tool (in this case, each dancers’ set of silks) to hold their weight, allowing their bodies to float through the available space. The focus was strongly established from the beginning, and each dancer expressed something unique by using the silks, a lyra, the trapeze, a single rope, or even the human body itself.

While most of the dances were self-choreographed, the aura surrounding each of these dancers was one of empowerment, even while they moved through vulnerable positions. From Piper Mathews flying in a backbend with her heart exposed in “Still Moving,” to Elizabeth Stich’s seductive twists and turns in “Clap Hands,” and the showcase of strength and trust in “We Are,” where partners used AcroYoga in their display of bending and lifting, the dancers of the Aerial Arts of Utah are not afraid to let go and fall, with the strength and skill to know that something (or someone) will be there to catch them, or keep them in the air.

This strength was not only celebrated through that exposure of vulnerability, but was communicated through humor as well. Adriane Colvin did this most compellingly in her “Queen Tribute,” a rock and roll silk dance that was made vibrant with a bright hairdo, jewels on her unitard, and enthusiasm reserved for stardom. I was impressed to see her fearlessness as she navigated her body higher and higher, independent of footholds and wraps around her waist until reaching the very top, and the subsequent falls that start like dives off the high-dive into the pool.

To further impress me, the artists used not only silks to demonstrate their skill, but the variety of tricks and moves that were used in conjunction with the lyra and trapeze were striking, keeping my interest alert to follow the ups and upside-downs. The Nancy Simpson Carter and Amy Olson duo were the first of the night in this type of display, using the lyra to add to the rigid structure, yet unbalanced and uncontrolled movements of a marionette controlled by an invisible, sometimes sloppy, puppeteer.

Concluding the evening, Eppstein and Kocherhans took the stage again for “Under the Waves,” a mermaid-fantasy fiesta. The two swam through the blue waves of silks with a fluid finesse, although their dancing on ground felt at times like they were learning how to walk—perhaps intentional with the idea of mermaids learning to balance without fins. With the final drop that matched the crashing of the waves in the song, the piece (and the evening) concluded on what the main benefit of aerial arts is: daring to move beyond what gravity tells you is not possible, and doing it in a way that embodies the elegance and resilience needed to be protected in the plummets. Even though my feet never left the ground, the mere act of watching these dancers fly lifted my thoughts into weightlessness, as I sailed in my minds journey through the air with them.

Brinley Froelich is a writer who regularly contributes to SLUG magazine. For more on Aerial Arts visit http://aerialartsofutah.com.

This review is published in collaboration with 15 BYTES.

Of Meat & Marrow

SB Dance’s “Of Meat and Marrow” is one of the most creatively fun productions I’ve seen from any local Utah dance company. Two years in the making, it includes an impressive ten-person dance ensemble, live music provided by Totem and Taboo, and some of the most innovative, and at times terrifying, props I’ve ever seen.

Created by Stephen Brown (the SB in SB Dance), who refers to his carefully choreographed chaos as a “rock opera dance circus,” the production aims to provide a slightly naughty, slightly nude, sexy Halloween happening for adults.

The show opens with a “hellaciously” bad joke by head honcho “Bob Hopeless” (Jeffrey Berke) that catapults us straight to “that place down below” — the one reputed to have the fire and brimstone decor and wretched skiing.  There we find several corpses, including that of the sinuous Juan Carlos Claudio, curled on an autopsy table, being manhandled or broken by several of the other denizens. But these aren’t ordinary autopsy tables: they roll, spin, and dance seemingly of their own volition, often threatening to leave the netherworld’s inhabitants even more dead than they already appear to be.

Soon, Jane Q. Doe (Annie Kent) arrives, protesting, as one might expect, that some mistake has been made and she doesn’t belong here. However, after a brief quiz on her rather limited good deeds while alive, it appears her fate is sealed. More pertinent, however, is why anyone would choose to be eternally bored sitting on a cloud playing a harp when it’s just so much more fun in the underworld. Sure, there’s the occasional torture and the gut churning “food.” But how could anyone resist a fashion-forward Hades where even the dingy garb adheres to the current high-low fashion standard?

SB Dance knows how to make the most of every dancer and every prop. Autopsy tables become dance venues, menacing stalkers, and light reflectors. They also serve to “disembody” dancers who at times appear headless or missing other body parts. Mylar serves as costumes, hiding places, a giant monster, and another variant of light reflector. And the gigantic, heavy, whirling spinning “jack” of a steel sculpture would no doubt hold its own in a medieval torture museum. All this movement is accented by Stefanie Slade’s impressively eye-popping, precarious lighting. And then there’s the equally unusual and impressive live music, featuring the spookily lovely “Mad Meg” (Vanessa Angulo) whose voice, costume, and delivery fit the show perfectly.

Of particular note is that while “Of Meat and Marrow” is an intensely athletic show, requiring the type of acrobatic balance and split-second timing most often associated with the circus, several of the dancers are not youngsters, but rather alumni of some of Salt Lake’s better known professional companies, adding depth to the ongoing insanity.

So does Jane repent? Is she restored to the living, packed off to the pearly gates, or does she live a Persephone-like existence split between the underworld and life? To find out, you may just have to wait until next year’s show.  And that may well be the most devilish torture of all!

SB Dance returns in December with their WTF fundraiser, in January with “The Little Beast of SB Dance” and also sponsors “Cultural Confidential: conversations about art and society” and Sporty Yoga Monday nights.  For more information, see http://sbdance.com/.

Sarah Thompson is a retired physician and psychiatrist, as well as a writer and a fan of the arts.

Salt Lake City performs itself, with our without rehearsal

For curator and artist Kristina Lenzi, performance art is the antithesis of artifice. It is, she says, about “real people doing real things in real time.” She eschews work that smells rehearsed, presenting the kind of “performance art” that makes the presence of the word “performance” feel suspect. As hard as some of her rhetoric–– including claiming that “performance art” is not rehearsed–– is for me to swallow as someone who comes out of dance, perhaps her view is a grounding force in the era of performance celebs like Marina Abramovic. Performance art is a nebulous space– and that’s what makes it a generative one.

The opening work in Lenzi’s Salt Lake Performance Art Festival, which took place Friday and Saturday at the Salt Lake City Main Library, was Gretchen and Zoey Reynolds’ “Watching Ourselves Always for the Return of the Italian Puffies.” Ensconced behind the glass doors of the Library’s SHARE Space, an empty storefront within a row of shops, the mother and daughter enjoyed a two hour game of gin. Their objective throughout, was to cheat against each other, and this is what drew and kept an audience. It was a pleasure to see the two eyeing each other with the strange intimacy particular to a mother and daughter. Gretchen’s work is diverse, brave and never takes itself too seriously. I can’t wait to see more of it.

Shasta Lawton’s “Magic Circles,” which followed, also made use of the SHARE Space. I found this long mediation, which consisted of drawing ever larger circles on the glass, playing with nesting dolls and rifling through papers, completely impenetrable. That said, I enjoyed it as an opportunity to watch how the audience assembled searched the room and Lawton for meaning. Would that other audiences were so dedicated.

Next, in “Gifts,” Macie Hamblin, harvested her rainbow-dyed hair into color coded objets d’artwhich she rationed out to the audience like party favors. In contrast to earlier works, “Gifts” took place in the middle of the pedestrian traffic that fills the Library’s atrium. It was a pleasure to see another possibility offered by the strangers who traipse through this iconic space. Though Hamblin and her collaborator/head-shaver ignored the confused strangers, their fragmentary commentary of glance and shrugs lent the piece much needed playfulness.

Day two brought some works which spanned the Library’s entire operational day. The first time I got on the glass elevator with Jorge Rojas (who was dressed as some kind of bird), he was reading Rumi; four hours later, I was treated to Byron and another Romantic whose lines I didn’t recognize. It’s a pleasure to be read to. It’s even more fun when the intimate act is shared with strangers, who come and go like fellow travelers on a vertical subway. Here was something that really didn’t need much rehearsal, just a few well-chosen texts and a lot of patient work from the artist.

Marilyn Arsem of Boston, MA, whose work Making Time was seen last year at Nox Contemporary, performed “Lost Words” on the third floor. Armed with a hundred-year-old dictionary and dressed like some kind of time-traveling word monk, she opened each one-on-one interaction with a simple query. “Have you lost any words?” Whether or not you had, you came away with one, and with the charge to bring it back into common circulation. My favorite moment was watching her give my friend Luke Williams, a local performer of note himself, the word “pruinose.” Arsem deployed the word herself to describe the lightly frosted foothills above the city. Look it up.

Saturday’s other works spanned slightly shorter periods. Bryce Kauffman out of Colorado was a giant papier mâche ursine in “Bear Necessity.” I’m not sure what his piece was about, but it was a pleasure to watch small children rushing at him as he rocked back and forth holding a giant sculpture. You might notice a theme emerging–– the pleasures of this festival were as much in watching the diverse watchers as in watching the work proper.

Lenzi herself seemed aware of this in her elegant, simple “Fishing.” Standing on one of the walkways that overlook the atrium, she was dressed convincingly right up to a floppy khaki hat. All she did, and all she needed to do, was to taunt the stream of walkers with gummy worms. I watched for almost an hour.

Finally, Eugene Tachinni’s “String,” was very promising and somewhat underdeveloped–– a good representative of the tone of the festival. Basically an experiment in sewing strangers’ clothes together with thread, “String” suffered from a lack of amplified sound while Tachinni was interrogating each of his four victims on “what makes their life better?” The turning point, wherein the artist abandons his tied-together volunteers, came much too soon. The awkward interaction that followed was real and sweet, if not sufficiently suffused with tension. Like much of what I saw, it was a beginning without an ending, within a weekend that demonstrated the tremendous potential energy of artists, strangers, a unique building in a rising Western town–– itself unfinished, a work in progress.

Samuel Hanson regularly contributes to loveDANCEmore and SLUG magazine. This review is posted collaboratively with 15 BYTES.