Hughes & Vecchione's Choreofest and other local offerings

It’s been a weekend of catching up. Among other catch-up tasks (talking on the phone, cleaning house), I spent time re-acquainting myself with dance in Salt Lake City. It’s a continuous practice, and, it turns out there’s still a lot going on even if you’re unwilling to leave the house except to visit the grocery store.

12 Minutes Max which has always been one of my favorite ways to sample local experimentation. Now you can watch it from home, and in this case, several days after the fact. This edition had a dance film by Roxanne Gray, music by Logan Hone and a vintage film collage by Steve Creson, full of eerily timely images of medical science and flourishing pathogens. I also took in (for the second time ever) Salty Showcase, which offered two musical acts and a new dance film by Arin Lynn in which the sole performer, Tori Meyer, is revealed through tiny gestures and a slue of ever-changing and playful, if quotidian, outfits.

It was in this context of appreciation for how much is still available to engage with that I watched Christina Hughes and Angela Vecchione’s collaboration with Rhode Island-based collective Metamorphosis, which will be presented again on Sunday, January 31 at 5pm MST, as a part of their collaborative Choreofest project.

From what I’ve seen of the ongoing Choreofest offerings (of which I haven’t seen everything), the goal of the series is to explore what it’s like to make dances together over the internet, with an eye toward collaboration with new partners. I didn’t enjoy the Metamorphosis collaboration as much as an earlier iteration I saw in which Hughes and Vecchione worked with Faby Guíllen, who performed live from her home city in Mexico. What made that piece striking was that it stuck to a visual diptich — at first somewhat jarring — in which we saw the soloist dancing live from two different angles about 90 degrees apart in an anonymous-looking, seemingly random patch of urban space.

Faby Guíllen dancing in a collaboration with Hughes and Vecchione from last year.

In sticking to a formal constraint which pushes hard on the subliminal training on how to watch that we’ve all received TV and movies, the work with Guíllen maintained a sense of tension that allowed the actual choreography to be quite playful without feeling scattered or unedited. This piece would work well in a gallery setting. The work with Metamorphosis takes a different approach, attempting to collage the Zoom-meeting-as-stage (I was impressed with the way the six dancers “entered” and “exited”) with more traditional screendance tools (cutting on action, screen direction, cutting from one dancer to another doing the same phrase).

Although the result was less pleasing as viewer, as a dancer, I appreciate seeing the ongoing work — the trial and error in which all of us are currently engaged. I look forward to more.

A particularly pleasing moment of unison from the Metamorphosis collaboration.

Samuel Hanson is the editor and executive director of loveDANCEmore. 

RDT's brings new works by the company, and others

Repertory Dance Theatre’s virtual performance of Emerge premiered on January 16, 2021. In this sixth annual presentation of Emerge, company dancers and staff have taken on the role of choreographer. RDT takes pride in the opportunity it provides artists to practice the art of dance-making. The show consists of seven works created by Rebecca Aneloski (winner of the 2019 New Century Dance Project choreographic competition), Lauren Curley, Jonathan Kim, Jaclyn Brown, Dan Higgins, Daniel Do & Edromar Undag, and Nicholas Cendese. 

A stunning opening to the evening was Odes choreographed by Rebecca Aneloski. The original sound score composed by Michael Wall had a pulsating meditative drive throughout the work. On a minimally lit stage, the piece developed seamlessly, shifting between solos and duets performed by the dancers. The first duet between Daniel Do and Jonathan Kim exhibited beautifully intricate partner work. In a delicate yet captivatingly powerful manner, their bodies appeared to weave between and around one another hypnotically. This duet transitioned into an enthralling and powerful solo performed by Daniel which swiftly led to a dynamic solo from Jon. After another mesmerizing duet performance by Jon and Ursula Perry, the piece finished with a solo danced by Ursula accompanied by an instrumental version of “America the Beautiful”. This suddenly gave the piece an entirely different meaning for me, one that was slightly ominous.  I couldn’t help but notice the chilling connotation attached to the song in light of the current political moment.  

Jon Kim and Daniel Do, photo by Sharon Kain

Solace was a duet choreographed by Lauren Curley and featured more beautiful partner work between Daniel Do and Jonathan Kim. The piece begins with a subtle golden light illuminating the dark stage, which looks like a black void when viewing the piece through a screen. Slowly, the lights brighten to reveal more of the surrounding space. The camera angle shifts throughout the piece offering new perspectives of the human architecture morphing and transmuting on stage. Daniel and Jon danced with stunning strength and compatibility. Their connection was palpable.  

The moving camera angles continued to offer unique perspectives of Dusk Fades, a solo choreographed by Jonathan Kim and performed by guest dancer Kerry McCrackin. The sound score begins with exciting string music and is accompanied by frenzied arm tosses and giant strides across the stage. The music transitions into a mediative soundscape punctuated by the sound of ocean waves. The dancing takes on a suppler quality. This shift in sound and movement quality is paralleled by the shift in the lighting design from bright oranges and reds to deep purples and blues. All of these components culminate in the emulation of a sunset.  

One By One was a series of seven solos created for each company member by Jaclyn Brown. Carefully crafted with the dancers’ individuality in mind, the solos take us on a journey revealing the unique qualities possessed by each of the dancers. The solos were performed to live accompaniment by musical artist, Nate Anderson who played a variety of exciting electronic music. 

Kareem Lewis and Ursula Perry, photo by Sharon Kain

Knowhere was choreographed by company member Dan Higgins and danced by Ursula Perry, Kareem Lewis, and Elle Johansen. The partnerships were in a constant state of flux throughout the work. The trio morphed seamlessly into separate duets, solos and reassembled again as a trio. The soundscape mimicked atmospheric/space sounds that appeared to be embodied by the orbiting pathways taken by the dancers.  I couldn’t help but wonder whether the title of the work was reflecting upon these cosmic themes.  

Space in Sonder was a duet choreographed by Daniel Do and Edromar Undag. The performers Jaclyn Brown and Ursula Perry have danced together as company members since 2014. The longevity of their relationship as fellow dancers showed in their unwavering synchronicity. The partner work in this piece was beautifully balanced and powerful. 

Nicholas Cendese, artistic associate and development director of RDT was the choreographer of the final piece, Another Day in Quarantine.  The four-part theatrical work included a solo, trio, duet, and group dance all performed to songs by Doris Day.  Each segment reflected in some manner upon the experiences of Americans in self-isolation over this past year. The piece was a fun and light-hearted end to the show. 

Despite the turbulent year all performing artists and audiences have experienced, the silver lining of it all is perhaps the novel ways in which art is being dispersed and consumed. Though nothing will quite beat the live experience of concert dance, virtual performances, I’d argue do have their perks. As a viewer, you are provided with an entirely new perspective of the action unfolding on stage. The point of view offered by the camera in this year’s presentation of Emerge shifts continuously, offering insights into the performance that were never available before. 

Tickets to Emerge are still available on RDT’s website. Ticketholders are granted access to the performance via a personalized link that expires within a week.  

Talia Dixon was raised in Southern California. She moved to Salt Lake City in 2017 to study dance at the University of Utah. She plans to graduate with her Honors BFA in Modern Dance as well as a Minor in American Indian Studies in the Spring of 2021.

Municipal Ballet's digital winter offering

First introduced in 1892, The Nutcracker has been a Christmastime staple in the US since the mid-twentieth century. Municipal Ballet’s condensed and sophisticated take on the ballet, River of Rosewater, was released on December 23 via Youtube. If you stan a traditional Nutcracker, be warned: this version will challenge you. If you care to read retired New York Times dance critic Alastair Macaulay’s 10 Ways to Tell If Your ‘Nutcracker’ is Traditional (I totes don’t blame you if you decline), you’ll discover that River scores a 0/10. But this doesn’t mean Municipal has failed, and the 174 mostly positive comments prove it: 

“That was such an original and gorgeous interpretation!” “What a breath of fresh air!” “This had such a serenity to it!” “I didn’t want this to end! I couldn’t dare but stare without blinking!” “Charming, clever, and innovative... a joy to watch.” “The Arabian coffee and the Grand Pas de Deux took me to a level of awe I have not reached since the first time that I was in the Nutcracker!”

Ursula Perry as Clara’s grandmother, discussed below

The year is 1927. A bluegrass version of Tchaikovsky’s score begins playing. Clara is twenty-three years old and her pesky brother Fritz is nowhere in sight. Her godmother Drosselmeyer gives off the air of that curiously well-off aunt who has no children and frequently takes exotic trips. The party guests look like they walked straight out of a Great Fashion Designs of the Twenties Paper Doll book. Their dancing resembles the traditional party scene choreography (tap your heel, tap your toe, do a chassé, repeat on the other side) with the Charleston thrown in. A handsome male doctor that Godmother Drosselmeyer met during her travels appears and piques Clara’s interest, but leaves after receiving an urgent message. Cocktails are poured and gluttonously gulped, and I believe Clara’s ensuing dreams of The Land of Sweets are brought on by the amount of absinthe she consumes.

The Spanish Chocolate, Arabian Coffee, Chinese Tea, and Russian Candy Cane (get those fouettés, girl!) move at turns elegantly and energetically throughout the McCune Mansion, the sunlight from each room’s massive windows illuminating dust particles that shimmer as much as the dancers’ costumes. The choreography of these divertissements is not as extravagant as you’re likely accustomed to but the racial stereotypes are absent, which invites my favorite Youtube comment: “THE CHINESE VARIATION OH MY GOSH!!!!! THEY DIDN’T USE THE FINGERS!!!!” Snowflakes, flowers, and the Sugarplum Fairy make appearances, and mysterious doctor man returns for a pas de deux with Clara that mixes ballet with Fred and Ginger-esque partnering. 

Kathryn Morgan, as Clara, gets dipped

River of Rosewater’s omissions are curious when you consider the narrative it’s based on. The nutcracker dolls that flank Clara as she sleeps do not come alive, thus there is no Nutcracker prince to accompany her throughout her dream (maybe this explains the change in title). There is no battle between soldiers and mice. Mother Ginger is M.I.A. and I dearly miss her wild flamboyance that contrasts the polished, pristine nature of all who dance before and after her. 

New York City Ballet’s Nutcracker choreography inspired the version I performed for eight years as a child/teen, and when I wasn’t on stage, I was voraciously consuming NYCB’s VHS recording staring Macaulay Culkin (interesting side note: River’s Clara, Kathryn Morgan, began her professional career with NYCB). I was viscerally shook when Municipal’s dancers didn’t perform the choreography that I studied through the aforementioned ventures, but I love that they leapt out of the box. It was an original, visually captivating performance that was easy to consume in this overly digitally-saturated time. I especially enjoyed how much the camera moved throughout the film, capturing architectural and decorative details of McCune Mansion and frequently focusing on the facial expressions of the dancers. This is a short and sweet video to watch if you want to hold on to the final whispers of the holiday season.

Alexandra Barbier is a dance artist and performance-maker. She received a modern dance MFA from the University of Utah and has taught courses on creative process, queer performance art, and dance in culture.

Ballet 22: a holiday gift reviewed

For Christmas this year, I decided to gift tickets to the debut performance of Ballet 22, based in Oakland California. So, on Friday, December 18 at 5:00 pm Pacific Time and 6:00 pm Mountain Time, my daughter in L.A., my brother in San Francisco, and I here in SLC simultaneously switched on our laptops and watched Ballet 22’s inaugural digital performance, Breaking Ground.

The company is indeed breaking ground as a classical ballet company adapting partnering and choreography for an all-male cast. With men sometimes on pointe and in practice tutus, Ballet 22 is expanding the vocabulary and fecundity of its dancers. But this is neither Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, nor the bumbling stepsisters in Cinderella, or parody of any kind. There are no false eyelashes or pink tights — in fact there are no tights at all — although costuming still occasionally hints at tradition. 

In Ballet 22’s version of the Odette adagio Swan Lake pas de deux (retitled Pas de Huit for four couples), the camera dissolves one Odette into another, sometimes in black and other times white tutus — ultimately proving that height, weight and gender do not define roles, and the unmannered choreography speaks for itself.

During the Sugar Plum pas de deux, my daughter group texted, “I must say, I really don’t miss the women.” 

My twelve-month old grandson watching the performance in Los Angeles in my daughter's lap.

That is not to say women in dance are unimportant, but rather that when Ballet 22 Artistic Director Roberto Vega Ortiz dances the Sugar Plum adagio, partnered by Donghoon Lee, the camera invites us in and the “don’t let the audience see you sweat” trope is gone. Vega Ortiz’s impeccable musical timing is on full display as he leans into his penché gently floating between notes. My brother texted, “defies notions of a dancer with such strong, thick, muscular legs.”

Choreographer (and dancer on this program) Joshua Stayton’s ballet Juntos leaves the classics yet stays within the vocabulary to focus on composition and bravura, and gives us a chance to pick out our favorite dancer. Again, the costuming occupies a place in the choreography. Dancers switch between black t-shirts and jeans, and black tutus and midriff tops — and just when Duane Gosa (a graduate of The University of Akron and current member of Ballet Trockadero) has captured our attention, Gilbert Bolden III (a Corps de Ballet member with New York City Ballet) whisks it away.

The dancer-choreographed short films Metamorphosis (Philip Glass music) and Before the World Ends (music by Residente) takes viewers on a trip around the globe into each dancer’s world with short solos edited together. My daughter texted, “I like the intimacy of seeing people in their homes.” 

In the last work on the program, Omar Román de Jesús’s choreography Mi Pequeñito Sueño is less captivating than its sound score, lighting, and costumes. But to close this particular program with the design elements leading, is congruous. 

The “live” ticketed format (although previously filmed) really worked for me. I do suggest Ballet 22 produce a clearer format regarding program notes. The credits ran (before? or after?) so fast I couldn’t identify titles or dancers relative to roles. And for all the care taken by videographer Lázaro González, stage design credits are absent from their website. 

Enjoying a run time at slightly under an hour including a brief interview with Vega Ortiz and Executive Director/Ballet Mistress Theresa Knudson, I’m beginning to prefer dance from an editor’s point of view. I recently watched an artÉmotion (Ballet West’s Allison DeBona and Rex Tilton) on IGTV Instagram and in response posted five-phrases connected by semi-colons. DeBona (with my permission) put it on their website with Tilton’s piece Mensa. 

It appears we are all adapting. 

Kathy Adams, formerly the dance critic for The Salt Lake Tribune, writes about dance nationally as well as having been a mentor to us at loveDANCEmore over the last ten years. She is also active in local politics.

RDT presents an online evening of solos

Repertory Dance Theatre’s latest offering, Flying Solo, presented “unforgettable solos” from the company’s extensive library of historical and contemporary Modern Dance works. As the title would have you assume, each of the eight company members had at least one unaccompanied turn on stage. I appreciated this opportunity to study the dancers individually, as I’ve only seen most of them perform in ensemble works. I was especially blown away by Jaclyn Brown’s unexpected weight shifts and organic transitions from one level to another in Nicholas Cendese’s The Impermanence of Darkness, and by Jonathan Kim’s constantly moving, well-balanced yet rollercoaster-like explorations of space in Molly Heller’s Sounding III. Ursula, Elle, Daniel, Kareem, Lauren, and Dan as well deserve standing ovations from your couches; they are truly striking performers.

Kareem Lewis in “Pegasus” from José Limón’s The Winged. Said Lewis, “What I find most difficult, is to try and depict a flying, golden horse.”

That being said, this concert could have given us so much more, in less time. (Plan an intermission for yourself! Fifty-four minutes in, I paused the video and audibly shrieked when I realized there were about thirty minutes left.) Socially-distanced rehearsing, intermittent quarantining, and transitioning from live to live-streamed performances are challenges that come with a silver lining: they are glaringly obvious excuses to try things we haven’t tried before. RDT seems to have the resources to stay in stride with the changing times, but they’re not taking full advantage of them. For one thing, the entirety of Flying Solo was performed and filmed in the Jeanne Wagner Theatre at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. I understand wanting to stay close to your home, but even NYCB’s recent Festival of New Choreography for their digital fall season used various locations throughout their Lincoln Center home base, including the water fountain and nearby streets and parking lots.

As Mark Morris recently admitted of his newest work, “I’m not making a dance. I’m making a film.” It would be nice to see RDT acknowledge this necessary change in mindset, and then use locations, framing, and lighting that results in a more intriguing finished product. Flying Solo reminded me of my dance recital videotapes from the nineties. The camera only captured footage of the dancers from one angle (front and center), which was a lost opportunity to show the audience what dance looks like from points of view we can’t access in a theater. (They briefly flirted with an aerial view in their last performance and I was really hoping to see more this time around.) Between each piece, there were trite photomontages that moved across the screen to uninspiring piano music, serving as the backdrop for a narrator who needlessly described the upcoming work (plenty of room for this in the digital program). Wonderstone Films provided filming and production for the event, so maybe RDT is not fully to blame for these choices.

Ursula Perry in Sharee Lane’s A Thin Place

The work itself was what I’ve come to expect from the company’s library – historical dances next to contemporary dances that follow many of the same rules as the historical pieces.

An excerpt from Zvi Gotheiner’s Chairs opened the show, a solo that performer Lauren Curley described as, “an endless cycle of repeating the same movements and always getting the same results.” I would apply this description to the majority of what I witnessed this evening: Modern Dance movement vocabularies that dance enthusiasts are overwhelmingly familiar with were repeated in different costumes and to different (though extremely similar) soundscores, and obvious choreographic structures outlined in textbooks like my absolute least favorite tome The Intimate Act of Choreography were aplenty. Molly Heller’s series of pieces, Sounding I, II, & III were a bit of an exception here. The movement seemed to have developed from organic intentions, as though the dancers discovered the movement from within as opposed to “putting it on” their bodies. Sounding I, II, & III were intended to be a triptych, though they were not presented consecutively. This was another missed opportunity for ingenuity, in my opinion.

Daniel Do, Jaclyn Brown and Jonathan Kim in Molly Heller’s Sounding pieces, set to Bach’s famous cello prelude

Editing the three solos so that they appeared to be happening on screen at the same time, side-by-side, could have added an interesting visual dynamic, cut down the run-time of the entire performance, and reduced the number of times we heard a lovely but overused piece of music.

I recently took an online workshop with karen nelson, who demonstrated several ways of adjusting zoom settings to allow for creative ways of showcasing solos, duets, trios, and multiple entrances and exits. I thus felt mislead by the claim that choreographer Marina Harris had “mastered the art of zoom technology” for her piece Remote, since the dancers did not appear in zoom boxes at all, but on stage, just as they had in every piece beforehand. Harris, based in Nova Scotia, shared that her “first impulse was to create a single solo for a dancer that hardly moved and would be watched on a smart phone.” She instead decided to create a solo for each dancer, and presented them on stage. I wish she would have stuck to her first impulse, but I must admit that I was intrigued by Elle Johansen’s opening solo performed with a hairbrush (does that actually make it a duet?).

Elle Johansen in Harris’ Remote

Tickets for Flying Solo are still available on RDT’s website, where you can also find information for a virtual reception with the company on Tuesday, December 1 at 6:30 pm MST.

Alexandra Barbier is a dance artist and performance-maker. She received a modern dance MFA from the University of Utah and has taught courses on creative process, queer performance art, and dance in culture.