Innovations at the Rose

Ballet West’s annual Innovations series opened this past weekend, showcasing work by company artists alongside Jessica Lang. As always, the evening presents wide ranging approaches which will expand next year with a new National Choreographic Festival and a move of Innovations to Park City where it will be re-titled, Works from Within.

The evening opens with new work by Principal Artist Christopher Ruud. “In Memoriam” echoes Ruud’s strengths from previous commissions, namely an ability to highlight individuals within group structures. Throughout the dance an older woman (Barbara Barrington Jones) revisits herself as a girl, teen, college woman, and wife in an abusive relationship. In each vignette Jones opens a dresser drawer containing nostalgic objects (a graduation hood, a veil) and retreats to observe soloists representing each life-stage who are framed by groups of passing men. In some ways the male framing of a female narrative flips ballet’s expectations (mostly women surrounding heteronormative partnering) but in others, the story remains expected. For example, when Jacqueline Straughan’s character falls into a violent pas de deux it’s not her own self worth that drives the conclusion, it’s being rescued by a new partner.

Music commissioned by Jared Oaks adds sentimentality, particularly when Katlyn Addison appears to usher Jones into an afterlife, generously opening a final dresser drawer the audience never sees inside. Ruud’s comments on aging are more narratively dramatic than they are in some dance counterparts including the multigenerational repertory of Liz Lerman and relatively new documentaries featuring performances by aging bodies.

The second act presented works by three new contributors to Innovations, beginning with “Barre Spot” by Christopher Sellars. With live piano and saxophone, the work is a play on a jazz bar and explores musical theatre idioms within formalized ballet structures. Without a core narrative, the work shares passing duets and trios that cycle in and out of the attention of the audience. The dance is light-hearted and left me wanting to see more of Sellars’ point of view.

I’m also left wanting more of Oliver Oguma’s “Fragments of Simplicity,” a dance with three sections to Chinese violin. A duet between Alex MacFarlan and Jordan Veit is subtle and the dancers curiously explore twinning with slow movements and articulate backs changing slowly to reveal new perspectives. Latter sections with a female ensemble and a pas de deux are less explored and the strength of the work is in the early representation of a potential for male bodies to be virtuosic even in stillness and gentleness.

The final work in the act, Trevor Naumann’s “Homer: a study in phenomenological ontology,” represents a radically different point of view not only due to overt philosophical ideas but also, choreographic approach. A commissioned score by Boaz Roberts lends itself toward contemporary ballet’s frequent employ of atonal electronic ambience and the dancers move frantically in nude unitards reminiscent of Martha Clarke’s “Garden of Earthly Delights.” Later, becoming dressed, the pairings begin to isolate particular dancers as an effort to consider titular objectives: studies of experiences and studies of being.

What the title may overlook is that ballet can already be viewed as a quite literal embodiment of phenomenology and a way to study ourselves in relationship to our experiences. There are perhaps few performative wonders that compare to a traditional corps de ballet balancing en pointe in relatively immobile formations and there are equally few scenarios where an audience can experience themselves kinesthetically in relationship to externalized experiences. This notion of physicalized wonder has weaved its way into many phenomenological dialogues, including a beautiful book on the aesthetics of rare experiences.

The only way choreographer Trevor Naumann might further flip a phenomena-based dialogue within the form would be to more completely invert audience expectation in relationship to our identification of ballet as a form. In this case the only thing I can think of would be for one of the principal women to sit center stage casually consuming a bag of potato chips while the house lights are up.

“Lyric Pieces” by Jessica Lang closes the show on a more traditional but inventive note and thankfully shares the viewpoints of at least one female choreographer among an otherwise entirely male program.* The dance takes place among folding paper sculptures that generate scenic interest and create unique entrances and exits. A great victory of the dance is that I thought there was a cast of twenty. Instead, the curtain call revealed that it was only eight dancers who tricked me into seeing vastness as they created lengthy pathways, found hiding places and directed one another in alternating silly and poetic tasks.

Artistic Director Adam Sklute aptly described Lang’s choreography as straightforward  and suggested that her dances follow a logic making their conclusions inevitable. In my sense of delight and anticipation in “Lyric Pieces,” this was certainly true.

Ashley Anderson is the director of loveDANCEmore events as part of her non-profit ashley anderson dances.  loveDANCEmore reviews are co-published with 15 BYTES.

*Let me preempt common complaints about this variety of feminist critique in dance: yes this choreographic platform relies on women to opt in and if they don’t it can be said there is simply a lack of interest among the particular group, but mathematically it’s murkier. In a company of 40 dancers with 24 women (60%) and 16 men (40%) there is less than a 2.5% probability that all four choreographers would be male in a randomized selection. In recent iterations of Innovations there has never been more than one company woman on the bill and in that equation it’s still less than an 8% probability that only one woman would be selected in a randomized process. These percentages reveal that some systematic bias is present, however unintentional. It’s important to ask questions about where the remaining 97.5% likelihood shifts: is it women’s greater satisfaction with the roles they are given which creates a lack of desire to choreograph? Do women have greater challenges within that same repertory which diminish the time and energy it may take to engage in a choreographic process? Are there characteristics seen as valuable to ballerinas which are characteristics less likely to be present in a large cross-section of choreographers? Past works by Emily Adams and Katlyn Addison have been strong contributions to the Innovations platform and in writing, I wonder what conditions would it take for more women to rise within those same ranks?  

RDT Link: W.A.L.N.U.T.

Justin Bass is the latest local artist, and RDT company member, to take advantage of the RDT Link Series which allows dance makers to access studio and performance space. Justin presented a new trio, “W.A.L.N.U.T.” in the West Studio over the weekend and with lights donated by the University of Utah formalizing the intimate space, there was an openness and sense of possibility. With dancers who were technically precise and committed to the process, that sense was further amplified. As I was leaving I overheard Justin explaining the title’s  acronym but averted my ears as I’d made up my own possibilities while watching:

Women are limitless, never underestimate them.

What about letting nothing ulterior takeover?  

When are labels needlessly under-taken?

The movement of the all female trio alternated between what feels good to do and what feels fierce to do. Both make sense in context of movement generation in Justin’s living room to Santigold’s 99 Cents. But the dance’s content shifted in a formal direction with Justin opting to stage the material to Terry Riley’s “In C.” There is some humor in the fact that it was a suggestion by Daniel Charon to seek new music that led him to “In C” on Spotify; Charon also choreographed recently to the piece for Ririe Woodbury. Near the end, “W.A.L.N.U.T.” became a bit overwhelmed by the full length of the score but for the most part it’s momentous loops served to drive the material.

All of the dancers (Elle Johansen, Elyse Jost and Tiana Lovett) are deeply physically invested in the choreographic process which will continue to unfold throughout the year with a later performance to be determined. Each dancer has the ability to move in ways that are equal parts intense and cavalier which served Justin’s aesthetic and maintained my interest during long solos and fleeting duets.

As the work develops I consider that its main concern will be continuing to locate itself in a public way; a gestural nature and close community of creators risks insulating it’s current magic if it develops inwardly instead of outwardly.  

Ashley Anderson is the director of loveDANCEmore events as part of her non-profit ashley anderson dances.  loveDANCEmore reviews are co-published with 15 BYTES.

Fill in the Blank

The curtains don’t open (there are no curtains) but the lights have dimmed. Still, a tiny bit of light leaks in from stage left, where three drapes hide the entrances to the black box. One dancer takes center stage as another crosses in the back and exits stage right. All of this the audience has agreed not to notice, as we sit waiting for an evening of work by Rosie Trump, Sugar Space’s artist-in-residence. Rosie Trump has traveled from Nevada with her dancers for this show, promising a work exploring the domestic, professional and political pressures surrounding the contemporary woman.

The lights slowly rise on a lone dancer, Laura Gutierrez, and a mechanical voice fills the space listing something not quite distinguishable. Gutierrez is garbed in ankle-length slacks, with a button-down top and a slim black tie. She starts with a simple nod which grows until her bobbing head seesaws back and forth, sternum rolling in response. The movement and sound stop. A new series of lists begins with a different small movement of the hand, growing larger until it involves the full body. This pattern repeats for the duration of the dance, at moments on the brink of predictability, then interrupted. In one such interruption, the mechanical voice resolves into “binders full of red women, binders full of yellow women,” echoing the title  ____ Full of Women. Gutierrez’ brief solo is listed as the first section of a three section evening of work, comprised of a series of vignettes. ____ Full of Women offers a strong statement of intent for the evening.

The dancers were clothed like a binder full of women, in various black, white and gray patterns of cheap-looking business casual outfits. I imagined these costumes were purchased from Target, as I’d just tried on shades of these ‘work’ outfits there the day before. I wonder about the significance of this costume choice. What does it means to purchase a business casual wardrobe on a modern dance budget? Costumes from H&M or Target are a common choice for independent artists in SLC, and in the context of this feminist-themed piece I wondered if Rosie was making an intentional comment on the way that women purchasing cheap clothes in the Global North results in unjust labor conditions in the Global South. Or, more likely, she was using the limited budget available. A third possibility struck me as a comment on the ill-fitting, androgynous aesthetic that is also common on the SLC stage. I questioned what kind of contemporary woman these Target-type clothes are made for, and similarly, who this evening of work was addressed toward. As a white, cis female, I feel like both were made for me.

The common choreographic motif of starting simply with a pedestrian movement which builds and develops into an aestheticized version of itself was especially effective in the vignette Chair Games. Three dancers (Ellen Duffy, Katie Jean Dahlaw, and Eve Allen), dance with two chairs. They start simply with walking patterns, placing the chairs down in different places around center stage, sitting and jumping off each others laps, gradually speeding up before adding text. “Please” to each other, “thank you” to the audience, a kind “yes,” sitting with legs crossed. Suddenly a dancer flips her chair, straddling it with a hearty “you’re welcome.” A moment of comedy, I laugh. At another moment in the evening a dancer rolls down in the beginning-of-dance class style and ends with her feet raised in imagined stirrups at the OB-GYN, another recognizable moment that was funny as a cameo among other ideas.

Rosie Trump bills her work as political, yet understated. Throughout the evening I considered the distinction between understating and under-physicalizing movement. Katie Jean Denlaw found a way to be both understated and fully physicalized as she threw her body to the floor in a harsh repeating pattern during 28 More or Less. At another moment in the same dance both Denlaw and her partner Eve Allen acted out a list of famous female choreographers at age 28, clutching their hands like Martha Graham and enacting Yvonne Rainer’s casual skips in a manner that had me chuckling. In Forming and Norming the entire cast found their eloquent understatements as they flowed through the space in a walking pattern, sensing each other’s lead, circling arms guiding the score. This flowing score transitioned into a jagged improvisation of starts and stops, reminiscent of break dancing.

At other moments in the evening, when the movement seemed under-physicalized, the content felt overstated. Such a moment occurred in Vampire, when the dancers emerged from the wings in shiny gold shortsuits to vamp for the audience. The dancing was sexy ironic featuring simple ball changes and circling butts, but I missed a comment beyond “women’s bodies are often sexualized.” Pushing the physical embodiment of the movement could yield a different or more ambiguous interpretation. I was similarly left with questions in the concluding dance, We are Women and We are Sorry. The dancers talked to the audience repeating all their sorries; “we are sorry for having opinions, we are sorry for saying sorry,” etc. The audience was laughing, it was a lovely light-hearted moment to end. Despite the lighthearted nature, this vignette and others addressed classic feminist issues that remain relevant today - abortion rights, the roles that women play in many arenas and social inequities in how female bodies enact these roles. While recognizing the continued relevance of these issues, I wonder how the dance could more clearly and directly consider the intersections of race, class, sexuality and nationality. Though the cast included a diverse group of women, the content of the text and movement felt directed towards a more narrow perspective of contemporary womanhood.

Fill in the Blank was the perfect kind of work to be in Sugar Space; theatrical yet intimate, accessible but filled with ambiguity. The vignette structure helped, keeping our attention engaged with a series of ideas around a bigger thought. The lighting designer Jonathon W. Taylor was pivotal as well, his efforts especially noticeable in The Two Body Problem, where two circles of warm light highlighted the dancers’ movement without overpowering the space. This section, one of my favorites, was also among the most abstract in terms of content. The Two Body Problem was a lovely duet between Laura Gutierrez and Ellen Duffy, to a driving club beat that had me tapping my heels in my seat. Alternating who moves first, it felt almost like a dance off, but with bodies close to each other like a deconstructed contact improvisation. When placed in the context of the other, more explicitly political vignettes of the evening, this was a refreshing moment that carried multiple meanings.

The line between understatement, overstatement, ambiguity, and content is truly challenging in political dance. It was one that Rosie Trump and her performers handled deftly, kudos to them for taking on charged content and exploring it in a strange city.

Liz Ivkovich is the editor of the printed edition of loveDANCEmore. She hails from Middle America and recently completed her MFA in Modern Dance at the U.

Sunlight Limited at the Fallout

Municipal Ballet is a collection of dancers and choreographers, organized by Sarah Longoria, that aims to present ballet in unconventional spaces: sidewalks, libraries, bars and historic buildings. In their own words, Municipal Ballet “collaborates with local musicians and artists because it’s a lot of fun and because everyone’s art combined turns into something unpredictable and magical.” 

Ballet is obviously an art form seeped in hundred of years of tradition and etiquette. This spring, when I took my husband to see Ballet West’s Romeo and Juliet he wondered why so many women were wearing their bridesmaid dresses, and why I didn’t clue him in to wear something nicer than jeans. At Sunlight Limited, Municipal Ballet’s latest show at The Fallout (a Granary District event space) he would have felt right at home, with this version of ballet married with live rock music, a bar serving local beer and wine, and plenty of patrons in sneakers. Music by Magic Mint (Andrew Shaw) and Color Animal (Felicia Baca, Tyler Ford, Seth Howe, and Andrew Shaw) provided not only beats and lyrics but a banter and easy stage presence to give relief to tightly structured choreography.  

In the first dance, Color Animal accompanied choreography inspired by Kendall Fisher, assembled by Sarah Longoria, and created by all the dancers.  In simpler terms, the movement was a collaboration. The choreographic structure was clear and often fell into the your turn, my turn formula, but even so the dancers looked strong and fluctuated between a serious and playful stage presence. 

There were also more contemporary minded pieces, an on trend duet by Karina Lesko and a quintet by Chase Wise. Both dances had a looser structure, looser torso, and a punctuation of timing that is a contemporary dance trend recognizable a'la SYTYCD. Wise’s piece fully used the space and levels, and ultimately felt investigated and complete.

Hannah Bowcutt soloed Cha Cha by Sara Borazan; Bowcutt is a striking figure (long limbs, flowing white dress) who turns and stretches like a music box ballerina unleashed from her perch. Sarah Longoria performed choreography by Karina Lesko in a section with distinct vocabulary and play with the music. Heal Me, danced by Kaya Wolsey and choreographed by Ellie Hanagarne had the same musical play with repetition that eventually made metaphor and offered a departure from carefully placed technique.

It is in these solos that the show shines perhaps because the choreographer is unable to rely on tried and true balletic structures that can feel stifled when paired with rock music. In yet another solo, powerhouse dancer Cynthia Phillips is grounded, articulate, and gestural in Will you go Why choreographed by Jessica Liu.

The show closes with I Can See It All, an unambitious, yet ultimately moving section.  The dancers take turns as soloist, forming a half-circle community around one another. Later, they improvisationally traverse the space, exploring and connecting.  Making distinct frontal rows, the dancers perform a progressively building reverence. It is satisfying and touching, a simple structure that pays homage to the tradition of classical ballet, and the communities that are forged through art making. 

As a fellow choreographer who is also drawn to choreographing to rock music for its energy and accessibility (thesis piece to Led Zeppelin, recent show with The Weekenders at the State Room) I viscerally understand that where some things are gained others can be lost.  Longoria has done this enough times to understand the staples of a successful equation: bar (read: alcohol), engaging yet talented band, and unique venues. What is gained is a fun night out where one, regardless of dance literacy, can enjoy great music alongside the power of the moving body. What is often struggling to surface are choreographic structures powerful and innovative enough to match the immediacy of strong base-lines, guitar riffs, and a pounding drum. As Longoria stated at the welcome, the show “is a bit of an experiment,” and as an audience member that was able to turn a mundane Thursday night into an awesome night with friends and art, it's an experiment that I am willing to be a part of. 

Erica Womack is a Salt Lake based choreographer and adjunct professor at SLCC. 

The Weekenders, last weekend

The Weekenders, a Salt Lake City-based rock and roll band, celebrated their sophomore album release with their first headlining concert at The State Room on April 29th. Accompanying the concert was modern dance choreographed by Erica Womack over the past year with dancers Brooklyn Draper, Jamie Myers, Amy Falls and Bashaun Williams.

Viewing modern dance in an unconventional space (i.e. not your typical proscenium theater) where I could grab a drink or two and sit back was extremely refreshing. Joining the rest of the attendees with my margarita in hand, and seeing the red and orange neon stage lights illuminating the rock instruments, I was hoping to witness equally unconventional choreography.

But first, I would be unjust in glossing over the opening act. Another local band, The Quiet Oaks sieged the stage and their enthusiasm was infectious. Members of the audience, including my friend who came with me, couldn’t sit anymore. “I gotta get up and groove!” my friend exclaimed, jumping up and rushing closer to the stage. Rock and roll demands embodiment. The band members themselves were dancers in their own right, the keyboardist waving his long, luxurious locks, the vocalist closing his eyes and swaying allowing his voice to project. You could sense the joy and passion that each member of the band had for their music. Mike Moon exuberantly danced around the stage. There was no pinning him down throughout the set, his energy shone through as he bounced, strummed, and provided supportive vocals. After their opening set, the Quiet Oaks’ lead vocalist promised that the Weekenders would “blow [my] mind.” I was ready. The opening band had done their job and primed me for what was to come.

The Weekenders took position with their respective instruments and the lead vocalist Rob Reinfurt introduced the dancers. The music began as Brooklyn Draper deliberately stepped in a diagonal pathway onto the white marley. As she arrived at the center of the stage, she turned and looked out to the audience. Brooklyn has an incredible presence that subtly demands your attention. The rest of the cast, in a pedestrian fashion, walked on from the side to join her in the dancing space. One by one they commenced an arm arcing phrase, meandering throughout the space as though under a spell.

It was during this first piece that I sensed a tension between the weightiness of music and the loftiness of the choreography. Repeated movements that occurred throughout the fifty minute set were a forward step on the diagonal as an arm floated up like a silk scarf while the opposite leg lifted to attitude. I feared that the selected movement vocabulary for the evening would not match the release that I hear in rock and roll, but rather offer an insufficient contrast.

The remainder of the dancing was bound by the confines of the form and a limited stage space. While I had hoped for an equal marriage of live rock music and live modern dance, I found that the movement took backseat to the music, despite being physically placed in front of the band.

For instance, some lyrics in the third number repeated, “let it go, let it go, let it go…” getting more wild with each repetition. Rather than altering dynamics to accompany the music, the choreography remained static. Amazed as I was with the control that each of the dancers exhibits over their bodies, I yearned to see a loss of that control. Rock and roll is not a genre about holding back or stifled formality. My expectations were further denied as the music would accelerate and crescendo, and the dancers stood to the side, taking sips from their water bottles. There seemed to be a handful of these lost opportunities to showcase the talent possessed by each dancer or to at least unleash some untapped energy.

The fifth song in the set contained the lyrics, “People are screaming ‘Jesus,’ but I don’t know if he can hear us,” which struck a personal chord with this ex-Mormon and waffling Atheist-Agnostic. My stomach jumped to my throat in a visceral reaction and I was disappointed to see the dancers holding their arms rigidly and orderly. It may have been the intention of the choreographer to create this uncanny dissonance yet I wonder what a more literal accompaniment of movement choices would have looked like; something to illustrate the words, “mama’s got no steam left for the fight,” or allowing the dancers to become “lost in the synergy.”  

It wasn’t until the sixth dance where I noticed dancer Jamie Myers cracking smiles, hinting that she was taking some pleasure in her duet with Amy Falls.The other dancers broke out of their stoic, dutiful completion of saut de chats and arabesques as the finale began, revving up their tempo to match that of the band, jumping with the crashes of the percussionist, and grinning, making eye contact with the other performers.

The dancing was technically strong, but I would have wished for a choreographic choice to “let go” of the dancers’ training and create more room for the music to possess their bodies rather than rely on the formalities of tried and true choreographic rules and tools. I understand the necessity of contrast when it comes to choreography, in this case it allowed for the music to be the main focus of the evening. Yet a stronger parallel between movement and music may have offered a more cathartic experience, and dare I say, left me more satisfied and uplifted.

I would urge that future works of collaboration between local rock bands and modern dancers tap into a release rather a containment of energy to showcase the rebellious and unpinnable spirits inside the performers, and invent unconventional movements and formations. If you can name the movement, change it.

Shane Davis is an MFA candidate at the University of Utah. He’s recently performed as a guest dance with RDT for Jose Limon’s “Missa Brevis.”