A weekend of dance in September

A couple of weekends ago I took in two very different shows, which together illustrate the variety of what Salt Lake City dance has on offer these days. Versa Styles, a hip hop dance company from Los Angeles, has visited the University of Utah a couple of times now through UtahPresents. The company’s exuberant dancers more than filled the giant stage at Kingsbury Hall — I only wish they’d had a bigger audience. In a much smaller space the next night, I watched a collaboration between Heartland Collective and local painter Andrew Alba. Heartland Collective is made up of Molly Heller, Melissa Younker, Brian Gerke, Florian Alberge, and Nick Foster. Both evenings were memorable and brought up questions in my mind about how dance can fill different spaces and enrich audiences’ lives.

Versa Styles’ performance reminded me of the many lecture demonstrations I witnessed and participated in as a young dancer, and I mean this in a positive sense. It’s rare to get to see each dancer in a professional company moving on their own and getting a few minutes of solo time to present their unique strengths. All of the dancers had incredible presence and most were from California, so meeting them one after another was also an opportunity to learn more about the embodied histories of popping, waacking and other related forms from a West-coast perspective. The autobiographical moments in which the dancers, many of whom had worked with artistic director Jackie Lopez since junior high school, belied the formality of the setting, which at times seemed at odds with the values of the dance forms at play.

Heller’s work, ∆IAMON∆IAMON∆, which took place in the tiny optician’s shop at the corner of 800 East and 800 South, was in some sense more formal in tone, despite the intimate setting. It began with a piercing, spaced-out cover of Cindy Lauper’s “Time after time,” which followed a beguiling, intricate trio danced by Heller, Melissa Younker and Brian Gerke. Despite the lack of physical space available, there was an uncharacteristic sense of depth to the way Heller’s lines of phrase work unfolded, fugue-like, quiet and serene. Where Heller has in the past seemed preoccupied with the frantic, here she seemed to be exploring a group of characters with such a long shared memory that they didn’t need to be in constant contact in order to develop their moody, glacial, underwater relations. As all of this unfolded, the dancers (and later the artist himself) manipulated the set — a melancholy grid of square paintings by Alba, which formed and unformed glyph-like, haunting faces — crossing, forming and unforming, and eventually ending up beached in a tidy pile on the floor.

Samuel Hanson is the executive director of loveDANCEmore.

SB Dance - Curbside Theater in a Ranching Town

The incredible Boulder Arts Council and a generous local donor brought a combined performance by SB Dance from Salt Lake City, and the D’Dat Trio from Farmington, New Mexico to the tiny community of Boulder, Utah for two nights, August 19 and 20, 2022. The population of Boulder is about 300, and the town website calls Boulder a “gem… located in a stunning landscape of sandstone outcroppings, green pastures, pinyon and juniper forests, and sagebrush deserts.” This review was originally intended to comment, not on the dancing, but rather on the way that a small rural southern Utah town responds to a somewhat edgy contemporary live performance. The Friday audience was only about 30, but that represents 10% of the town population! The opening Native American-influenced jazz by D’Dat set the mood for the evening and the subsequent showing of SB Dance’s standard Curbside Theater show, which and been to Boulder previously, was well received. I noticed that, as is common, the audience was often looking for deep metaphysical meaning when the show was actually trying to be funny. The idea of commenting on the small town response to SB Dance really didn’t work out because the audience turned out to be highly self selected — mostly arts council supporters and their friends. The descendants of the pioneer families and the ranching families were notably absent. As Steve Brown remarked, the audience demographics in Boulder were basically the same as for a show in downtown Salt Lake.

A “completely different” show had been promised for the second night. The Saturday show publicity had described it as a "first-time-ever” collaboration between new choreography and a live accompaniment. But thunderstorms intervened, and the Saturday night performance involved a totally restaged and unrehearsed improvisation that showed the best of modern dance and jazz traditions. Rain had been falling all afternoon and the ground was soaked. What was intended to be a dynamic traveling performance using SB Dance’s “six-legged piece of sculpture upon which the dancers perform” out on the town park lawn had to be moved into a cramped space on concrete pavement under the pavilion roof. The dancers negotiated in front of the audience adjusting their choreography to fit the space. Steve gave the musicians some brief information like “this one starts slow then builds” and the show started. The interaction of jazz improvisation and restaged dance was fantastic. The musicians easily sensed the time and energy aspects of the dancing, and every time the dancers began a new movement theme the musicians switched to jam on a new melody line. It was totally improvised and unrehearsed, but the artists made it work to the delight of the audience.

Collaboration between live music with original scores and dance in unconventional settings creates interactive artistic opportunities that go far beyond layering a sound track on top of the choreography on a proscenium stage. An new initiative this year by loveDANCEmore will be offering grants to local choreographers to fund collaboration with composers and musicians.

Think about all the possibilities!

John Veranth is on the board of loveDANCEmore. He’s long been a performer and supporter of dance in Salt Lake City, Boulder and beyond.

Beyond The Line Theatre Co. and Amuse Bouche Productions bring physical comedy to the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival

Clown House is the third show produced by Beyond the Line Theatre Co. and was created by artistic director Jordan Reynosa.

When asked about the creative process and the inspiration behind making a clowning show, Reynosa said, “I wanted to do something extremely different from the past two shows we created. They were both very serious, very abstract, had large sequences of movement, and had a large focus on script. I wanted to push myself to do something new… I have zero experience in clowning, so I knew I would either fail miserably or at least do a decent job and make a fun show. I wanted to take that challenge for myself.” Well Jordan, I think trying something new absolutely paid off. Beyond the Line did a great job at making a fun show that has everyone smiling on their way home. 

This clowning show blurs the lines between physical comedy, devised theatre, and surrealism. In the spirit of clowning, the actors are completely mute for the entire performance. It got me thinking about the muteness of ballet and contemporary dance. Generally speaking, mainstream ballet, contemporary dance, as well as clowning all portray ideas or narratives without using voiced dialogue. In ballet, there is a language of pantomime that is mostly understood by students, teachers, and avid lovers of ballet. So for people like me, who attend ballet much more casually, ballet pantomime doesn’t look like it’s conveying anything specific. It sometimes doesn’t help the narrative at all. This had put me off of the muteness of dance from an early age, however Clown House made me rethink my previous skepticism of pantomime. I was not only intrigued but impressed. Clown House made their intentions very clear despite using no real universal language other than the honesty of their character’s experiences. 

The rehearsal process of Clown House spent a lot of time exploring this challenge. They found that character building was vital in order to develop an intuitive way to communicate the narrative. Reynosa elaborated on this: “I'd ask all of my actors to do some writing about their clown while they were ‘in nose’, asking them how their clown thinks and acts in descriptive words, how they are emotionally, how they think of and react to other clowns or regular people, etc… Clowns have a very specific, almost indescribable way that they function. A group of clowns will naturally find a leader, a thinker, a comic, we just had to find that while doing it in the moment.” They referred to this as their “clown logic”.  

The narrative is fairly simple: They are clowns who are locked in a room. As they go on this journey of repetitive daily tasks they slowly unfold into a frenzy where they must get out, while also being unsure of what might happen after they do. The clowns in relationship to each other seem like a family. They pull jokes on each other, they irritate each other, they comfort each other, and they play so so much. It’s very warming to watch and they invite you, the audience, to play too. 

When asked to describe his favorite part of this show, Reynosa said, “A few months ago, people were asking me, ‘What are you doing for Fringe? What is it? What is it about?’ And all I could say was “I don't know, but I know it's about three clowns and they're all stuck in a room. Oh and it's called 'Clown House'." It's so beautiful to me that this simple thought I had, just based on what I wanted to do, how I wanted to challenge myself and others, has developed into a really beautiful, chaotic, wild and fun show.” 

Clown House performs again Thursday Aug. 4th, Saturday Aug. 6th, and Sunday Aug. 7th  for the closing weekend of the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival. 

#CHAMPION is a queer and disabled journey to self love, created by Amuse Bouche Productions from Denver, CO. 

For one night only, #CHAMPION visits the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival to share with us a “one person, one skeleton show” on self love. This show is one of the most complete narratives I’ve seen in a dance show in a long time. It takes you along the hero’s journey to a place of joy, of triumph, and of closure. When asked to describe their show, Amuse Bouche said “ This show is a queer and disabled take on a certain kind of personal and collective disintegration, the transformations that are demanded of us, what it sometimes takes to get there, and the jokes we stumble into along the way.”

Amuse Bouche Productions is Sheila Klein (they/them) and Masha Mikulinsky (them/them). “We make interdisciplinary visual and performance work in spaces where pop culture and critical inquiry collide, at times more literally than figuratively. We are a queer and disabled performance team making work at the intersections of post-modern dance, experimental theater, physical comedy, and puppetry.”

#CHAMPION rides the line between maximalism and minimalism, which is on brand for Amuse Bouche. They have minimal production with lights, costumes, and general environment, however their energy, their props, and their sound score made up entirely of Queen music is so over the top you can’t help but smile. The movement in this roughly 40 minute show passes through various genres. Sheila Klein’s contemporary dance history is easily identifiable as they move through the space with athleticism and whispers of contemporary dance technique come through their dancing. However they turn that around and explore other movements too, such as the exaggerated performance of fitness dance, reminding me of the famous dance break in Footloose. In stark contrast to this is the task based stationary bicycle. Klein rides this through an entire section and despite there being little else happening onstage, this takes you on an emotional trip through tension and doubt and you come out of it feeling like there is only up from here. They use various props from an IV stand to mobility aids to bikes, to illustrate the relationship their disability has on their dance and vice versa. 

Throughout the entire show, Masha Mikulinsky is leading a miniature skeleton with one arm around the space. They affectionately refer to the skeleton as “Skel”. Masha leads Skel around the stage, sometimes biking around, sometimes stretching, sometimes lip syncing to the music. This slow presence of Skel doesn’t interact with Sheila’s performance very directly, and it’s easy to forget they’re there until they slowly creep into the corner of your eye, making you grin because in spite of yourself, you did forget them. What have they been up to while you were focused on other things? And you try to do better at checking in with them, and then Sheila pulls you away again. It’s an interesting pull and push that left me wondering more about Skel. If this show had a prequel show about Skel, I’d definitely check that out. 

#CHAMPION as described by Amuse Bouche, “is deliberately designed to be a collaboration with the audience, so the emotional and movement qualities really are shaped by the experiences of audience members. This piece really has a life of its own. If you saw the piece two nights in a row, you could easily have a very different experience with it each time.”

They have one performance at the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival before packing up and hitting the road. You can see them at The Box theatre at the Gateway Mall on Aug. 4th at 6:00pm. 

Arin Lynn is the editor of loveDANCEmore. They also perform in the queer experimental dance community, and explore combining film and zine mediums.

DEXO's new offering takes on fungus, Black military history, and murder

I arrived at Deseret Experimental Opera’s new creation, The Mushroom Murders, in the aftermath of a rainstorm this past Wednesday. As the audience waited on the porch of the Fort Douglas Military Museum, the cast and crew quickly reassembled the performance — intended to be outdoors — for a staging inside the museum. Those of us milling about were treated to a dramatic sky and a series of impressive rainbows stacked against the rainy foothills.

The Mushroom Murders tells multiple stories. Sometime after the Civil War, a Black regiment of “buffalo soldiers” arrives at Fort Douglas to keep an eye on the Mormons, to the chagrin of a Utah senator. The soldiers encounter a series of mysterious murders that share in common the presence of mushrooms at the scene of the crime. In the present day, Emerald, a Black journalist from out of town (Kaushay Ford), and Sterling, a white Salt Lake-native and podcaster (Spencer Ford), attempt to re-examine these fungus-fueled killings. And they end up falling in love, at least for a scene or two.

As we circle the museum, we eventually find out that Sterling may have drugged Emerald with mushroom tea, and that he’s a descendant of the segregationist senator. Sterling is looking for some kind of intergenerational reckoning through his relationship to Emerald, who herself is related to some of the long-gone soldiers. Along the way, a trail of victims’ bodies (willing audience volunteers) is attended by a corps of singing dancers dressed as a menagerie of mushrooms, bound to serve an evil queen — think weird-sisters-meets-Hair.

Sequestered between rooms, composer Wachira Waigwa-Stone provides succinct, cinematic musical transitions. The music and other audio, which includes a playful fugue rendered from a podcast by Sterling, is the strongest element of the evening. Another highlight is a series of recitatives delivered by Emerald as one-sided phone conversations with her mother. The plot might have been better understood if this device, ably rendered by Ford, had been deployed more than just twice.

By the time we arrive at the final scene, the gleeful mushroom minions are finally joined by their boistrous (drag) queen — Ivy Dior Stephens — who seems to take Emerald’s side in a final confrontation between the leading couple. “Yas!” cries one onlooker, awkwardly, as the cast gives their all to the chaos of the show’s finale.

I didn’t know about the Black soldiers stationed at Fort Douglas. I wish the evening had taught me a little more about them. (More local research efforts can be explored here.) The Mushroom Murders read as a series of preliminary sketches. I’d love to see a fuller version where the creators committed to just a few of the more successful strategies they work-shopped in Wednesday’s performance, and perhaps clarified for themselves what they were setting out to say.

Samuel Hanson is the executive director and editor of loveDANCEmore.

A dance film's journey through time and space

Below are two impressions of Traverse, a dance film that graced the stage of the Rose Wagner Theater a couple of weeks ago at the beginning of the month….

As someone who grew up in Utah and has had the opportunity to explore its many landscapes, I was looking forward to seeing Traverse, a dance film that would feature beautiful locations from all around the state. What I didn’t expect was the nostalgic, soft invitation into a journey that happened six years ago and has continued to grow into the work that was shared last week. Hearing cast members Samantha Matsukawa and Eliza Tappan discuss their relationship to the film then and now as part of a pre-show conversation, it was clear that the process has stayed with them since its creation, which speaks positively to the skills of the director, Chris Lee, in such a collaborative setting.

The opening number was a live performance choreographed by Nick Blaylock with performers that included some of the original cast members and some new ones. The movement was intimate and tactile with playful, dynamic partnering. I could see little stories everywhere in the solos that emerged from the soft, full-bodied group work and in the relationships that formed between the dancers. Every moment of the choreography was connected and thoughtful and the performers were unapologetically committed to the moments of risk and release. The lighting design for this piece, created by William Peterson, was stunning and framed solo moments beautifully amidst the constant movement around them. As the piece finished, I found myself holding my inhale, caught in a sense of hope and joy that continued onward and upwards.

The films themselves were aesthetically gorgeous and seemed to delve into one idea at a time. To accompany the movement, they chose popular, lyrical songs that directed most of the timing and feeling of each work, leading to a somewhat dramatic flair. The first film at a dry lake bed was entirely in slow motion, focusing on the grit of the dancers running and falling into the dirt. The second in a prairie felt like a battle of growth and movement that used a lot of mirroring effects and increased speed. Another in Goblin Valley was full of goofy isolations and detailed gestures matching the wild curves of the rock around them. One film around a large bonfire contrasted the speed of the movement with the sounds of the dancers’ breath, and the bright fire against the dark sky made each moment eerie and vast. Each film was short and to the point, but I still found myself aching for some more variety in the editing. A majority of the time the video had been slowed down or sped up, so we rarely got to see the dancers moving at their real speed, which did help to match the tone of the music but eventually felt monotonous after multiple vignettes that were almost entirely in slow motion. The movement in the live piece was so generous, I felt some of that energy had been lost in the editing of the films.

I really enjoyed seeing the process of the film creation, how it was open to and aware of the landscape and the joy and sincerity with which the individuals interacted with each site. The overexposed images and unsteady camera work between each featured film had me laughing and smiling as they documented their journey around Utah. I felt that the film as a whole was witness to how this journey and these landscapes changed the people involved, inspiring them to embrace the moment and each other full-heartedly. It left me hopeful and filled with gratitude for the land that I live on.

Kara Komarnitsky grew up in Salt Lake City and recently graduated with a BFA in Dance from Ohio State University with minors in Environmental Science and Business. Her work approaches the complexity of human interconnection with the planet, pulling inspiration from the natural world and environmental research. While her primary medium is dance, Kara regularly uses projections, film, sound, and interactive technology to create immersive performance experiences. Her piece Tales of the Deep (2018) recently won third place in the Midwest Climate Summit’s Climate Stories Competition and her thesis, Interconnect (2022), received an Honorable Mention at the OSU Denman Research Forum 2022. Other places her work has been presented includes the OSU Student Concert, OSU BFA Showcase, and the Ohio Dance Festival Professional Concert.

On July 1, 2022 the Jeanné Wagner Theatre premiered Traverse, a live performance and film screening six years in the making. The documentary meets screendance collaboration began as an idea proposed by Chris Lee, then an adjunct professor in the U Department of Film & Media Arts. The aim of the piece was to work indisplinarily, with dance professor Eric Handman and U student Nick Blaylock assembling a cast of six dancers who would embark on a five day road trip across Utah and make a screendance specific to each site.

The resulting film captured the behind the scenes of a series of screendances inspired by Utah’s diverse landscapes, from the deserts of Ibex Well to Moab. Each segment used a different movement vocabulary crafted in response to its setting. In the six years that have passed since this project, screendance has advanced into a more subtle field than when Traverse was born, which showed in the intensely stylized color filters and pop ballad songs used. Some of the sites created dances that were immersive; sprialing twists and intricate arm sequences of one scene by a crackling fire mesmerizingly matched the grit and texture of the environment. Other sites were overbearingly edited and leaned heavily into dramatic effects, gluing together scraps of theatrical snippets that masked the dancers’ abilities to make artistic choices by splicing their movement into seconds.

Despite this, individual artistic choice was clearly displayed as a central theme of the project. The interlayed scenes of art and artmaking allowed the audience to connect with the dancers as people rather than performers. Unafraid of the camera, the dancers showed their effervescent personalities—playing pranks on one another and singing Paramore on the side of their broken down car. The film lovingly witnessed the friendships born of this project. Although the art in Traverse was at times laboriously serious, it was balanced by the documentary’s focus on the lighthearted youth of the artists and their excitement to create together. In a world where audiences are used to increased emotional accessibility through social media, this was a brilliant reconceptualization of art that reflects life.

Preceding the film screening, Blaylock debuted a new work that also featured six performers. Dancers Samantha Matsukawa and Eliza Tappan of the original Traverse cast reflected in an interview on their excitement to return to Blaylock’s process and their passion for the project. Their energy joined by new dancers displayed the growth of Blaylock’s choreographic abilities. His new piece felt similarly thematic to the film, with shifting horizontal formations that looked like rippling landscapes. Tumbling duets brought depth to the work, with dancers unfurling their arms and legs over each other in linked melding movements. Natalie Border’s solo was a stunning highlight of the piece that fully demonstrated the intricacy of her prowess. 

Traverse as a student driven project was inspiring. The energy brought to the film through its subjects was heartwarming and softened the harshness of its editing. Watching the film in an audience full of Utah artists, the connections displayed through the film between dancers and the land were palpably present at its screening. Nick Blaylock’s new piece complemented and elevated the film, just as the artists in Traverse have matured. These works in tandem created a balanced experience that invited dancers to make friends, go new places, and appreciate the place we live in for its flaws and perfections.

Brianna Bernhardt is an artist, administrator, and freelance writer who graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Utah studying Modern Dance and Creative Writing. She currently works as the Community Development Coordinator at the Community Foundation of Utah and has interned with arts organizations like loveDANCEmore and SALT Contemporary Dance. She is driven by nonprofit development, arts advocacy, and community engaged learning. Her creative work and philanthropic aspirations seek to enrich life for all people.