Life is Living: A conversation with Marc Bamuthi Joseph

Youth show off their decorated bicycle wheels in front of a painted graffiti wall at a Life is Living festival in Oakland, California.

Photo by Scott La Rockwell

Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a National Poetry Slam champion, Broadway veteran, featured artist on Russell Simmons' Def Poetry on HBO and a recipient of 2002 and 2004 National Performance Network Creation commissions. Joseph begins a two-year long residency with University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, which will culminate in a new performance work, red, black, and GREEN, a blues. The project kicks off with the Life is Living festival at Discovery Green on November 7th. Life Is Living is a national campaign that generates partnerships between diverse and underserved communities, green action agencies, local community groups, urban environmental activists, and the contemporary arts world. Joseph fills us in below.

Dance Source Houston: Talk about some of the thinking behind Life is Living.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph: Before action there's thought and conversation to spur thought. As our vocabularies change and we focus on less global and more specific and local efforts, it's an easier mountain to climb. What happens in environmentalism is that it feels above us, often monumental and external. We think about the plight of polar bears and the rainforest, and other things that lay way outside of our preview. Also, Life is Living is not a 100% green event. We don't generate more energy more than we consume. We connect the environmental movement to the urban environment through the arts.

DSH: In addition to the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center, Life is Living is partnering with Houston Arts Alliance, the Office of Texas Senator Rodney Ellis, Meta-Four Houston, Aerosol Warfare, The Last Organic Outpost, Project Row Houses, Workshop Houston, DiverseWorks and the University of Houston College of Architecture. Is connecting to the people in the host city a key part of your mission?

MBJ: I rely on the local folks, as it should be. It would be less than strategic if I came and dictated the pathway to success. It's important to illuminate the environmental work that folks are already doing. Life is Living connects the dots.

DSH: So far, you have done Life is Living festivals in Oakland, Chicago, and San Francisco. I imagine each city is different.

MBJ: Absolutely. The festival takes on the character of the city. Part of our plan enables participants to connect environmentalism to what's important to them. For example. in Chicago there was an emphasis on celebrating young people's lives. They had just experienced a year where 36 public school children had been murdered. We held a celebration of life with marching bands and mothers who had lost their children. We planted trees to honor the children. Karen Farber, director of the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center came to that festival. That's another thing we do, we invite curators to come see what we are doing, so there's some cross pollination happening.

DSH: I am curious about your background. You were a child tap star and understudied Savion Glover in the Tony Award-winning Broadway show, The Tap Dance Kid. Your style of spoken word seems rooted in dance. Like any hip hop artist, you easily slide between categories. Do you see yourself as still rooted in dance/movement?

MBJ: It's a large part of what I do. I very connected to poetry, and using the body as metaphor. But I don't necessarily adhere to a particular school of movement thought. It's organic to me in terms of communication. I use the body as a means of figuratively complementing the literal speech. I am interested in communicating a narrative. The best way to do that is to be holistic about it, to use everything I have available, which includes a ritual and spiritual grounding in the body as an instrument.

DSH: Describe your training.

MBJ: I studied tap, jazz and ballet. As I got older, I added west African Afro-Cuban. But it wasn't so linear. When I was tapping I was working with Savion Glover; he introduced me to hip-hop, although it was more social than structural.

DSH: The event on November 7th is the kick off for your two-year residency, which will culminate in the development of your new work red, black, and GREEN, a blues.

MBJ: The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center is a commissioning pillar for us. I will be collecting interviews, photographs, murals and doing some film work. There's a narrative spine and a figurative spine. The narrative spine focuses on two brothers, Potter and Pocket. Potter fashions miracles, while Pocket hustles miracles. The piece highlights folks' relationships with life itself and the global environment.

DSH: What will you be performing on Nov 7th Discovery Green?

MBJ: I will be performing one or two straight poems and a text and movement piece.

DSH: Describe the day.

MBJ: There's participation and an opportunity to watch. The day is grounded in MC Lyte's performance. She's a pioneering figure in hip hop culture and one of the first women to push forward positive ideas. Aerosol Warfare will be creating live murals, an exhibition of graffiti murals from “Life is Living” festivals in Oakland, Harlem and Chicago, and an open air green market. It will be a day to activate the imagination.

The University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts in partnership with the Living Word Project and Youth Speaks, Inc. will host a “Life is Living” Sustainable Survival Eco-Empowerment Festival on Saturday, November 7th , 11am-3pm, at Discovery Green. Free. Visit www.lifeisliving.org or www.mitchellcenterforarts.org.

Reprinted from Dance Source Houston.

Billboards as Art

Installation artist Karyn Olivier brings her space morphing work to Houston with INBOUND: HOUSTON, presented by The University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts. Billboards of images of what we would see if they were not there will line Houston freeways. Olivier, a former Glassell Core Fellow and now a professor of sculpture at Tyler School of Art, sat down to share her ideas behind the project. Inbound: Houston

29-95: Familiar objects, like chairs, tables and playground equipment, often factor into your installation work. How did billboards, another almost too-familiar object in our everyday world, end up your list of things to play with?

Karyn Olivier: I think it comes from the fact that I didn't come from the art world. I majored in psychology and then worked in business and retail. Fashion is a world full of props, almost like a still life. Coming to art late in life, I had to make sense of a world I didn't yet understand. When I moved here it seemed that Houston was all about billboards and sky. So billboards have this presence for me. While I was here I did a billboard project in a park as part of Project Row Houses.

29-95: Is it still up?

KO: The billboard is, but the photograph has changed, which was exactly the idea I had in mind when I did the piece.

29-95: Your work often involves a perceptual puzzle and this piece is no different, in that the work is both additive and subtractive.

KO: I am always trying to do something impossible in that I am trying to catch something that is a bit off and also right as the same time. Depending on how tall you are, the time of day, the image will match up differently. The billboards are both real and artifice.

29-95: How did you choose the time of day to take the photographs?

KO: I thought the morning commute would work best. It's a good time to awaken yourself.

29-95: I used to do the commute grind and arrive at work without any memory of how I got there. I can imagine drivers looking up and wondering, did I just see that?

KO: It will be an uncanny moment. It's a reminder that the sky should be there, but it's by no means an anti-billboard piece.

29-95: David A. Brown actually took the photographs that will be used for the billboards. How did your paths cross?

KO: He came so highly recommended and knew the city so well, he was a natural fit for the project.

29-95: How does your psychology background inform your work?

KO: Certainly in my focus on perception, what's assumed and what shifts. But also in a sense of nostalgia, a kind of pining for time where people can pause. I hope to make work that allows people to be present.

29-95: Did you actually have to buy billboard space? KO:
Yes, I thought I could get it donated but that wasn't possible. But, due to the recession, they were about a third of the cost they would have been in 2005. I worked with CBS Outdoor in securing the billboard space because have an investment of the arts.

29-95: Who knew the recession could have an upside to artists? Logistically, the piece can't have been easy.

KO: That's why it took me so long to actually put it all together. I got the grant in 2005, but I needed to find partners and it just so happened to make a perfect fit for the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center.

29-95: I noticed most of the billboards are on I-59 and not I-45. What's wrong with I-45?

KO: It was too dense already with billboards so there was already too much visual stimulation. Also I was more familiar with 59. When I lived here, it was a road I traveled, and the billboards are more evenly spaced out.

29-95: There's also a music concert with original compositions by UH AURA Ensemble composers Joel Love and Paul Wadle, which also features a film by Grant MacManus. How does this fit into the project?

KO: I wanted to enlarge the event, and music can embellish an experience. Also, the film is shot at night, which will be very different.

29-95: What will happen when the show is over and we see ads back up on those billboards?

KO: It will be kind of poignant when it comes down. I know people are going to miss it, that's often thread in my work.

The University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts Presents INBOUND: HOUSTON: A Public Arts Project by Karyn Olivier, on October 26-November 22, 2009. AURA Contemporary Ensemble will present a concert on Monday, November 16th at 7:30 PM at the Moores School of Music. Call 713-743-3313.

Reprinted from 29-95.com.

America's Favorite Dancer Hits Houston

Fox Television: Jeanine Mason

America doesn't get that many things right, but the 21.6 million voters that put Jeanine Mason in the American's Favorite Dancer slot on the FOX's So You Think You Can Dance did just fine. Mason wowed the judges, her fellow contestants, and voters with her winning smile, a killer arabesque and uncanny ability to look good in any dance style. The So You Think You Can Dance tour comes to Houston's Reliant Arena tonight. Mason, 18, took a break from her grueling tour schedule to chat. Fox Television: Jeanine Mason

29-95: When I told people I was interviewing you, they hoped I would get the inside scoop on the show. I just want to know what you eat for lunch.

Jeanine Mason: Ha! I try to eat healthy because we dance all day and it can take a toll on your body. I am a cereal freak, so I have lots of those kinds of snacks. Otherwise, I stick to salads with chicken. I am a pretty healthy eater, but I need a tiny little treat at the end.

29-95: You all seemed like best buds, but you were in competition. Was that an act, for real, or what?

JM: It's not an act; we honestly get along really well. We are so lucky to be such a close-knit group. True, we do get a little worked up, loud and crazy. You might not want to be sitting next to us at a restaurant, but it's always fun to ask for a table for 12.

29-95: Was there a moment when you thought I could do this thing?

JM: Not really; I never thought it was possible. I didn't aim to win, but to learn a lot and have an amazing time, and that's exactly what I did. It's so easy to cherish every single minute of this experience when you are around people who love what you love.

29-95: Was there one piece on the show that you felt was made exactly for your considerable set of skills?

JM:Travis Wall's contemporary piece that I danced with Jason, set to Jason Mraz's If it Kills Me would be the one. Travis was like a mentor to us; he told us that he was secretly praying he would get us. It was also his choreographic debut on the show.

29-95: As a former member of the contemporary dancer tribe, I have always found ballroom dance a mystery. So I am always amazed at how well the SYT dancers pick up ballroom styles, with the exception of the dreaded quick-step, which should be banned. You were especially natural in your ballroom numbers. Did you sneak out at night for lessons?

JM: No, but that would have helped. I did get a lot of the Latin dances, and as a Cuban-American, I grew up listening to those rhythms.

29-95: The tour hits Houston tonight. Are you ready for thousands of kids wearing I love Jeanine T-shirts?

JM: I'm not ready for that at all; it still feels kind of surreal to me.

29-95: Phillip Chbeeb, your former partner, is our Houston son. Will you be dancing with Phillip at all for the tour? Houston wants to know.

JM: Yes, Phillip is an incredible dancer and the most amazing mover I have ever met. Because he didn't have a technical base, we had to work really hard to perfect our pieces. There was so much learning going on. We will be dancing our Hip-Hop number to Ne-Yo's Mad.

29-95: Are you still planning to major in communications at UCLA after the tour? Why not dance?

JM: The show has opened so many doors, so I will be doing my dancing outside of school. I will be taking three classes a semester, so hopefully there will be time to do it all.

29-95: You are Dance Spirit's cover girl this November. (I should disclose that I'm also a proud contributor to DS.) Every young studio darling gets that magazine. How does it feel to be in the role model seat?

JM: I am so honored to be on the cover and can't wait to read the story. I hope I sound good in my quotes. I had so much fun in the shoot, the staff was so wonderful to work with. I know it will turn out great. I have been reading Dance Spirit forever, it's my bible.

29-95: I understand you have two mentors at your home studio, Focal Points Dance Studio in Pinecrest, FL.

JM: Yes, Amanda Tae, my choreographer, has been pushing me since I was nine by making great pieces for me to grow in. Ingrid Houvenaeghel, my ballet teacher, is a stickler for technique. Both made me the dancer I am today.

29-95: How was it for them watching you on network television?

JM: They were freaking out.

29-95: In your mind has the show brought concert and commercial dance closer together or further apart?

JM: That's a good question. I would say closer, in its own funny way. Prior to these shows, dancing wasn't as highly regarded as it should be. It's such a difficult art form in that it's a mesh between athleticism and artistry; it's a beautiful mix. The show brought dance right into America's living room. It's both advertising and lifting dance and that's all we were hoping to do.

29-95: What's your ideal dance job?

JM: I would love to be a movie musical.

29-95: Do you know there's never been a SYTYCD audition in Houston?

JM: No way, I will try to pull some strings.

Reprinted from 29-95.com.

Hamlet Goes it Alone at the Classical Theatre Company

Guy Robertson in One Man Hamlet
Photo by Anthony Robins

Houston's Classical Theatre Company aims to expand your idea of the classics. With The Merchant of Venice performed by prisoners in a concentration camp, and an Antigone that explored the rule of law as rule of religion, the troupe defines itself by shaking up a treasured genre. Next up is its One Man Hamlet, adapted and performed by Guy Roberts. John Johnston, Classical Theatre's artistic director, founder and co-director of One Man Hamlet clues us in.

29-95. What is the Classic Theatre Company's mission?

John Johnston: Our motto is boldly re-envisioning classical drama.

29-95: What defines theater as classical?

JJ: Anything 100 years old or older.

29-95: And your approach?

JJ: We are not putting the classics on display. We try to create a personal experience for the audience. We also play in small, intimate spaces.

29-95: How did you come upon One Man Hamlet?

JJ: It's a piece adapted and performed by Guy Roberts, artistic director of the Prague Shakespeare Festival. He's from Houston, and was here for the Houston Shakespeare Festival. He kindly agreed to stay and do this show. It's his baby. He also did it in Prague.

29-95: I can see how the concept makes sense. Hamlet has to be the most it's all about me character in the history of theater. He's the poster boy for narcissism. I wonder why Shakespeare didn't get the one-man idea. Where do we find your moody prince?

JJ: In an insane asylum under observation.

29-95: Shrinks love to weigh on Hamlet's particular brand of mental illness, and everyone loves a literary nut, so I can see that choice. Yet, it's a curious point of view, because it's Hamlet who sleuths about, over-observing everyone else.

JJ: Absolutely. He knows he is performing for an observing group of doctors. In a lot of ways Hamlet is a play about being observed and observing others. For example, the character Polonius is constantly spying on Hamlet (which in the end gets him killed), and Hamlet himself sets up The Mousetrap Scene to observe his murderous uncle's actions. In this adaptation of the play, we amplify the observation. Hamlet is under a microscope, and his actions and reactions and interactions are at the forefront of our conceit.

29-95: Isn't Hamlet already a one-man play of sorts?

JJ: Hamlet is a play about a character who is indeed totally alone. Even his closest friends are kept at arm's length (and some sent to their deaths). The only character that Hamlet trusts and confides in truly is the audience. Hamlet is a loner, and at risk of exploiting an overused term: a maverick. It is no coincidence that this play has so frequently been converted into a one-man adaptation. It just lends itself in that direction.

29-95: How ever does one man accomplish Ophelia's scenes?

JJ: By the blessed fact that Guy possesses extraordinary abilities. He weaves back and forth between different characters. He also has some basic props like a cot, a sink and some industrial chairs. With that we are able to create Hamlet's world.

29-95: Are you messing around with time?

JJ: No, not really. The feeling is contemporary, but there aren't any period references; Hamlet doesn't have an iPod.

29-95: Glad to hear that. I think we have all seen enough of Shakespeare roaming about history. There's still the problem of the mounting body count in the show. How does Roberts deal with that?

JJ: Hamlet, the patient, is obsessed with words, so that he constantly writing words all over the stage. When a character is killed he writes their name on the floor.

Classical Theatre Company presents One Man Hamlet, adapted and performed by Guy Roberts, based on the play by William Shakespeare, directed by Guy Roberts and John Johnston. October 8-18 at HITS Theatre, 311 West 18th Street. $15; $7 for students and seniors.

Reprinted from 29-95.com.

Review: Night of the Giant

Jennifer Decker and Amy Warren in Mildred's Umbrella's production of Night of the Giant by John Harvey
Photo by Anthony Rathbun

Kafka was quoted as saying a good novel should be like a blow to the head. Then John Harvey’s new play, Night of the Giant, produced by Mildred’s Umbrella, is at least a blunt object to the frontal cortex. It’s not an easy ride, but one to ponder, wrestle with and puzzle through with all your literary faculties in the ready position.

The play opens with fraternal twins Barbara and Clare, who never quite got over causing their beautiful mother’s death in childbirth, holding their father hostage in their decaying living room. Dad or “It,” bound and hooded, slithers about like a captive pet, while the sisters babble fantasies of their royal lineage. Like a pair of Mrs. Haversham’s distant cousins, they are determined to relive the past and remake the future in a kind of call and response banter.

The two retell the tale of their deformed brother James, their father’s nasty habit of fashioning playmates for James through unspeakable acts, and their eventual choice to bag up James in a dumpster. They tell their tale like a nightly re-enactment ritual. Eventually, the truth comes out and it’s not pretty, but nor is it a garden variety of violence—more the stuff of nightmares and mythology. Think Brothers Grimm, but grimmer.

The three-person cast completely understands Harvey’s idiosyncratic approach to language, which is both formal and detached. Jennifer Decker imbues Claire with a bewitching clarity and shrewd determination. Amy Warren gives Barbara, the softer sister, a wonderful loony edge. She is positively diabolical when she polishes a new light bulb, a hilarious choice considering her housekeeping skills. Decker and Warren’s chemistry provides stability in Harvey’s wildly meandering script. Walt Zipprian as Joe/Dad/It spends the entire play with a burlap sack over his head and still manages to command the space.

Harvey directs with a disciplined hand, letting the more formal notes push to the center. There’s a musicality in his phrasing, which makes perfect sense as a small chamber orchestra sits slightly off to the side, making the setting all the more weird. According to Barbara, it’s a gift to dad who asked for music. What a gal. Elliot Cole’s original score adds a melancholic splendor—somber, nostalgic, and just beautiful enough to lure the listener into this sordid world. The fine orchestra included Melody Yenn (cello), Amanda Witt (clarinet), Lauren Winterbottom (oboe), Molly Marcuson (recorded harp) and Cole on harmonium.

Wayne Barnhill creates a disturbingly squalid living room that feels just plopped down. The play could be placed anywhere like a portable snow globe, largely due to Barnhill’s sense of no boundaries. In fact, Mildred’s Umbrella performed Night of the Giant in three venues. Ratty furniture, an empty bird cage with feathers strewn about and a side table crafted from what looks like old chicken bones conjure a world where something terrible just happened the moment before the lights went up. It’s a fragile world, as if one exhale could turn this whole cosmos into ashes. Kelly Robertson cleverly costumes Claire in a soiled prom dress and Barbara in a 1940s suit complete with a dead animal fur stole. Kevin Taylor’s lighting design blurs the edges just enough to keep us squirming in our seats.

So what do to with this material? You can go on a paradox scavenger hunt: there are gory details told in formal prose, a sense of claustrophobia with no clear container and an unsettling aftertaste soothed by haunting music. You can take the lit-wonk approach and mine influences of various creation myths and the seminal work of Pinter, Beckett and their gang. Harvey also mentions influences from Jose Donoso’s Obscene Bird of Night and Tom Wait’s Alice in his program note. The nod to Martin McDonagh’s work, specicially, The Pillowman, is ever present. That will keep you busy as Harvey operates with a considerable arsenal of references at his disposal. Or you can enjoy the play as a new chapter in Gothic theater, gruesome but strangely compelling and funny, if you allow yourself to see its glorious, absurd contours.

I prefer to look at Harvey’s play in its broad strokes. Who could deny a certain timeliness in a looking at people who take every ounce of their energy to believe false truths in the “news as fiction” era that we have all grown so complacent with. A volatile world held together by a threadbare promise of two disillusioned characters seems a familiar scenario. Don’t societies bag up their crimes all the time?

The lights go down as Barbara and Claire sew dear old dad in a bag, and in a final moment of unity, face each other with ultimate resolve to contain the truth as they know it. Night of the Giant isn’t exactly a play you would want to follow you home down the narrow, dimly lit back alley of your psyche, but chances are, it will anyway.

Reprinted from Houston ArtsWeek.

Music and Motion: A conversation with Richard Alston

Photo by Dee Conway

Richard Alston Dance Company, London's leading contemporary dance troupe, makes its first stop in Houston. After serving as artistic director of Ballet Rambert, Alston founded his company in 1994. Currently, he also serves as artistic director of The Place, a groundbreaking dance education institution. Alston introduces us to his work below.


Dance Source Houston: What can we expect from a Richard Alston dance?

Richard Alston: There's always this relationship between the dance and the music. I don't think you need to lean on it, but music supports the body. When I worked with Merce we used to rehearse in silence. He made that choice, but he also freed me to make my own choices.


DSH: That make sense seeing you have a show filled with musical giants, like Phillip Glass, Igor Stravinsky and John Sebastian Bach. What attracted you to Glass' "Songs from Liquid Days" for your work Blow Over?

RA: I have seen so many dances to Glass over the years. His work is associated with dance. I enjoy the mix of grandeur and the jazz/pop voices, of Suzanne Vega, David Byrne and Paul Simon. We have added a new Byrne song, "Open the Kingdom" and Houston will be first to see that. I find that the voice is so direct, and I like working with many layered elements. It's like a Handel anthem, very grand.


DSH: Movements from Petrushka seems timely in light of the Diaghilev celebration.

RA: I made the piece in 1994, but it made sense to revive the work now. Liz Reed created the costumes after Alexander Benois, who created the designs for the original piece. I like to have live music as often as possible. The pianist will be both live and on stage.


DSH: I found it fascinating that you worked with Merce Cunningham during the 1970s.

RA: Of course, Merce was a huge influence, but so were the release-based techniques. Steve Paxton was here you know. I worked closely with Frederick Ashton. I love the detail in Ashton's ballets. He is a kindred spirit.

DSH: I found your dancers so light, yet fully grounded. They are truly an embodied bunch. What do you look for in a dancer?

RA: I am glad you noticed that. Yes, I am interested in a deep physicality and flowing movement. But I love lightness too; I call it flying. They need to be very articulate dancers who challenge themselves. They also have to be really musical; we call it singing. They need to internalize the music. I loved Margot Fonteyn, she was that kind of dancer. I also like people with individual personalities. I don't want a company where everyone looks the same. We come in all different shapes and sizes.

DSH: It's quite an international group.

RA: I like that and pursue it.

DSH: There's one piece on the program by Martin Lawrence, your rehearsal director.

RA We are not turning into a rep company. Martin danced with the company for 15 years, and I am glad he can develop his own voice here. We sing from the same hymn book. Martin's piece is fast and joyful, a very uplifting piece.


DSH: You mention your appreciation of Henry Moore's work and have had a considerable amount of training in the visual arts. How does your training inform your work?

RA: It taught me how to see. I have always had a sharp eye and have been attracted to three dimensional sculptural ideas, so there's a touchable volume in my work stems from that experience. It's like a Henry Moore piece but moving all over the place.

DSH: The Place looks like a model for dance education.

RA: It is pretty unique to combine the intensity of a professional studio with an academic program. We also have a small theater. As the resident company, we are in a privileged position in that post grads who have apprenticed with the company, while some of my senior dancers have been able to work on their masters degrees.

DSH: How would you describe the current health of the dance field in the UK?

RA: The credit crunch has hit everyone, yet there's this amazing amount of activity going one. We get to see a lot of European dance here as well. Dance is full of resilient people. So it's steady. It's good.


The Society for the Performing Arts presents the Richard Alston Dance Company on Friday, October 16 at 8 PM at Wortham Center's Cullen Theater. Call 713-227-4SPA or visit www.spahouston.org

Reprinted from Dance Source Houston.

Review: Main Street Theater The House of the Spirits

Chelsea Ryan McCurdy and Eva De La Cruz
Photo by RickOrnel Productions

Caridad Svich’s The House of the Spirits is a noble adaptation of award-winning Chilean author Isabel Allende’s classic novel. Svich’s play doesn’t completely capture the essence of Allende’s enchanting use of magical realism, but she creates a compelling theatrical experience, such that, by the second act, I was hardly missing Allende’s delicate prose. Svich also distills Allende’s massive epic into a workable story.

The House of the Spirits chronicles the ups and downs of the Trueba family in an un-named Latin American Country spanning 1920 through the 1970s. Unlike the book, Svich uses Alba, the youngest member of the Trueba tribe, as the sole narrator, lending a cohesive dramatic thread that works well to bring us in and through the multiple frames of reference found in Allende’s dense writing.

The cast—all strong—is headed up by Sean Patrick Judge, who lends a quiet dignity to Esteban Trueba, a difficult and complex man. Judge gives Esteban a brutal edge and, as he ages, a somber tenderness. Laura Michelle Salas imbues the young Alba with a slight aura of distance, serving to separate her from the brutality of her torture and imprisonment, and sustaining a cool detachment of the storyteller. When she finally enters the action of the play, Salas adds warmth and resolve. Eva De La Cruz’s Clara matures from a magical child to tolerant wife with believability. Luisa Amaral-Smith plays several roles, but is most powerful in her portrayal of Ferula, Esteban’s long-suffering sister.

Rebecca Greene Udden directs with a soft hand, letting the story unfold in its own timing. Nothing feels forced or rushed; it’s a graceful production. Jodi Bobrovsky conjures a lacy all white world, lending a sense of understated elegance. David Gipson’s lighting design add just enough otherworldliness for us to feel thoroughly transported.

Reprinted from Houston ArtsWeek.

Ain Gordon Tells a Forgotten Story

Ain Gordon, three-time Obie Award-winner, premieres his one-woman play, A Disaster Begins, at DiverseWorks this weekend, which chronicles the story behind the story of the 1900 Galveston flood. Gordon serves as co-director of the Pick-Up Performance Co(S.), artist-in-residence at the Center for Creative Research and a core writer of the Playwright's Center in Minneapolis. The New York-based playwright popped by for a quick chat.

29-95: What brought you to Galveston's great storm?

Ain Gordon: My interest began in the disaster book industry, which preceded silent films. The American public couldn't get these gory details any other way. I was initially thinking of doing a story about the San Francisco earthquake, but then I found a copy of Muriel Halstead's novel, The Galveston Flood, in a flea market for $3 with the cover ripped off. In Halstead I found a woman I could write about.

29-95: So what happened to the disaster book industry?

AG: It crashed.

29-95: Your work is new to Houston audiences. What kind of stories do you want to tell?

AG: Biting, forgotten and marginalized stories that America doesn't want to tell. There are complicated truths of the 1900 storm. It was the worst natural disaster in American history. It's shockingly un-present in our history.

29-95: We are a culture of amnesia.

AG: The storm is a platform for discussing America's penchant for forgetting wars and storms, then we do it all again.

29-95: Set up the scene for us.

AG: Muriel Halstead (played by Veanne Cox) finds herself in middle age and at the disaster book industry's low-end lecture circuit, where she is to deliver a talk on the Galveston flood. She sets out to give a perfectly normal lecture until she finds herself unable to accept that complacency, wanting something else, to tell all the topical tentacles, to tell the real truth of the flood, to include her personal disaster within the natural one. It's as much a story about how this story gets told and how she comes to write this book, which eventually gets downgraded with a sensationalist cover. Where does a disaster begin?

29-95: Floods wash things up. Look at Katrina, even Ike. What did the 1900 flood wash up?

AG: We were in the midst of the falsely declared Spanish American war, like Iraq, so we were busy looking at disasters somewhere else ignoring the one on our shores. She gives a personalized history of disappointed men who wanted to build in places that were unsustainable.

29-95: Tell me about it. Houston is one big and ever expanding flood plane. How did your play end up opening here to Houston, of all hurricane prone places, never mind its proximity to Galveston?

AG: Sixto Wagan (DiverseWorks co-director) came to a reading. He came up to me immediately afterwards to say he wanted to bring it to Houston.

29-95: When you lose 1/3 of a city's population like Galveston did, the disaster has an enormous longevity and defines the city. And here we are at the anniversary of Ike. What are your thoughts about the timing of your play?

AG: I have fears. There's no blame being laid out, it's an American cycle. Can we get off that cycle?

29-95: How did your path cross with Veanne Cox, who plays the lead character in your one-woman show? She was terrific in Caroline or Change on Broadway.

AG: I've encountered Veanne over the years; she did a reading of a play of mine, and I loved her in it. I always wanted to work with her, so she was at the top of my list for the part. She's an aggressively smart actress who is going to chew up the many things the character is thinking.

29-95: Since I hark from the dance world, you are not going to get out of talking about your famous father, David Gordon, one of my all-time favorite dance theater artists. How did growing up in and around dance shape your approach?

AG: Certainly there's an influence from both my parents, in that I am more interested in character and people and much less interested in story. Dancers have an emotive story, you have the narrative implication, the non-linear story. That is from the dance world.

DiverseWorks presents A Disaster Begins by Ain Gordon, A Pick Up Performance Co (S.) production co-commissioned by DiverseWorks. 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday at DiverseWorks. Every performance is pay what you want.

Reprinted from 29-95.com

Review: Red Light Winter Horse Head Theatre Co.

Amy Burn and Troy Schulze in Adam Rapp's Red Light Winter
Photo by by Anthony Rathbun

Horse Head Theatre Company is launching its first-ever season with Adam Rapp’s grim drama Red Light Winter, not exactly an out-of-the-gate play. But Horse Head has little interest in doing anything aligned with the status quo.

Rapp’s play roughly follows two old college chums, Davis and Matt, first in Amsterdam, where Matt is suffering from a combination of a loss of a will to live, a woman and a successful play. He’s terminally emerging only to submerge. Davis, a cocky but rising book editor, brings home Christina, a prostitute, to cheer up his sad sack of a buddy. What a chum. She falls for the creepy one. Matt, the word nerd, falls for her, and the rest doesn’t turn out well for anyone.

Rapp’s deliciously rich banter drives much of the play. Dialogue, both hurtful and playful, establishes the strained but dependent relationship between these two. Matt may be a walking stereotype and Davis, a feral savage, but these are over-educated men of letters, so when the words fly, they are hilarious.

The second act takes place in the East Village in Matt’s drafty garret. Christina returns looking for Davis, finds Matt still pining for her, and more trouble follows. (A sick girl knocking on the door of a starving artist seems like an odd nod to Rent. Rapp is Rent star Anthony Rapp’s brother after all.)

Troy Schulze (Matt), Drake Simpson (Davis) and Amy Burn (Christina) are perfectly cast in their respective roles. Schulze’s depressed playwright just tears us apart. He’s damaged, broken, yet incredibly endearing as the poster child for tortured poets. Simpson gives Davis a sexual charge that is both repulsive and seductive, stomping on his pit bull character with a manic glee. We hate him but laugh at his jokes anyway. Burn’s gentle performance contains a wide-eyed innocence. She’s positively luminous when she sings for the smitten duo. The potency of this motley triangle carries the play.

Kevin Holden’s close-to-the-nerve-center direction hones in on Rapp’s brand of despair. The claustrophobia is palpable—tension, difficult pauses, jagged edges, all intact and adding to the closed-in hotel room stuffiness. In addition to Holden, Anthony Contello, Frank J. Vela, Elisabeth Meindl, Matthew Schlief, Andrew Harper and Robert Thoth contributed to the set and lighting design, which proved mostly effective. It’s bleak, intimate, in your face, too close for comfort and full of garish lighting effects. How Amsterdam-y.

As for the Horse Head approach, that’s another story. Theater goers are greeted by a party atmosphere found in a holding pen, where they can drink, visit, and listen to Holden’s audience re-education lecture. Tight quarters, in an airless room, prepare us for Rapp’s shut-in world. Next, the audience is led through a narrow hallway complete with Amsterdam ladies of the red light district, and finally into the space where we were encouraged to mingle about the denizens of Amsterdam.

Habit doesn’t change that quickly and most just grabbed a seat. There was no intermission for this two-plus hour play, which meant the audience suffered through a rather clunky scene change. (Rapp’s play could have benefited from a breather.) Actors and designers are listed as “collaborators” and there’s not a bio to be found, which goes against the collective manifesto. Horse Head aims “to create the same amount of ecstasy as the artists that create it,” a noble goal for certain. (The beer menu needs to expand before that happens.) It was all kind of strange, and strangely exciting. Change doesn’t come easy, so bravo to these bold folks who dare to rethink and repackage the way we experience theater.

All in all, Rapp’s play under the house of Horse Head goes down much like the Tom Waits songs that serenade us intermittently, with a bittersweet pathos, a ragged lullaby equally designed to soothe and unsettle.

Horse Head Theatre Co. presents Red Light Winter by Adam Rapp through October 10, at Frenetic Theater, 5102 Navigation Blvd. Visit www.horseheadtheatre.org

Reprinted from Houston ArtsWeek.

John Harvey on Night of the Giant

John Harvey, Houston's reigning dark prince of indie theater, has unleashed his unruly imagination again in Night of the Giant, a Mildred's Umbrella Theater Company production. Most known for his hilarious horror romp, Rot, co-produced by Bobbindoctrin and Mildred's, Harvey has crafted yet another creepy tale. This one features two scary sisters who tend to their tied-up dad, known as just it, an original score by Elliot Cole and his chamber orchestra playing live on stage and plenty of Harvey's deliciously weird prose. By day, Harvey teaches at Houston Community College and is an artist-in-residence at the University of Houston's Honors College. Since 2001, he has also served as Mildred's Umbrella resident playwright. Harvey helps us navigate his tangled web of a play below.

29-95: How is this play different from your last dark, twisted and highly poetic play, Rot?

John Harvey: I've upped the darkness, poetry, and it's even more twisted. Yet, there's a joy in the darkness.

29-95: We all have strange families, but this one takes the cake. What instigated this story?

JH: The impulse to both project and destroy the child, which comes from being a parent myself. There's a long history of great plays that link to this subject matter from Eugene O'Neill to Sam Shepard.

29-95: Sounds epic, mythic really.

JH: Oh yeah, Oedipal elements echo throughout the play.

29-95: From the very first passages of the play it's clear that there's a formality present: in the sisters' speech rhythms, the stylized movement, and even in the way the music fills in the space. The formality creates a bit of distance with the difficulty of the material.

JH: Yes, I wanted the sisters to maintain formal movement, attempting to hold in the violence and abuse that their stories and interactions indicate, or let's say a formality created through a painstaking attention to word and gesture. The words, sentences are created to form jagged edges and holes through which Joe (the father) crawls through and the sisters smile through. I want the audience in the same place, experiencing a work of art (which is a certain formality) that also implicates the work of art. I want the audience to look for what shatters or refuses to shatter, a type of crucible that will walk home with the audience.

29-95: As a melancholic myself who refuses to be cured, I love the somber tone of Elliot Cole's score. It soothes the jagged edges. Cole understands something about us dark-craving people. Do you agree?

JH: I had Elliot in mind as the composer from the beginning of the project. The orchestra functions as a kind of Greek chorus. Elliot's music finds those notes for the play, a screech, a sweet melody.

29-95: Families are their own kind of prisons for certain, but this one is particularly grim. Yet, visually there's a lot of open space in Barnevelder, so the drama is both contained and not contained. The openness makes the play even more unsettling, these are folks you want to find in a gated community with jumbo-sized locks. Wayne Barnhill's set of a home gone feral feels very exposed. Is this intentional or is it just too expensive to build walls?

JH: I didn't want walls in order to take advantage of just what you noticed with Barnevelder. I talked to Wayne about lightly shaping a space, a room, a house. It's a claustrophobic play in an open space. Kevin Taylor's use of the lights had this intention as well. That which should be behind walls leaks out into the performing space.

29-95: Walt Zipprian, last seen as Ann Coulter in The Tamarie Cooper Show, spends the entire play as the father bound by ropes and with a burlap bag over his head.

JH: Ann Coulter is bound in her own way too. I had Walt in mind from the beginning.

29-95: Talk about the shift from poet to playwright?

JH: There's a long tradition of poets writing plays. I wanted a more collaborate experience, more three dimensional.

29-95: Your plays are funny but it's an odd kind of laugh. We catch ourselves laughing.

JH: Exactly, it's an implicating laugh.

29-95: Let's talk about the actors. An overly natural actor could wreck your work. It seems to me that there needs to be an element of recitation, that is in keeping with the piece's formal style. Jennifer Decker understands this well, which is why she was so great in Rot too. Any thoughts on this?

JH: Yes, actors who feel energy from the style of illusion, from being in step with the creation of illusion and what it opens, those are the actors for me.

29-95: Where do you stand on the disturb to entertain continuum?

JH: Let's say I'd be honored to share the space with Maria Fornes, Nick Cave, Tom Waits and Aeschlyus. Oh, yes, and I love Sweeney Todd. Let me also say that I think putting together "disturb" and "entertain" is a philosophic position. I think it begins questions of how we put together the world, and why we let illusions make us. Why do I go to the theater? Why to be put together in such a way that I'm always awake, that's the effect of "disturb" and "entertain" together. Well, there may also be a bittersweet lullaby effect as well.

Mildreds Umbrella Theater Company presents Night of the Giant by John Harvey on September 23-26, 8 p.m., at Barnevelder Movement Arts Complex; October 2-3, 8 p.m. at Ovations Night Club; and October 8, 7 p.m. at Houston Center for Photography, as part of the national Free Night of Theater event. $13; $7 for students/seniors. The October 8 performance will be free.

Reprinted from 29-95.c0m.

Review: Southern Rapture

_{Photo: Bruce Bennett}

Stories about the culture wars usually make we weep. No single event in
Unites States history has affected my generation of art makers. Eric Coble's
Southern Rapture, now playing at Stages Repertory Theatre, is first and
foremost a comedy. Face it, theater people who will go down for their
convictions and a bunch of uptight southern church people in the same room
can be funny.



Southern Rapture is based on the saga of the Charlotte Repertory
Theatre's 1996 production of Tony Kushner's Pulitzer price-winning
epic, Angels in America. A seven second full frontal nude scene, crucial to the play's core, set off a firestorm of controversy that put their funding and future
in peril. A snarky local critic fueled the flames, inciting even more
trouble. The themes of Coble's play are also especially timely in light of
recent southern-born silliness in the headlines.


The cast has a blast with this material. Sally Edmundson, as artisic
director Marjorie Winthrop, is spot-on. If ever there was an archetype of a
stubborn theater maven, Edmundson is it. Rutherford Cravens is terrific as
Mayor Winston Paxton, the guy that just wants all the fuss to just go away.
Unfortunately, the Mayor has an election coming up, so he needs to cave into
his base. Sounds oddly familiar. Cravens captures the man on an ideological
edge with a robust performance. Pamela Vogel inhabits each of her four
characters with equal gusto. She lends Allissa, the conflicted board member,
a subtle turn. Vogel pulls out her comedic chops as Laverne, the churchy
lady who objects to just about everything. Jon L. Egging gets to play on
both sides of the aisle as the Rev. Dubree and Mickey, the actor with the
scene in question. Egging steals the scene when he explains exactly why the
nude scene needs to be included as written. David Wald gives Donald Sherman, Winthrop's assistant director, an edgy quality. Wald lets us feel the edge of your seat vibe of the brouhaha. Jovan Jackson is a hoot as the southern-metaphor talking lawyer and a clueless actor.


Stages artistic director Kenn McLaughlin directs with an ear for the
comedy, in an unfussy production that stays focused on the characters and
their compelling narrative. (McLaughlin has weathered through a controversy
or two on his own stomping ground. I am still recovering from the talk back
trauma after Mr. Marmalade.)



Kirk Markley's set consists of several interlocking platforms that produce
a wretched sound when yanked apart, which happens in the opening moments of the play. Although the raised platforms create a bit of a hazard for the actors, it's an effective visual metaphor for the divisions of territory and thought that play out during the course of Coble's story. Chris Bakos' sound design works well in conjunction with Markley's puzzle set. Listen up
people, if you ever wondered what an ideological divide sounds like, this is it.


Back to weeping, there's that too. In the play's final moments, each
character sums up the experience. And we finally get to see the scene that
set the town on fire. In a low light, it's played out with utmost dignity. I
had a little fantasy of some hard core religious Charlotte folk coming to
see this play and becoming transformed by the power of theater. Coble lets
us dwell in dreaming that such a thing is possible.

Reprinted from Culturevulture.net.

Stanton Welch on Elements

Christopher Coomer in Stanton Welch's Elements
photo by Pam Francis

September 18, 2009

Stanton Welch unveils his fifteenth work for Houston Ballet with Elements, set to Paul Hindemith’s symphony Mathis der Maler, as part of the mixed rep program, “Without Boundaries.” The piece features Connor Walsh as fire, Joseph Walsh as air, Christopher Coomer as earth, Ian Casady as water and Mireille Hassenboehler as the mother of the universe. Welch brings us into Elements.

Dance Source Houston: Which came first, the music or the idea?

Stanton Welch: They came simultaneously about 20 years ago. Sometimes you hear a piece of music and you know what you need to do. There were four sections and they sounded like the elements.

DSH: You let the idea cook for twenty years?

SW: Choreography was my hobby back when I was dancing. I'm revising some of my old ideas. Coming off of Marie, The Core, and The Four Seasons, I was ready to go in the opposite direction by creating a more minimalistic ballet.

DSH: What boundaries are you going without?

SW: All three pieces are minimalist, Jirí Kylián uses Steve Reich's “Drumming,” Twyla Tharp, the queen of that style, uses Phillip Glass. So we have three different choreographers all working in the same genre.

DSH: Talk about the lone female figure danced by Hassenboehler.

SW: She's the beginning of everything, the birth of the universe, who bears four sons, earth, air, fire and water.

DSH: Is there an environmental message?

SW: Not necessarily. I see it as a broader message. Only when these four work together will the world survive.

DSH: You are often inspired by the dancers in front of you. Was Connor Walsh looking fiery one day and it seemed time to do the piece?

SW: I knew I had a collection of dancers who would suit this ballet. I wanted people who are very different, but could work well in unison. Each of the sons/elements has their own personality.

DSH: Hassenboehler mentioned that the Earth needed help.

SW: Earth is the sad one, the earth's power is slower at revealing itself, it takes millions of years to get a Mount Everest.

DSH: Are you a mythology wonk?

SW: I was when I was young.

DSH: Thoughts on Houston Ballet's first go at Tharp?

SW: Here we go..... It's a big complex, dynamic and exhausting dance. Tharp is huge and it would be wrong of us as a major American arts institution if we didn't do her work. Once I saw the piece, I knew we needed to do it. The audience always goes bananas.



Houston Ballet presents “Without Boundaries” on September 24, 26 and October 2, 3, 2009 at 7:30 PM, and September 27 and October 4, 2009 at 2:00 PM Call 713-227-2787 or visit www.houstonballet.org.

Reprinted from Dance Source Houston.

Review: Dance Houston City Wide Festival

NobleMotion Dance Company

Photography by Dionne Noble

Wortham Theatre

August 30, 2009

Houston is becoming a dance festival city, with The Power of Movement last spring and the the upcoming Weekend of Contemporary Dance, Dance Houston's City Wide Dance Festival did its part in keeping the momentum going. Andrea Cody, executive director of Dance Houston, moved here to start festivals and that she did. The 7^th annual City-Wide festival lived up to its name delivering an all over the map tour of Houston's dance scene including contemporary, hip-hop, ballet, ballroom and world dance. The people on the stage represented a diverse group as well, from students to internationally known professionals. As with most festivals, the fun was abundant, the audience enthusiastic, and the quality mixed.

On the contemporary front NobleMotion Dance made a strong statement in an excerpt from Barrier. Set to Argentinean tango master Astor Piazzolla's sultry music, the piece drops us directly down into the world of a steamy romance. Choreographer Andy Noble cleverly enlists the help of a steel gray wall as a container and foil for their passion. The couple, danced by Jesus Acosta and Melissa Needler, shove, push, walk and smash up against the wall in some all out thrilling partnering. Acosta and Needler's fierce abandon bolstered Barrier's strength, leaving even more curiosity about the rest of the piece. Noble, currently an assistant professor of Dance at Sam Houston State University, is relatively new to the Houston scene. After this show, and his recent showing at Big Range, NobleMotion is the new troupe to watch.

Dominic Walsh Dance Theater offered an excerpt of Amadeus for Anita, part of Walsh's Mozart Trilogy to be danced later this month at Miller Outdoor Theatre. Walsh's weighty work, precisely danced by his sleek troupe, anchored the evening with its solid and captivating performance. Houston Ballet II upstart choreographer Garrett Smith got to show off what he's been up to during his time in the company in Den III, a sexy dance set to music by Tielman Susato. Harper Waters' clean attack fit Smith's oddly angled shapes well. Smith is currently an apprentice with Houston Ballet. Harrison Guy's Truth be Told, still in the incubator stage, showed some promising ideas on feminist history and was confidently danced by Urban Souls Dance Company. Although Revolve Dance Company demonstrated their usual flare, yet there wasn't much that challenged them in Wes Veldink's too-mellow piece, Now. Beth Gulledge-Brown's Dancing Days, set to Led Zeppelin's iconic tunes had trouble sustaining the intensity of the music, yet was capably danced by Uptown Dance Company. Ray Dones' robust dancing stood out.

Compania Folklorica Alegria Mexicana brought a festive and thoroughly entertaining energy to the stage in Sones Y Gustos de Guerro. Although under rehearsed, Prem-dance of love of the Sreepadam School of Arts mixed Bollywood flash and Classical Indian vocabulary. Sparkling clear formations characterized Dance of Asian America's polished performance in Peacocks in Flight.

Luckily, the Barbara King Dance Company kept the theatrics to a minimum and allowed their capable dancers to take center stage in The Mystery of Dance. Luna Tango Productions offered a mild mannered tango in Mala Junta. There was no shortage of inventive moves coming from the two hip-hop troupes Wyld Styl and 8^th Edition. Both could benefit from tighter unison and more rehearsal.

A few quibbles: Festivals are all about introducing groups to the city. The show would have benefited from more thorough program notes like music credits, websites, and a calendar of their upcoming shows. You have a captive audience, why not clue them in on the context of each of these works?

reprinted from Dance Source Houston.

Rachel Cook Explains "Now that I'm by Myself," she says, "I'n not by myself, which is good."

Artist, curator and writer Rachel Cook returns to her old stomping ground at DiverseWorks with her first show in the main gallery, quite cryptically titled "Now that I'm by myself,” she says, “I'm not by myself, which is good, which features video, photography, sculptural cutouts and drawings in works by Brian Bress, Wynne Greenwood, Laurel Nakadate and Yuki Okumura. Cook reveals a bit about the title and more below.

29-95: How did the show come together?

Rachel Cook: It started with the work I was making myself. I have been using video and self portraiture in my work for quite some time, and all of these artists use themselves in their work. So this show is more personal and closer to home artistically.

29-95: What does the title, Now that I'm by myself,” she says, “I'm not by myself, which is good,” mean?

RC: I had the title before I knew who was going to be in the show. It's a long winded story. It's a quote from a musician in an interview talking about going out on your own. When you do go out on your own you find other people. So you are alone and not alone. I have always been in that space working with people and working alone, a lot of artists deal with that situation of being isolated in their studios.

29-95: You have a long history with DiverseWorks, right?

RC: I used to work there, and I curated two other projects for the smaller gallery which doesn't exist any more, and one 12 minutes Max.

29-95: Is this the largest scale show you have curated?

RC: No, but its my first in the main gallery, and the first with two site-specific commissions. I wanted to be able to have first-hand contact with the artists. It's like making a dinner party.

29-95: Lets talk about Wynne Greenwood's work since its right in front of us. What are we looking at?

RC: It's a single projection on a monitor and a sculptural cardboard cutout. Even though she is not performing in this particular show, there is a performative quality in her installation. For years she dealt with a pain in her lower back, so she is speaking to that pain and thinking about what's underneath that anxious gut. We also commissioned a new piece for the show called Warfare Over Forever.

29-95: What drew you to her work?

RC: There's this innocence, but at the same time, a really straightforward quality. She really started out as a musician and just fell into making work. I like that she is aware and unaware at the same. She doesn't get super bogged down in making work.

29-95: How did Brian Bress come on your radar?

RC: He has a youtube channel so his work was circulating for quite a while. He grew up working at his family's thrift store surrounded by all these props. His work collapses painting, sculpture and video in that he has made everything you see in his videos. So his work can exist as sculptures and backdrops of his videos.

29-95: Yuki Okumura is the one international artist in the show. How does he fit in?

RC: He has a sense of humor with his body and the way in which he references pop culture. He will be making a site specific video in the gallery, which is very exciting.

29-95: Laurel Nakadate, the only Texas native in the flock, is most known for her films where she asks lonely older men to come home with her and then films them. Sounds confrontive.

RC: Yes, definitely. But her subjects are not forced into the experience, but invited into it. She is totally interested in the border between discomfort and awkwardness. There's something in those moments that we love and make us cringe at the same time.

29-95: Is there something about that feeling in each of these artist's work?

RC: Yes, but they all do it differently.

DiverseWorks presents “Now that I'm by myself,” she says,“I'm not by myself, which is good,” curated by Rachel Cook. It runs through October 24.

Reprinted from 29-95.c0m.

Centre Choregraphique National de Grenoble-Jean-Claude Gallotta Group Emile Dubois

Ted Shawn Theatre
Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival
July 19, 2009

_{Photo: Karli Cadel}

Jean Claude Gallotta's *Des Gens Qui Dansent* (people who dance) plays out
like a French romantic comedy, ripe with charm, intriguing characters and an
intangible breeziness that goes down like a fine champagne. Gallotta's
troupe, cryptically called Groupe Emile Dubois (there is no Emile Dubois)
consists of authentic people who dance of all shapes, sizes, ages and
technical ability and therein lies its subtle power. How we love to watch
civilians dance, it reminds us that dance is the domain of the world, which
includes us. And how fitting to see this troupe at Jacob's Pillow Dance
Festival, a place that honors and supports all forms of dance.

Gallotta harks from a background in painting, theater and film, and it
shows that his interests go beyond dance. *Des Gens Qui Dansent* is
structured with duets, solos, and trios that come and go as they might in
real life. Gallotta himself stumbles about on stage, whispering funny things
into a microphone. He inhabits a persona that falls somewhere between
something rapper and ringmaster. At times he looks lost, or in the wrong
dance. He is both of the group and not, much the way of choreographer
functions in a company setting.

The space, open and un-contained, works as a territory for social
interactions to take place, some tender, some gently combative, others
funny. Each dancer is stunningly unique, making them divinely watchable.
When they partner each other, they come from a place of deep knowing,
allowing the dance to become a communal event with the audience as voyeurs.
There's such a rare beauty in witnessing this level of honesty. Strigall's
pulsing electronic score adds a theatrical veneer and at times a pop lift.

A film snippet of Henry Miller on his deathbed talking about his life made
for poignant punctuation to the dancing. His words, “I am alive to the end,”
seemed to sum up the ballet's lingering perfume.

Reprinted from CultureVulture.net

Toni Valle at Fringe Festival

Toni Leago Valle

Photo by David A. Brown

Toni Leago Valle, a prolific choreographer on the rise, will be showing three pieces in the upcoming Freneticore Fringe Festival. Valle freely uses her own life as material, yet manages to stay clear of "journal entry" dances. She gives us a glimpse of the Valle vortex below.

29-95: You danced I am Mother, a Butoh-inspired dance about fertility goddesses, when you were about to give birth. Now, you are a mother of a five year old. What's different?

Toni Leago Valle: Mythological mothers and realistic mothers don't have much to do with each other. But, that said, I can do a lot more than I could than when I was pregnant, like back bends.

29-95: Why did you choose Butoh?

TLV: I studied the history of Butoh in college and have always been interested in the form, although I am not trained in the style. Butoh is a backlash to traditional Kabuki dance, just as modern was to ballet in the West. Butoh sought to move away from Kabuki fairy tales and show the reality of life, hence the often deformed body poses and facial gestures.

29-95: You also will be showing The Victim solo from Tetris, your most recent piece. Why did you choose this excerpt?

TLV: The festival aimed at more theatrical work and I thought Catalina Molnari's solo would stand alone. It's very athletic and performed on top of Thomas Boyd's magnificent set of gigantic boxes. You don't need to know who she is.

29-95: The two excerpts from Cracked, your confessional opus on women, contains your most compelling, and dare I say, disturbing work. Both Interview for a Date” and I Take my Clothes off, show women in a subservient position. The man interrogates his potential date, asking her about her body, her finances, what she brings to the table. Finally she screams "I am good at sex." You seem to be saying women are still second-class citizens.

TLV: Discrimination is still around, it just went more underground. Women are still expected to be thin, beautiful and successful. Now, it's just more subtle and less overt. My mother never told me to be subservient, but told me to find a good man. When I realized that these issues were still there, I was able to fight it.

29-95: What's the second section, "I take my clothes off" about for you?

TLV: I wanted to be able to get up in front of an audience in a bra and underwear and say this is my body and totally except it.

29-95: Give me a break. You have a great body.

TLV: But that's the point. As a dancer, I am always still looking in the mirror. It doesn't matter what kind of body have, the fact that its not good enough is woven into the fabric of our society.

29-95: You have big news: You're starting a company called 6', (a reference to six degrees of separation) and will be sharing a double bill Amy Ell at DiverseWorks in May of 2010. Why start a company now with this dang recession going on?

TLV: I have gone as far as I can as an independent artist, so I am ready to make the next move. I want to grow more.

The Frenetic Fringe Festival presents works by Toni Leago Valle, Mary Ellen Whitworth, Paul Locklear, Eric Fensler and Laura Harrison Aug. 14 and 15 at 8 p.m. at Freneticore Theatre, 5102 Navigation Blvd. Tickets are $18 at the door, $15 advance.

Reprinted from 29-95.com.

Free screenings showcase the Merce Cunningham Dance Company

Merce Cunningham: Courtesy of Menil Collection

As I was taking my seat at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival to see the Merce Cunningham Dance Company on July 26th, a colleague murmured, "This will be probably be the last time we see the company while Merce is still alive."

As it turned out, it was.

Merce Cunningham, 90, passed away later that same evening. The Pillow had been celebrating Cunningham's legacy for that past week, which included a talk with archivist David Vaughan, who told lively tales of Cunningham's early days working with his frequent collaborator Robert Rauschenberg. Earlier in the season, Cunningham received the Jacob's Pillow Dance Award, one among many lifetime honors.

This Friday, Aug. 7, Houston will have a chance to bid farewell to these two titans of the arts. Society for the Performing Arts (SPA), ARTPIX and Microcinema International team up to honor Cunningham and Rauschenberg in a free outdoor film showing of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company performing Split Sides and Interscape. The screening begins at 8 p.m. at the Menil, 1515 Sul Ross.

Split Sides

For those of us coming of age as dancers and artists during the post Martha Graham years, an era has ended. As children of Merce, we benefited from the man who freed dance from the strict confines of narrative, meaning and metaphor. Everything you needed to understand in a Cunningham dance was contained within its boundaries.

Wendy Perron, editor in chief of Dance Magazine, writes in her blog remembrance:

It was never a matter of loving one of his pieces or hating another. It was how he put dances together: based on curiosity, based on what the body can do, and yes, based on chance. It was how he stimulated the mind as he activated the bodies.

SPA brought the Merce Cunningham Dance Company to Houston four times between 1989 and 2005.

"Merce Cunningham Dance Company was one of the first companies that we presented not long after I joined SPA that really gave me an insight into contemporary dance," said SPA Executive Director and CEO June Christensen. "Merce changed our perception of what a dance performance should be, separating the music and dance. He was innovative and visionary, and will truly be missed."

Split Sides (2003) features a score by Britain's Radiohead and Iceland's Sigur Rs. John Cage scored Interscape (2000). Rauschenberg designed the sets and costumes for the latter performance. Both pieces were filmed by Charles Atlas.

Reprinted from 29-95.c0m.