Julie Brette Adams at Santa Fe Playhouse: Dress Rehearsal, July 9, 2009

by Janet Eigner

The last time modern dance soloist Julie Brette Adams collaborated with a dance mentor, dancer and choreographer Charlene Tarver, she created a fascinating and powerful dance, “Knowing,” premiered in 2000, a work in the dramatic tradition of Martha Graham’s early work.

After Tarver’s death, Adams began a collaboration with dancer Kate Eberle, in 2004, when they co-founded Two Women Dancing. Their work stretched Adam’s movement vocabulary to include more martial arts-like and aerobic-like work.

When Adams described her solo plans, and a new mentorship with Lindsay Mayo, she stirred curiosity over her new work. Mayo has been a dancer, teacher, choreographer and producer of dance on feature film and opera.

Very good news: this recent solo performance has had a long gestation, and has brought forth a lovely creation. The concert was filled with novel premieres, entirely skillful works that engaged, sparkled and showcased how Adams has continued to grow as a dancer and artist.

I wasn’t able to attend the performance, but watched both the dress rehearsal and the DVD of the first and second concerts, July 10 and 11^th.

The innovation that enriched “Knowing,” the nine-year-old Adams-Tarver work, was Adams’s monologue, recorded and a pleasure to hear in the clarity of its sound. The first half of the concert cleverly used the dancer’s voice, woven in between three other works, to tell the story of her creative process with Charlene about the reason for her movement in this work. The brief, taped segments of the monologue also allowed Adams to disappear and change costumes between these dances (“Heart Dancing Open,” a premier, “Freudian Slip,” a delightful and surprising demonstration in movement and costuming of the unconscious view of woman as the delicate flower and the devourer, and another premiere, “Opus for Socks,” a Chaplinesque poignancy to below-the-belt moves, her upper body in black shift and shadow the entire time. )

Adams related that, for a long time, she was unclear where her “Knowing” movement originated. She knew that she must sit naked in a chair, her back facing the audience, using only her upper body and its expressive muscles, to tell the story..”but what is the story about,” Tarver had questioned repeatedly.

After many months of questioning by Tarver, Adams said that she finally understood that the inspiration had come from her relationship to a wheel-chair-confined friend she visited regularly in his nursing home, as he slowly declined from Multiple Sclerosis. Though Adams didn’t say that the dance movements showed tragedy, decline, and horror at the slow death, her nuanced arm, head and back undulations, shiverings and muscle isolations revealed these feelings, all performed sitting, with no leg involvement. The dance, seen at least four times by this reviewer, took on new layers of meaning after the monologue.

Nevertheless, the concert began with a mood of whimsy that wove through all of the work, another stretch past Adams’s comedic, Lucille Ball-like sense of humor in past years (and seen in this concert in “Freudian Slip,” another collaboration with Tarver, from 2002.) Even before the first work, we saw the curtain risen to knee-level and the dancer bare footed, jumping behind the curtain.

“Heart Dancing Open” a premiere, began to the music of The Beatles (“Because”) and of Ana Lains, forming a novel variety of open-shaped movements that announced the kind of emotional tone the concert would reveal.

The second half of the concert hadn’t the pauses allowed by Adams’s monologue, so that each dance showed the artist’s skill at changing layers of costume while performing.

Another premiere, “Blues for Mary,” to the twangy, whispery, gritty folk music voice of Mary Gauthier, Adams showed her tough-girl-don’t-mess-with-my-blues-persona, using slashing, staccato, slinky, frantic, and rag-doll moves, a semi-abstract relation to the lyrics.

Another premiere, “Running Heart,” with music by Eyvind Kang, had Adams running a circle around the stage, over and over, finally panting, but continuing to run, then slipping offstage briefly, changing costumes half offstage, half on, continuing to run (don’t remember the number of costume changes) showing a lithe athleticism, variety, fitness and a rubbery persistence by the conclusion.

In “Skyframe,” the fifth premiere, Adams navigated a three dimensional rectangle of metal in graceful, meditative, varied moves to music by Harold Budd and Brian Eno.

In “Curves on a Point,” her sixth premiere, with choreography by Kate Eberle, and percussive, metallic music by Khaki Kang, Adams moved swiftly and elasticly, using jazz and modern moves with quick stops and long stretches.

The last premier, “Note to Self,” with music by drummer by Mickey Hart, was memorable for its smart, clean movement, its surprise and freshness. Adams, clad in a one piece body suit of oyster gray, stood with arms slithering close to her body in a slippery asymmetry of limbs, and only after a few minutes of her crawling, pressing moves did it become clear that she was decorating herself with liquid tempera, in white, burgundy and black, bold swaths that dripped onto her neck and leotard, as she continued to move in ways both dancerly and delicious.

The concerts were sold out, I’m told, and I could see and hear on Craig Hansen’s clear DVD the audience standing in its ovations.

Brava, Brava!

Juan Siddi Flamenco Theatre Company at The Lodge at Santa Fe’s Cabaret Theater, June 23, 2009

by Janet Eigner

Artistic Director/Choreographer/Dancer: Juan Sidi // Guest Dancer, Carola Zertuche //

Company Dancers: Kerensa DeMars, Stephanie Narvaez, Keyana DeAguero, Cynthia Sanchez, Katherine Taylor // Musical Director and Guitarist: Chuscales // Composer, Vocals and Percussionist: Yiyi // Guitarist, Ricardo Anglada // Vocals: Vicente Griego //

Skip the firecrackers this year…pale substitutes for Juan Siddi’s celebration– bold and explosive flamenco footwork, clacking castanets, flying foot-long fringe, each dance flaming up to its clear beginning and brought-up sudden, to its quick, high-arm-slashing conclusion.

The cast of seven dancers bend and rock their spines and limbs, flick up the long shawl fringes, deliver syncopated rhythms, simultaneous diagonal moves in “Angel de la Guarda.” Surprising synchrony: Zertuche pulls her ruffled train back just the moment Siddi toes her hem, a sly plan to look as though he had kicked the flounce away.

Just fitting on the small cabaret stage, the five woman “Pasion Flamenco” ensemble rock their sleek-side-bending bodies, clad in shazam! print dresses that frame their well-matched forms, their slim, youthful, forceful and sinuous skill. They conjure a sky-full of eyeball-popping, vibrating planets.

The musicians begin their steady, slow beat with a call: Yiyi’s husky voice, his cajon, rain chimes and conga drum, cantaor Griego’s deep, loud wails, the soulful strumming guitaristas and later, Chuscales’ solo, sketching graceful, interior and Andalucian.

In the night-sky-dark lighting, faces and shapes slip in, shaded blue or gold, just enough to see, as though lit by campfire.  The duet, “Encuentro,”slows and builds to simmering passion between Zertuche and Siddi whose subtle moves update the dance form– more intimate gestures–his large hand on her shoulder, their bodies spooned: he unwraps the shawl from around her waist, she flicks it like a lariat to rope a stallion.

After all the approach and retreat, the writhing hands, the climactic, drumming feet, a quiet meeting: they grasp the silk that collapses like a limp umbrella, release it in a heap, exit to separate sides for a swift, crushing retreat. Zertuche, after Chuscales mellow solo, delivers her own fireworks with her frock’s descending ruffles flowing to an extra long train, the “bata ‘d cola,” keeps her head lowered and leans sharply back, angles into her smokey mood.

Flamenco’s roots in East India and Siddi’s Katak training blend in “Nataraj,” a slow, sensual wave of arms unfolding, with the Siddi as Siva, Lord of the Dance at the head of the ensemble’s line, initiating creation as indeed Siddi does.  Siddi’s erect, noble posture and foot power launch him like a Vespa, setting up a vibration with his heels that looks like levitation across the floor.

His final triple turns launch a spotlit spray, his corona of sweat. He’s a human sparkler.

Shen Wei Dance Arts (SWDA) at the Lensic Performing Arts Center, March 31, 2009

by Janet Eigner

Appearing like a drift of extraordinarily well-disciplined winter leaves lifting and blown by a spring zephyr, the 15-member, Eastern-inspired Shen Wei Dance Arts performed “Rite of Spring” from two perspectives, first, more Western, to Stravinsky’s composition, then, more Eastern, in the post-intermission version. Of course, fitting with the yin-yang Asian mood, as the dancers silently and slowly gathered their dignity on the Lensic’s darkened stage, one audience youngster screamed an oppositional acapella.

The first perspective, writes Artistic Director, Shen Wei, in the program notes, matches “…the quality found in the music” to “several body systems and movement ideas” that he found in Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” as played by Fazil Say’s four-hand piano version. The dance, abstract, devoid of the traditional story line, uses “the melodic and rhythmic qualities of the music” that inspire this muscular, graceful and abstract creation.

East meets West as the company follows Stravinsky’s taped “Rite”: the piano melody provides waves of intimacy, exuberance, crashing power–many moods–yet there’s the sense of silence and rest built in with pauses and breath, Shen Wei’s meditative aesthetic.

The artists work with a precision and simultaneous movement that contrasts with their fluid, nearly boneless limbs that quietly fling and swirl. A cluster of dancers, for instance, tilts a bit backwards, arms tight to their sides, heads held rigidly, and run swiftly backwards with small, skittering, exacting steps until they halt on a dime. Modest shirts and slacks of neutral gray added to the quiet mood.

The second perspective, “RE-(Part 1)”, contains Shen Wei’s abstract and exuberant impressions of the Tibetan, as he writes, of “…land, the people, the religion and the culture.” Traditional Tibetan chants accompany this petal-strewn mandala of a creation. Both works evidence a love of spring’s generative body and her continual cycles of rebirth.

RE-(Part 1) again began in silence, broken briefly, probably by the same child, screaming “I AM being quiet!” (Coyote moves in mysterious ways!) Dancers moved to the deep sounds of Tibetan trumpets and gongs, along with a swishing sound made by the dancers’ feet churning through a carpet-mandala’s large paper confettis in red, white, blue and gold drifts. The dancers accumulated these spheres on their clothing as they rolled and rose, dripping the rounds. The choreography became a bit repetitious toward the end of this part, in a way that pulled at the definition of an art work and began to give a feeling of a yoga class.

SWDA’s movement goes down like a delicious fruit smoothie, though it might seem hard to imagine how the choreography produces such a creamy blend: they combine a tai chi-like martial art form with modern dance’s low center of gravity, a modified form of East Indian torso contortion, and even break dancing’s low-to-the-ground-propeller-like leg swings and folds. One tall, stately androgynous woman stood out among the dancers, all of whom twisted their extended arms and shoulders on shifting diagonals that look both silky and muscular.

Keeping with their abstract aesthetic throughout, the dancers, like the weather, embody impersonal, universal forces, expressing with their whole bodies the moods that Stravinsky’s music suggests, unlike humans who make eye contact, interact and register a range of emotions in their faces.

The Olympic level of discipline and technical skill of these dancers never abates. Most of the company shone in solos embedded within ensembles. Stillness is a partner in SWDA’s choreography: dancers shift among groupings and soloists in quietly masterful designs.

One way a company warms your heart is that it whispers or shouts something that inspires awe or relaxes or tickles or riles you up. Another way is that they inspire gratitude–that so large a company presents tableaus with a choreographic organization that makes watching a joy rather than a dizzying vortex of too many designs to register and absorb.

While Shen Wei dancers took their bows, receiving enthusiastic applause, on one side of this reviewer, a couple thought the choreography got boring and resembled an old, repetitious contact improvisation style. On the other side, a woman sat, still breathless with excitement, watching and praising the company–the predictable yin-yang of aesthetic taste.  Bouquets to the presenter, Santa Fe Concert Association.

El Pintor, An Original Flamenco Dance Drama at Maria Benitez Cabaret, July 21, 2008. Lodge of Santa Fe.

by Janet Eigner

Theresa Cardenas, Producer, in association with Maria Benitez & The Institute for Spanish Arts
Choreographer: Pablo Rodarte
Advisor: Maria Benitez
Composer & Music Director: Calvin Hazen
Musicians: Guitarists: Calvin Hazen, Ricardo Anglada
Percussionist & Singer: Francisco Javier Orozco “El Yiyi”
Singer: Vicente Griego “El Cartucho”
Dancers:      Adriana Maresma Fois, Maritza Montiel Tafur, Elena Osuna
Seldom has a flamenco production so successfully integrated another medium, the paintings of the 18th century Spanish artist, Julio Romero de Torres.  The production, produced and directed by Theresa Cardenas is based on the story of Romero’s favorite model, Teresa Maria Lopez, a 14 year old maid in the Romero’s household whom Romero transformed in his last work, La Chiquita Piconera, The Little Coal Girl, into a sensuous woman with sorrowful eyes.

The dance matched the images in the paintings, projected on a scrim at the back of the cabaret stage, matched the realistic and earthy portraits of this young servant and her friends.
Cardenas, a Santa Fe native, sought the mentoring of Taos native, Maria Benitez to write this impressionistic portrait of the painter’s muse.  A flamenca herself, Cardenas has spent past years in Spain, most recently studying with Antonio Hidalgo Paz in Cordoba.  Here she came across the work of the painter, de Torres, found inspiration in his images of the young, Andalusian woman, and began her research into the life of the model.

Cardenas then summoned one of New Mexico (and now Colorado’s) state treasures, Pablo Rodarte, a flamenco performer and teacher with decades of study and performance in Spain and the USA, and tours across the globe.
Rodarte’s choreography remains among the freshest in flamenco concepts. The rhythms and spaciousness, wit, lighting, and costumes in his work has a whiff of tropical ocean.  He distinguished himself in this production with modern dance movements integrated into the trio’s work, and with the eye of an artist who makes action flow ceaselessly, without the start and stop breaks that characterize more traditional flamenco.

Cardenas chose three distinguished and articulate dancers, all from the southwest, Adriana Maresma Fois, who has a world-wide dance career, launched with her UNM studies with Eva Encinias Sandoval, Pablo Rodarte, and in Santa Fe, with Benitez.  Maritza Montiel Tafur, after study with the same New Mexico mentors, directs Rodarte’s Albuquerque dance company, Dance Espana, and dances with Juan Siddi’s Flamenco company.  Elena Osuna, who launched her dance career after her degree studies at UNM with Encinias Sandoval, now dances with Joaquin Encinias’ company, Yjastros, in Albuquerque.
Calvin Hazen, another Taos native, composed and played the gentle and contemporary flamenco score.  Hazen’s original score was recorded in Madrid in 2004 with Antonio Hidalgo Paz and Cardenas as Artistic Directors.  The other three musicians, besides Hazen, include the other guitarrista, Ricardo Anglada, and Vicente Griego, the singer, both from Northern New Mexico. From Barcelona, Spain comes Francisco Javier Orozco, “El Yiyi”, percussionist and singer who tours worldwide.

If anyone doubts what kind of dance-related careers can develop on the New Mexico – Spanish flamenco beltway, with a lot of training, talent and a lot of hard work, lookie here.

Jose Limon Dance Company at Popejoy Hall, UNM April 23, 2008

by Janet Eigner

Though the choreographer-dancer Jose’ Limon passed on in 1972, the strength of his mythic contributions to modern dance, stand undiminished, through the continuation of his company, the Jose’ Limon Dance Company.

Brought to Popejoy Hall at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, the 13 member troupe conveyed the strength and sculptural beauty of its mentor’s work, performing three of its long and hypnotic classics under the Artistic Direction of original company member, Carla Maxwell. The company plus one guest artist thrilled and stunned the Popejoy audience April 23 with its Olympian level of training.

The performance preserved the Humphrey-Limon choreographic and timeless alphabet. Limon’s movement language distills the curved and bold upper torso disciplines of his mentor, pioneer modern dancer and artistic director of his original company, Doris Humphrey. The company’s after-image is of dancers with beautifully expressive arms raised in holy celebration. Paul Taylor’s ensemble works to classical music owe a debt to this movement language.

Each work presents a consciously spiritual or moral tale. In its unfolding, the movement and music powerfully convey each mood without a viewer needing to understand the layers of message.

“Traitor,” from 1954, revisualized the evident “Red Scare,” caused by the Senate’s McCarthy hearings, as a variation on the Jesus-Judas tale. The creepy, engrossing and barely abstract telling, is set to Gunther Schuller’s “Symphony for Brasses and Percussion.” The color red identifies the man who embodies Jesus or the “Other.”

The seven disciples and Judas, in green, slouch and skulk, knees and elbows deeply bent, elbows pulled back and arched, often in a plotting team huddle that excludes the Jesus figure, who dances with splayed fingers and tense contractions that vibrate. The plotters use tormenting and plaguing gestures against the Other.

The dance ends when the Other is handed a thick rope and hangs himself. Could be an early West Side Story, Montagues versus Capulets. “Traitor” remains a tragic monument to the world’s universal paranoia about new and threatening ideas.

As an inspired tribute to Humphrey, Limon set 14 variations and motifs of her dances to J.S. Bach’s “A Musical Offering.” The excerpt, “Suite,” from “A Choreographic Offering,” was danced by all 13 members of the sixty one year old company.

“Offering” program notes describe a Kabbalistic tradition of 36 Just Men who invisibly inhabit the world. Raphael Bouma’la dances the role of a Just Man who absorbs all the grief of all human hearts.

Even without the program notes for “Psalm,” restaged by Maxwell in 2002, what would be evident through the ensemble’s rapid rushes, the Latin choral chanting, the bells drums and tambourines of Jon Magnusson’s recomposed, 2002 score, is a slowly building culmination, a transcendent, elevated mood.

Oh please, Bob Martin, bring this superb chapter and living legend of modern dance history, to the Lensic.

Juan Siddi Flamenco Theatre Company at the Benitez Cabaret, Lodge of Santa Fe, Aug.3, 2008

by Janet Eigner

Solar windmills, photovoltaic panels, and Juan Siddi’s Flamenco Company, all sources of alternative energy off the grid. For years, Siddi danced his modest, courtly, skillful accompaniment to Benitez’s smoking duende.

Last summer, Juan Siddi settled in Santa Fe and began renting space at the studios of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, to teach his students flamenco. When Maria Benitez decided to take a summer sabbatical this season, she invited Siddi to bring his company to the Benitez Theatre in Santa Fe, to perform six nights a week during the summer. Wow…the bull has finally let himself out of the corral, surrounded by the company’s mature, fiery women, all seasoned and sparking electricity.

The news isn’t that Siddi is on the brink of a big flamenco career; he already has had that in Europe and the Middle East. The news is that even as Benitez dances less to focus on developing Spanish arts outreach programs, she has encouraged Siddi to plant his flamenco flag in Santa Fe, emblazoned with his own fresh brand of tender and ferocious flamenco. American audiences will have a new and exuberant company to experience when they travel to the Benitez cabaret theater in destination Santa Fe.

Already a deeply experienced flamenco dancer at age 28, born in Germany to a Spanish mother and an Italian father, Juan Siddi performed throughout Germany, Spain and the Middle East. Siddi has danced as a soloist in Maria Benitez’s company since 2002. In addition, he has worked from 2001 until 2005 with the Kathak dancers and musicians from India with The Music Ensemble of Benares in the project, “Kathak Meets Flamenco.” The production toured Europe.

Siddi’s bio documents a young man performing as a professional since age 18, co-choreographing with Compania Flamenco Alhama and Noches de Amor on international tours for seven years, at major venues in Europe, North Africa and the USA. He was featured in flamenco festivals, including in Sevilla, and was principal male dancer with Rafael Cortes and Company.

In 2006 and 2007, he was principal male dancer for Teatro Flamenco’s production “Maria Benitez: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow,” under the direction of Merrill Brockway (director of PBS’s Dance in America.) With Benitez’s company, he’s toured and performed around the country, including at the Joyce Theatre in NY City, and the Ordway Center in St. Paul.

Siddi’s competent, courtly, intense and introspective performances before this year didn’t prepare Santa Fe audiences for the leap his creative freedom allowed, unveiling a fiery, nuanced sensuality, a dynamic and charismatic choreography, not seen in Santa Fe or Albuquerque until this season. The tall, graceful Siddi unveils a tender intimacy, unusual in male flamencos, expressed with his five, seasoned female dancers, and coupled with an explosive precision which renders nail guns unnecessary.

The company exudes power, earthy wit, confidence and duende, and includes the hubba-hubba dancer and gypsy singer, Rebeca Carmona, from Cordoba, Spain. This gypsy singer/ dancer, funny and expressive, sings of relationships gone bad…her hands, palms forward. reaching up, in your face, but with compassion.

The amazonic Carola Zertuche from Mexico City, executed a brilliant bata de cola, (dance with a long, fitted dress and very long flouncy train), exquisite in its restraint, skill and passion. She kicked back and lifted her white, antique, heavy bata with enormous skill. Zertuche also directs Theatre Flamenco of San Francisco.

The hawk-sharp and swift Alisa Alba, Santa Fe native also performs with the Albuquerque-based Yjastros: The American Flamenco Repertory Company. She instructs at the National Institute of Flamenco. Eliza Llewellyn, another amazon powerhouse, based in Madrid, is also a company member of Theatre Flamenco San Francisco. The dreamy, introspective Keyana de Aguero, a former student of Benitez and performer with Teatro Flamenco, studies dance at University of New Mexico.

Then there’s Juan Siddi, himself. The speed of his vibrating footwork in his last solo looked like he had levitated himself off the stage. His duet with Zertuche, sensual, restrained and tender, was unusual with his hands on her shoulders and the couple spooning in quiet dialogue. This style is much more contemporary than what has been seen in the Benitez Cabaret in previous years. He bowed at the duet, and each backed off to exit on opposite sides of the stage, a courtly gentleman, even if he’s wearing a modern, fitted suit jacket over fitted slacks, a dark dress shirt and tie.

The inestimable addition– gritty and graceful musical collaborators – alternate traditional gypsy sound with an updated flair. They include three gypsy musicians who have toured the world: Spanish-born Jose’ Luis Valle Fajardo, “Chuscales”, Musical Director and gypsy guitarista, though he didn’t appear in this concert due to family business in Spain. Francisco Javier Orozco Fernandez, “Yiyi”, percussionist and cantaor, and Ricardo Anglada, guitarist complete the small band. Their evocative, smoky sound just fits the mood and fills the small theater space.

Siddi’s newly incorporated company has performed in Europe, the Middle East and the United States. Though his presence has been lively in the rest of the world, it is unique and welcome to have this energetic and superb company based in Santa Fe. Heads up, Lodge staff: the tiny wooden stage floor probably needs reinforcing again.

4th Annual Santa Fe Dance Festival: Moving People Dance Santa Fe

by Janet Eigner

Shaken down to the DNA, that’s how audiences responded to a number of Moving People Dance Santa Fe (MPD)’s contemporary works during this season’s fourth annual festival concerts, particularly Curtis Uhlemann’s premier, “DANCE PIECE #14 in GREEN.”

“#14″’s dancers moved so swiftly they blurred in their green-swirl unitards. Using simultaneous movement in closely positioned lines, soft yet energetic limbs, the 11 rushing dancers evoked a feeling of warm water, rivulets and streams, pooling in eddies and whirlpools, creating not the chaotic frenzy of a flood but the pleasure of nonstop, lapping currents.
Uhlemann’s work distilled, in its choreographic organization, the dominant style of dance MPD’s choreographer-teacher-performers produce: (led by Ronn Stewart, MPD’s charismatic Artistic Director and driving force, along with Associate AD, Uhlemann, and Assistant AD, Echo Gustafson.)

MPD’s choreographers frequently offer both dancers and viewers an earthquake of movement, always technically masterful, sometimes gifted in its clean choreography, like Stewart’s 2008 premier, ” THE TITLE IS 7/8 SEVEN,” using spare, spoken word and movement to uniquely describe uses of 7/8 rhythms in dance.  Other abstract and dynamic dances in  MPD’s powerfully minimalist style lack a clear enough conceptual development, so get repetitious, as in Uhlemann’s (2006) “Roda de Agua” and Stewart’s (2007) “See Oh! Too SATURATION.”

In addition to MPD’s resident choreographers, their repertory choreographers included Robert Moses, Max Stone and Sam Watson. These works had easily discernable themes, adding contrast and comic relief, like Moses’s (2004) sextet, “Drop Pillow,” Stone’s folding and unfolding movements, and lovely geometric lifts in the trio,  ”Undetermined Composition” ( 2006), Watson’s super-jittery duet “Wired,” (1988), a riff on electricity, and his also wildly witty (2003) “Punctuations:”

The 14 professional dancers in this ten-year-old company bring experience and personality differences that mesmerize: Gustafson looked like artisanal melting butter throughout her 2008 work, “Turn;” Erica Gionfriddo’s tall, willowy body swayed like a rooted tree in a hurricane in “#14″; Kevin Gallacher’s droll humor in “7/8″ and utter command of his play-dough elasticity during multiple pirouettes in “#14,”  Phylicia Roybal’s in-your-face strides and aggression  in “7/8,” Sarah Goldstone’s needling speed and design precision in “Undetermined Composition, ” Aaron Carr, Luke Reid-Grassia and Kyle Robinson’s feral muscular power,  back-arched leaps and turns in “#14,” Sarah Lustbader’s sustained and leggy lyricism in “Punctuations,” and the men’s command of lifts and partnering – no bobbles and lots of lifting variety in “See Oh! Too.”

Many of the artists both performed taught in the three-week dance intensive, Guest Artists Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and dancers from Ballet Austin performed in the opening concerts, then taught in the three week intensive with Jock Soto, Sam Watson, Rulan Tangen, Susan Quinn, Jeffrey Hughes, Fletcher Nickerson, and MPD choreographers. The festival closed  with a Community Dance Showcase on June 27th, and an Intensive Showcase June 28th.

Moving People Dance Santa Fe: Moving People Too! “2008 Louder Than Words”

by Janet Eigner

Exuberance, skill, dignity and poise describe the approximately fifty students,
most eight to eighteen, a few twenty and thirty somethings,
all of whom who ran with their teacher’s ten finely-crafted and original dances:
and rolled and flipped, swung and arabesqued, torqued and spun a hundred ways.

The delicious smorgasbord created by ten instructors and performers from MPDSF
reflects the diverse dance palate offered by the school, from ballet’s delicate,
finely synchronized choruses, pas de deus and wit of Lori Brody and Christin Fields Severini’s students, to modern-jazz fusion’s many moods: squiggled torso contractions, constant movement and driving runs, taught by Fletcher Nickerson, Curtis Uhlemann, Echo Gustafson and Ronn Stewart, those modern movements slowed down and given dignity by Erica Gionfriddo’s very poised younger students,  to Mike Garcia’s swinging tango duet, Kate Eberle’s aerobic-influenced adults, decorated with the flare of fringed shawls, fans and castanets on Julia Chacon’s five flamencas.

During the wait-listed and sold out concert, Moving People’s audience echoed the dancer’s exuberance.  The student concerts’ performance values have grown over the years: the program skillfully alternated themes, dance types, and moods, from the three ebullient opening dances (Severini’s Lost Connections, Chacon’s Sevillanas, and Brody’s Tutu Many Girls? ) to a marathon sprint of elastic technique and drama (Uhlemann’s #14 in Green), to a Gustafson’s meditative Inchoate Sky/Florescer, (though “Incohate” needed editing and/or more zip…it dragged), to Nickerson’s altogether fresh choreographic take on patriotism, to Garcia’s loosey-goosey Swango duet, to Stewart’s gently goofy Crazy, New, Beautiful.  Add elegant costumes, well-timed curtains, pauses and the dappled lighting by Todd Elmer, a slightly surreal and aesthetic through theme, uniting the works, often creating a sense of dancers underwater.

Every MPDSF has at least one choreographic jewel: this time, I’d nominate as especially outstanding the unique and nuanced modern choreography of Curtis Uhlemann’s #14 Green.  The geometry of his complex groupings for eleven dancers remained clear and precise throughout a breathtaking dive into modern movement. The dancers moved like they’d oiled their joints with WD-40.

In fact, each of the dances reflected a high level of choreographic freshness and design on the part of the instructor, and on the part of every dancer, poise and mastery. What polished pleasure and dance culture Moving People Santa Fe brings to our community.

Breaking news for some of us: Roger Montoya directs a newly-opened facility for MPDSF  in Espanola, already well-subscribed.  Wonder of wonders, a third of the students are boys, suggesting males may no longer be listed as an endangered species in (some) dance classes.

Mandalas: Past and Present at Weckesser Studio, College of Santa Fe, Saturday, May 23, 08

by Janet Eigner

When a company performs a knock-out concert, do you leave the theater zinging, every nerve a-twitch? Instead, the disciplined, erect dignity of Murray Spalding’s seven modern dancers, their bare feet quietly swishing the ground, spun precise meditative patterns on the College of Santa Fe’s theater floor, May 23, leaving the audience refreshed and calm.

In a dozen years, Spalding has created twelve mandala designs. Her choreographic power resides in the delicacy, restraint and elegance of each position. A short pause and dimmed lighting signal a mandala’s conclusion, before the radiant dancers unwind and reposition themselves to initiate the next design. Resident composer Evren Celimli’s restrained, synthesized music carpets the mandala’s tempos.

Each of the seven performed mandalas created a new focus and exploration, as the glowing dancers unfolded crisp patterns and sudden earth-grounded shifts. To capture each other’s position from the widest perspective, dancers cast their eyes a bit down, better able to see, hear and adjust to the others’ moves.

Often, seven heads gently tipped, like Sufis listening for cosmic direction. Arms made various angular wings, one arm bent behind the back. The dancers spun, their spines like straight stems incised by nature’s geometry – the magnetic pole, the orbit. Their feet and arms traced diagonals, formed triangles, waves.

A new, seventh dancer mostly stood back-center, arms slowly rising and descending, like Mother Muse Terpsichore blessing her girls. She reminded of dance’s ancient origins but distracted from the sacred design.

The Spaulding company’s third appearance in Santa Fe since 2001 began with XII, a world premier. XII’s more open, linear design signaled a departure from Spalding’s rigorous and repetitive circular patterns, draining the coherent, refreshing effect the other eleven mandalas offer.

Mandala X, informed by indigenous celebration, said Spalding, relaxed and bent the spines, an overall freer and circular shape, arms more softly curved and outreaching, foot stamps louder. X’s complex rhythms sent arms and legs swiftly changing directions. The movement’s rigor demonstrated a paradox: joining of the mandala’s spiritual origins with dance induced a peaceful effect, yet the dancers sometimes looked like fencers jousting without swords, and soldiers marching to a different drummer.

New York City-based Murray Spalding Mandalas performs this program June 12th through 14th, 8:30 pm, St. Mark’s Church/ Danspace Project.