dance writer

In an evening of four dances, Madison's Kanopy Dance Company forged some new territory and unearthed a few Kanopy relics. The company has been around long enough under the direction of Lisa Andrea Thurrell and Robert E. Cleary to establish a repertoire, and it has been their practice to repeat old dances. In a small dance town like Madison, it can be tiresome to see the same dances year after year and many Madison choreographers suffer this fate by placing quantity of concerts presented over quality. But this time in Kanopy's annual Dark Nights concert, which could have been called "Dark Souls", new dancers tackled lead roles in the old works, and the pieces gained some strength with the new blood. That, combined with the intelligent theatrical Monkey see Monkey do created by guest artists Amit Lahav and Natalie Ayton of Britain's Gecko Theatre Company made for and engaging and diverse evening. The concert likened a dance sandwich--two end pieces with a c...

Pilobolus Dance Theater defies categorization. Known for their physical feats and visual treats, they've created their own brand of modern dance. The company, now in its 39th year, visited Madison, Wisconsin last night and in the vast Overture Hall, they presented an athletic, inventive, diverse and sometimes thought-provoking concert of six works. Upon occasion, Pilobolus dances carry a message. But most often they provide high entertainment value. Their stylistic assortment started off with the rough-and-tumble Redline , made in 2009 in the Pilobolus traditional collaborative spirit---by numerous choreographers. Starting in a stiff straight line, then slowly swinging their heads, then arms, then legs, six dancers progressed downstage. Random hunched over walking patterns evolved into an explosion of hurtling bodies. Dancers sporting red and black wrestling shorts and boxing boots ran at each other at top speed and launched themselves over backwards, airborne, in between...

Alonzo King’s dances don’t depict simple stories. In fact, there was nothing simple about his LINES Ballet performance on Saturday at the Wisconsin Union Theater. King built a rich detailed movement vocabulary brought forth by ten exquisite dancers in the two full-company works presented. A brief hopeful solo opened the first piece, Signs and Wonders , originally created in 1995. The lone dancer rippled his spine and with swirling gestures moved as if he had no skeleton. Yet as others joined energetically fusing the inventive loose contemporary arm gestures with the rigid torso and legs of classical ballet, the piece moved in no clear direction. Throughout the nine sections, an intriguing style of physical juxtaposition emerged and the dancers took this style with ease. Able to create an awkward tension in their bodies through distorted shapes, they flexed their feet, angled their arms, held parallel leg positions and moved through impossible lifting sequences, all with the fl...

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Dance Program showcased its annual faculty concert this week, held for the first time in many years in the Wisconsin Union Theatre. While able to accomodate a larger audience, the ambience at the Union pales in comparison to the made-for-dance comfortable H'Doubler Theatre in Lathrop Hall. Poor sightlines (no rake to the main floor seating), broken seats, chipping paint, and a cumbersome tech table placed in the middle of the audience don't create the inviting, tidy and professional atmosphere of the H'Doubler. But bring the lights down and begin the program, and most of the blemishes fade away. Technically, this concert was huge. Each of the seven multi-media dances necessitated a crucial balance of staging, design, and lighting. Uncredited in the program, lighting designer Claude Heintz sculpted each piece in a meaningful, artful, and in many cases stunningly beautiful way. The stand-out piece of the evening was not by a UW fac...

It's hard to believe that another dance icon has passed from our world. Well, that is to say that on the heels of the death of Pina Bausch, Merce Cunningham has left his flesh body. But his amazing life and career will long impact the world beyond dance, beyond life as we know it. Not much can be said about Merce that he hasn't already told us. From my own outside perspective, I had one long-lasting impression of being in the same room as Merce. In the mid 1990's, he brought his company to perform in Madison, Wisconsin. Highlighting the concert was his exquisite Beach Birds at the end of which came the company bow. Merce entered the stage slowly and steadily emitting a presence that was unmatched by anyone in the room. Knowledge, confidence, clarity and calm radiated from his thin arthritic body. This was not an impostor or an understudy, this was Merce Cunningham. One of the few artists to fearlessly embrace the present and allow his work to evolve, Merce threw ...

Here’s a sample of the dance feast you can partake in for 2009-2010 in Chicago: At the Museum of Contemporary Art http://www.mcachicago.org/performances/index.php Nora Chipaumire with Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited lions will roar, swans will fly, angels will wrestle heaven, rains will break: gukarahundi October 1, 3, 4, 2009 Lucinda Childs DANCE October 15-17, 2009 Anna Halprin, Anne Collod and guests parades & changes, replays November 5, 7, 8, 2009 Akram Khan Company & National Ballet of China bahok February 26-28, 2010 The Seldoms with Fraser Taylor Marchland March 12-14, 2010 John Jasperse Company Truth, Revised Histories, Wishful Thinking, and Flat Out Lies April 9-11, 2010 At the Dance Center of Columbia College http://www.colum.edu/dance_center/performances.php Merce Cunningham Dance Company October 1, 2, 3, 2009 Lucky Plush Productions October 22, 23, 24, 29, 30, 31, 2009 Cloud Dance Theatre of Taiwan January 22, 23, 2010 Koosil-ja/danceKUMIKO February 4, 5, 6...

My first experience with Pina Bausch was through a German Dance festival in Chicago in the early 1980’s. I didn’t see her work performed live, but at the encouragement of my modern dance teacher, watched a film called “On Tour with Pina Bausch”. The film changed my perspective of dance forever. Until that point, I had only known dance as pure movement and only considered it from a technical standpoint. Bausch innovatively stretched the limits of dance technique and movement, but in a compelling theatrical way. Somehow she found a way to use the abstraction of dance vocabulary to tell concrete and powerful stories. And not only did Bausch influence countless choreographers, but she did so from a home base of the industrial Ruhrgebiet---a region comparable to Gary, Indiana in the U.S. Her influences will no doubt be felt for years to come. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/arts/dance/01bausch.html