Tempe Center for the Arts
December 11-12, 2009
Breaking Ground 2009 showcased work by twelve choreographers, including five premieres, a short film and two site specific dances performed in the theater lobby.
The evening’s roster was pleasingly diverse and ran the full gamut in choreographic styles with music ranging from Bach to The Revolting Cocks. It was refreshing to see work by emerging, mid-career and established choreographers within the same show. The effect was a well-arranged, substantial and engaging program with never a dull moment.
The evening’s many highlights included “The Ascetic,” by Stephen Koester. Soloist Graham Brown gave a compelling performance of pure movement that he seemed to passively ride rather than kinetically drive. Shirtless in long, flowing pants, the costume was perfectly suited for trailing behind the lush, varied movement. The loose, acrobatic tumbling and swinging leaps were expertly lit by Aaron McGloin.
Keith Johnson’s intriguing premiere, “Letter to Juliet,” was beautifully performed by Rogelio Lopez Garcia and Andrew Merrill. Themes of love and loss were immediately evoked by the music of Elvis Costello and the Brodsky Quartet, chosen from a suite inspired by a literature professor who answered letters written to Shakespeare's Juliet. Often holding hands and grabbing each other’s chests, the dancers constantly replaced each other on the floor and demonstrated emotional turmoil. An erotic rolling section on the floor was well-done and each dancer had an anguished solo. The music’s literary reference materialized in the repeated and effective use of paper on stage. At one point the duet sprinkled pink confetti as they walked together; other times paper was angrily crumpled and thrown all over the floor. The piece ended intensely with one man handing the other a folded piece of pink paper.
Cliff Keuter’s premiere, “After the Wind” treated the audience to a solo by seasoned dance veteran, Elina Mooney, who first performed with the Tamiris/Nagrin Company in the 1960’s. Keuter’s choreography, via Mooney’s performance, evoked a hauntingly reminiscent quality allowing abstract thoughts to appear through movement and pass without judgment. Excellent music by Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki, costumes by Galina Mihaleva and lights by Mark Ammerman all amplified the impact of the piece. The audience responded with resounding and lengthy applause.
“ATROCIOUS” was choreographed, costumed and performed by Ashleigh Leite. Leite also lent her voice to the music medley which included The Revolting Cocks and Cyndi Lauper and created a video projected on the scrim for the piece’s finale. Excellent lighting by Aaron McGloin framed soloist Leite as she mightily executed emphatic, spastic and sharp movements while angry-looking pedestrians hurried past, dumping piles of clothes on the floor as they passed. The dancer added and subtracted various costumes throughout the dance, rifling through and rolling in the growing sartorial piles. The stage became completely cluttered and Leite assumed a prone position among the clothes center stage for a powerful photographic visual lasting throughout the entertaining finale video of Leite lip-synching to Cyndi Lauper. The multimedia piece was a wonderfully unselfconscious romp and the audience responded with laughter, cheers and mighty applause.
Carley Conder premiered “Replica 2/4,” featuring the music of Phillip Glass performed live by Tetra Chamber Artists string quartet. Four dancers demonstrated the wonderfully abstract work’s recurrent catching and falling movement themes. Two tone grey costumes accentuated Conder’s colorful movement style and the intentionally audible stomping of the dancers’ feet at one point provided an effective musical over-layer for the live strings.
Carley Conder herself gave a compelling solo performance in young choreographer Cerrin Lathrop’s site specific holiday-themed dance called, “It’s Christmas Time Again,” mirroring the title of the Mel Torme album bearing the selected music. Conder’s performance lent intensity to Lathrop’s whimsical work, even while dancing on carpet and without the benefit of theater lighting.
Breaking Ground 2009 was far more than a choreography showcase. The program allowed important influences from dance history to give additional relevance to the present moment in choreography, while glancing ahead curiously toward dances that are not yet made. A reminder of the incredible diversity in modern dance, the tasteful convergence of past, present and future made for a rich, multi-layered portrait of what contemporary choreography was, is and will hopefully be.
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