Monday January 14, 2012 - After being down with the flu for a week, I finally ventured out into the world for the first time and headed down to the Red Bean Studio where Takehiro Ueyama and the dancers of his company TAKE Dance were kicking off the first day of their 2013 Winter Intensive.
The morning had been given over to class, and when I got there they'd begun working on rep, specifically Take's arrestingly beautiful FOOTSTEPS IN THE SNOW, set to music by Arvo Part. I first encountered this haunting piece as an ensemble-work-in-progress presented in May 2008 as part of a performance by dancers from the Eugene Lang College of the New School. Thereafter, Take expanded on the content of the work while paring down the number of participating dancers to suit his own Company. FOOTSTEPS has become something of a TAKE Dance trademark, and it was interesting today to see parts of it being worked on at the Intensive.
Today TAKE Dance members Jill Echo, Kristen Arnold, Gina Ianni and John Eirich were in the studio teaching FOOTSTEPS to the large group of young dancers taking the Intensive. Aside from my dancer/friends Jamison Goodnight and Yuki ishiguro the room was full of beautiful and distinctive dancers working hard to assimilate both the movement style and the intangible atmosphere of this unique dancework.
Gina Ianni observing the ensemble.
John Eirich, Yuki ishiguro and Louisa Armstrong
Take gives some pointers
Jamison and...
I wish I could get back later in the week to see how FOOTSTEPS is progressing but this week is packed with opera, ballet and dance already. But for today, it was so good seeing Take, Jill, Gina, Kristen and John again, and I look forward to keeping tabs on their upcoming activities.
The next item on the TAKE Dance calendar is an appearance at the 2013 Dance from the Heart gala at the Cedar Lake Theater on January 29th. For these performances, which benefiit Dancers Responding to AIDS, dancer Jeff Sykes (above) will join TAKE Dance stalwarts John Eirich, Kile Hitchkiss and Brynt Beitman in the madly demanding men's quartet from SALARYMAN. Details of this event here.
The Company will perform SALARYMAN complete at Dance Place in Washington DC on March 23rd and 24th, and will appear at Joe's Pub on April 12th and 13th.
