Monday July 6, 2009 - This year Emerging Artists kicked off the SummerDANZ Festival at Dance Theatre Workshop with works by Gregory Dolbashian, Sara Joel, and Sydney Skybetter featuring past creations and world premieres from each artist. Photo above: Sara Joel by Lois Greenfield.
Mr. Dolbashian presented (and danced beautifully in) Grey Flowers, originally commissioned by Chicago Ballet, as well as a solo for himself (Double or Nothing) and a darkly impressive sextette (Overwhelmed by You). Ms. Joel, who is very pregnant, appeared in the solos Enfold and Surface, while a pair of astonishingly limber women created striking images in the sculptural beauty of Boundless. Sydney Skybetter’s superbly structured Halcyon (a world premiere) closed the evening on a vibrant note, while his earlier quartet (Fugue State) and a dramatic duet to Arvo Part's "Da pacem Domine" (Near Abroad) both featured the dancer whose participation drew me to the performance tonight, Kristen Arnold of TAKE Dance.
Suspended in a cocoon of white parachute silk for Enfold, Ms. Joel stretched her limbs and shifted her body - with surprising ease, considering her advanced pregnancy - causing the fabric to create its own dance: subtly lit, it became a teardrop or a star, continually evolving with each move the enfolded dancer made. The vocal music, Romance by Sasha Lazard, completed a memorable performance.
Grey Flowers (above) opens with three dancers silhouetted against a blood-red backpanel. To a Vivaldi lament, Miranda Grove, Elizabeth Luse and Gregory Dolbashian enact the conflicts of a romantic triangle with expressive gestures and sometimes violent moves. Tenderness is fleeting: Gregory cannot decide, so moves from one woman to the other as they react to his shifting attentions. The music transitions to Radiohead, the colour-drenched panel turns blue. The piece ends with a choice seemingly made yet questions remaining. Despite the jarring disparity in the two musical settings, Grey Flowers works well and all three dancers were excellent.
Sydney Skybetter (above) chose a lilting and sometimes harmonically off-kilter movement from Shostakovich's Piano Quintet (Op. 57) for his romping Fugue State. Four dancers, all in black trousers, move with assurance thru folk-inspired combinations and thru pairings of same- or opposite-sex. Dancing with Sydney were Kristen Arnold, Jennifer Jones and Bryan Campbell, all four reveling in the sheer joy of movement.
In a solo self-portrait Double or Nothing, Gregory Dolbashian amplified the beautiful impression he had made as a dancer in Grey Flowers. Here, clad in baggy trousers, he moved with the fluid power of a jaguar against the mournful music of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (The Proposition). Gregory's gleaming, handsome torso was spellbinding as the dancer became the dance.
Kristen Arnold (above) and Bryan Campbell (below) were the dancers and Arvo Part's heavenly choral sounds in Da pacem Domine were the setting for Sydney Skybetter's gorgeous duet, Near Abroad.
Clad in identical dark trousers and soft blue shirts, Kristen and Bryan moved poetically thru sustained balances and shaped gestures in a duet which seemed to me to evoke the exhaustion of love. Passion and tenderness ebb and flow as do shades of resignation or regret. The movement is hypnotic and the dancers often sink to the floor as the dreamlike work evolves. In an evening full of memorable images, Kristen and Bryan excelled.
Ms. Joel worked with Anna and Emily Venizelos to create a radically contortive duet, Boundless. Performed to Santana's Put Your Lights On, Anna and Emily moved with uncanny, extreme bend and stretch to create images of almost unsettling beauty - unsettling in that their costumes had a somewhat S & M feel. The audience seemed spellbound by their elastic virtuosity and for all their acrobatic accomplishment, the lighting and the slowness of their unfolding made a poetic impression.
After the intermission during which Kokyat and I couldn't get over what a good time we were having, Ms. Joel reappeared in a suspended clear plastic bubble chair for Surface. Watching Ms. Joel move one could only imagine that her baby will be born dancing. The only slight blot on the evening was some flat vocalism in this piece but of course that's nothing to do with Ms. Joel's courageous performance.
In the first of two larger-scale works, Gregory Dolbashian's Overwhelmed by You calls for six dancers paired off in same-sex couples to begin. Clad in remnants of dark formal-wear, the pairs move each in their own sphere to music by Corbashian Mix. The atmosphere is intense, as though each dancer was quietly sizing up his/her partner. The pairs begin to intermingle; there is a skidding motif and they move about the space perhaps examining the possibilities of changing partners. In the end they return to their original mates though clearly undercurrents of restlessness remain. Although I could not put names to faces or forms, all six dancers were compellingly attuned to the choreographer's demands: Marie Doherty, Caitlin Fennick, Lesley Garrison, Alexandra Johnson, Christopher Ralph, and Gilbert Small.
The premiere of Sydney Skybetter's Halcyon closed the evening on the highest of high notes. To music of Carlos Paredes as performed by the Kronos Quartet, Sydney offered an almost formal work with transforming patterns and marked by flowing, sweeping port de bras. To begin, nine dancers (all are dress in simple black) stand like players on a chessboard. A tenth dancer moves in, knocking one player off the board. The set rearranges and the nine players continually evolve; their comings and goings have an urgent fluidity. Two teams of five dancers each form, crossing the stage with quiet speed. Unison gestures signal community, yet smaller cells form and dissolve as the work evolves. While again all the dancers deserve praise, I was especially drawn to watching Kristen and Bryan, her partner from the earlier duet.
We emerged into a beautiful, breezy evening feeling pretty elated by what we had seen and heard.
I will try to go tonight. It sounds really good! Thanks for the extensive posting.
Posted by: Andrea | July 07, 2009 at 10:47 AM