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A Modern Night at the Folly 2011
Kansas City Star
KC Active
Review | City in Motion at the Folly TheaterBy NICOLE ENGLISHSpecial to The Starwww.kansascity.comCity in Motion's 8th annual "Modern Night at the Folly: A Choreographers' Showcase" continued its tradition of bringing together a colorful array of dance styles and genres. This year's concert presented original works of 11 choreographers, many of which featured strong social and ethnic themes, performed by some of the best dancers in the Kansas City area. The show opened with Hindu-inspired "Invocation," a stunningly beautiful piece performed and choreographed by Patrick Suzeau, professor of dance at the University of Kansas. Dressed in colorful silk pantaloons and traditional ankle-bells, Suzeau presented a cross-cultural mix of ethnic and modern dance to live sitar music. An unexpected delight was the novel "Nudibranch Ranch," choreographed by new-comer Tara Glaus, from Arizona. Dressed in an assortment of Dr. Seuss colors, and set to the high-tech sounds of The Knife, this clever ensemble piece combined Hip-Hop-inspired moves with shimmies and lifts. Humorous and teasingly risque, it was just plain fun to watch. One of the high-points of the program was the steamy "Givin' Up," choreographed and performed by the sensuous DeeAnna Hiett, partnered with up-and-coming talent Gavin Stewart. Earthy and erotic, this work explores the addictive attraction of passionate relationships, leaving the audience breathless in its wake. Maura Michelle Garcia combined African dance steps with modern dance in "Earth Madness." Set to politically themed verse by Phillip Meshekey, this piece explored ethnicity and equality through song and movement. Although occasionally repetitive, Garcia's work is energetic, expressive and engaging as she tackles issues of identity and ethnicity head-on. It is refreshing to see a choreographic works that explore social commentary. Justin Hundley debuted with his work "Back to You," set to music by Olafur Arnalds, an angular duet exploring the ebb and flow of human relationships. The first half closed with Susan Rieger's "Ark-eology," an abstract ensemble piece dressed in earthy hues, that invoked images of human history, including primate-inspired moves and imagery from ancient vases. The second half opened with the memorable "Solemn Vow," choreographed by Mary Pat Henry, an intriguing work featuring three dancers of different ages, each clothed in long Victorian dresses. The trio incorporated wooden chairs as props for the dance, exploring the changing moods of marriage through the years. Tiffany Sisemore created another socially conscious contemporary piece set to the poem "Our Story has Always Been Told Through Beats", performed live by spoken-word artist, Glenn North. Dressed in ruffled tops and black shorts, the piece blended words and movement in a fresh and interesting way. Suzanne Ryan presented a moving, politically charged ensemble work "The Disappeared," choreographed in honor of the Desaparecidos, those who disappeared during the 1970s junta in Chile. The dancers each held a photo of one of the Desaparecidos, as they enacted the pain of family members of the lost. Maggie Osgood Nicholls presented a short female duet, "Lover's Spit", dressed in short shifts and Capri leggings. A pleasant piece, the music appeared to be truncated before the song had finished, perhaps due to technical difficulties. The concert closed with a lively ensemble composition, "Something Unknown", choreographed by Stephanie Whittler and set to the contemporary sounds of Bjork.
A Modern Night at the FollyReview by David Ollingtonwww.KCactive.comA male soloist dances fluently to the accompaniment of live East Indian music. Brightly adorned dancers wiggle amongst a mailbox and a festively painted tire. A trio of women moves onstage as a poet passionately delivers his creation. City in Motion Dance Theater’s eighth annual concert A Modern Night at the Folly (Feb. 5) undeniably offered a wide selection. The dances ran the gamut both in tone and quality, resembling a variety show. City in Motion strives, according to their mission statement, “[T]o foster the development of high-quality contemporary dance programming and expand the dance audience in the greater Kansas City Metropolitan area.” Most of the pieces demonstrated excellence and innovation, true to the mission statement. Each choreographer last fall submitted a DVD of his or her work. City in Motion engaged a professional adjudicator, an anonymous dance professional, who viewed and selected the dances for the show.Patrick Suzeau composed and performed the opening dance “Invocation,” a delightfully spiritual offering. Reflective, joyful, and rhythmic, Suzeau hypnotized us with generous sweeps of the legs, solid turns and specific hand gestures. Equally engaging were the live accompanists, Maria Anthony on sitar and vocals, Clark Jamison on tabla, udu, and vocals, Deborah Pine on vocals, and Geeta Tiwari on tanpura and vocals.Contrast that with Tara T. Glaus’ “The Nudibranch Ranch and the Poke-Her-Chips-N-Failures,” the second dance. (Contrast and dance were constants of the evening.) Glaus adorned eight dancers in brightly colored tights and leotards. They stumbled around the stage working with three surrealistic props, a mailbox, a painted tire, and a trash can to music by the Knife. Glaus created surprising formations and group relationships. In several pieces, dancers bobbled in their balances. This was not a problem in Glaus’ piece, as she created a wobbly dance by choice. The awkward quality of the movement served the humorous nature of the piece, but she ended her dance with an unnecessarily bawdy choice, unfitting with the cleverness of the piece as a whole.The 940 Dance Company of Lawrence, Kansas provided two works, one by 940 dancer Justin Hundley and the other by Artistic Director Susan Rieger. Hundley titled his duet “Back to You.” Dancers Michaela Sherman and Ashley Trullinger executed Hundley’s intuitive choreography with calm commitment. Slashing movements gave way to extended stillness, making for a sensitive exploration of relationship.Rieger’s dance “Ark-eology” incited laughter with quirky movement choices, unexpected partnering, and a remarkably democratic group dynamic. One dancer in this piece, Bobbi Foudree, wore a cast on one arm, clearly not a costuming choice, and the dance seemed notably unaffected by the injury. Rieger used “Bacchanale” by John Cage for accompaniment, repetitive, quirky, and rhythmic music offering gaps of silence, which Rieger filled with motion.Tiffany Sizemore created the dance “Our Story Has Always Been Told Through Beats,” to poet Glenn North’s work of the same title. Leila Dilmaghani, Tuesday Faust, and Ann Shaughnessy danced beautifully to North’s impassioned words, centered on the African American experience. “Beats break like the bones of four little girls disintegrate after being blown up in an Alabama church,” North relayed into a microphone, and later said, “Government subjugates, prisons proliferate, immigrants assimilate, global economy inflates, earned wages dissipate.” Registering both the words and Sizemore’s choreography was challenging; a section with dancing in silence might have allowed the dancers to more effectively respond to North’s powerful text.M. Suzanne Ryan’s dance “The Disappeared” explored issues of longing, grief, and the challenge of dealing with the disappearance of a loved one. Emotion-laden motion of the piece included the pinning of photographs to the dancers’ leotards. Unfortunately, one of these unintentionally fell off onstage. The dance ended with a powerful image of a much larger photograph, held by one dancer center stage, confrontationally pointed towards us.Stephanie Whittler set a lush and satisfying octet on the City in Motion Dance Company, an effective finale. The company looks great, executing the dance together with some smooth partnering, like when one dancer ran up the backs of the rest of the group.Two duets made up the weaker offerings of A Modern Night at the Folly. “Givin’ Up” by DeeAnna Hiett brought the house down with flashy choreography, but belonged more on a dance competition reality show than in a concert of art dance. Maggie Osgood Nicholls’ inconsequential “Lover’s Spit” seemed out of place in this concert also, rudimentary and lacking impact. These two choreographers both titled their dances after the same title of the music they chose. Hiett chose to reenact the lyrics of Donny Hathaway’s music. Nicholls’ dance ended before the ending of Broken Social Scene’s song, forcing an early cessation of the music.Every year, this concert has grown in attendance and the professionalism of the work. The atmosphere was festive, the applause, generous.
25
Kansas City Star
KC Confidential
Review | City in Motion in 25th anniversary concertBy NICOLE ENGLISHSpecial to The Starwww.kansascity.comAs Kansas City's oldest community-based modern dance company, City in Motion celebrated its 25th anniversary with a solid performance and a standing ovation. Long supportive of area choreographers, City in Motion showcased an eclectic mix of compositions for an interesting if sometimes uneven program, ranging from the playful, to the sensuous, to the dark and foreboding. In the playful "Having a Ball", choreographed by Andrea Skowronek, the dancers used large blue exercise balls as props, reminiscent of a pin-ball game machine. "Rush", choreographed by Dale Fellin, was a high-energy, entertaining piece with the dancers flying across the stage in leaps and. bounds Fellin's sensual duet with Joanna Des Marteau in "The End Where We Begin" was engaging and well-executed. "Babel", choreographed by Donna Frogge, presented a modern dance rendition of the Tower of Babel story from the Bible. Kat Kimmitz, Andrea Skowronek and Stephanie Whittler all performed exceedingly well in both ensemble and solo work. "Growing Young", choreographed by Tracie Davis, featured a musical collaboration with 12 singers from the talented Heartland Men's Chorus, and live music. A favorite with the audience, it would have made an excellent finale number for the concert. The show closed with "Longing, Fleeting, the End", a suite for eight dancers in three movements, choreographed by Penelope Hearne. While visually stunning with its black shroud stretched across the stage against the backdrop of a projected moon, the closing number depended more on effect than choreography for its visual impact. Although the visuals were very appealing, the piece lacked context with the other movements of the suite, giving it an unfinished feel and an anti-climatic ending, despite (or perhaps because of) its promising potential. Hearne is definitely on to something creatively, and it will be interesting to see where she goes from here.
KC ConfidentialBrian McTavishwww.kcconfidential.comCity in Motion mixes old and new moves in 25th anniversary showVanessa Vaughn-West, president of City in Motion Dance Theatre, shared a few chummy words before Saturday nights performance at the Gem Theatre commemorating the companys 25th anniversary season in Kansas City.Her most noteworthy announcement to more than 200 attentive supporters was that former City in Motion artistic co-director Harlan Brownlee had recently completed transferring 90 of the troupes concerts from VHS to DVD.Even in original contemporary dance, duplication can be a good thing.To wit: Of the eight pieces performed Saturday at the Gem, two came from City in Motion's established repertoire, including the evenings first piece, Having a Ball (2004), which felt like a fun riff on a fitness class. Can you get any more accessible than that?The dance featured one male and six females interacting with blue exercise balls, accompanied by a hypnotic wash of recorded music by Godley & Crème and Brian Eno. The dancers reclined on the balls, rolled their bodies on the balls, ran and bumped into each other with the balls and raised the balls over their heads. At times, they could have passed for a collection of Atlases not merely bearing the weight of worlds but playing god with them.Next up was Rush, involving eight females who ironically didnt seem to be in any hurry to tackle their hoisting duties, as one woman at a time carefully lifted and wrapped the body of another woman around her. A recording from TTG Music Lab delivered a seductive throb.The choice of music was essential in establishing the languid mood of What will be..., featuring Pink Martini's slow and breathy take on Doris Days signature hit, Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be). Elegant solo dancer Andrea Skowronek let her body explore the surface of a low, oblong white table. She was joined by two other female dancers in undulating on the floor and investigating the open spaces beneath the table that seemed to serve as portals of transition and possibility.The concerts other archival piece, Babel (2005), was inspired by the hubristic story of the Tower of Babel. It offered seven females and one male scurrying in synchronization before succumbing to individual confusion and torment amid the twitching, percussive musical climax by Ken Ray Wilemon. A powerful motif was the dancers rigidly outstretched arms acting as sort of spiritual divining rods in the increasingly anguished search for meaning.The remainder of the show was new stuff, most ambitiously Growing Young, which included live accompaniment by the HeartACHES, a 12-member vocal ensemble from the Heartland Mens Chorus. The singers began somberly, but wound up evoking a Beach Boys-like pep. The musical change mirrored the developing story of the seven female dancers on stage. They initially appeared wearing black vests, belts, aprons and corsets, but later emerged in multi-colored versions of the same trappings perhaps still bound by advancing age, but not bowed by it.Solo dancer and self-choreographer Kat Kimmitz established interesting relationships with several tables placed on stage in Vonlenska, from lying down to hiding to lashing out. She was fluid yet fevered, like a cautious whirling dervish.Things got pretty steamy in The End Where We Begin, featuring Joanna K. Des Marteau and Dale Fellin. Amazing body control and convincing sensuality from the two dancers made for a succession of memorable embraces with pulse-quickening tribal electronica by TTG Music Lab.The show culminated with Longing, Fleeting, The End, an abstract amalgam of tangled lines of animation projected on a big screen and the tangled bodies of eight female dancers accompanied by rousing tunes from The Books, Big A little a and Carla Bozulich.The curtain didnt fall, but was pulled across the length of the stage by a dancer wearing it as her costume. I only hope someone was shooting video.
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