dance flash @ the appeal: women on the way

This week at the San Francisco Appeal, I focused on the Women on the Way Festival.

It's an empowering celebration of boobs and hoo hahs at the Women on the Way (WOW) Festival, which starts this weekend and continues through the end of the month, and with 19 vastly different performing arts groups (theater, dance, spoken word, comedy, and aerial work), this festival covers a lot of ground. Artistic Director Mary Alice Fry says that Women on the Way tries "to help women break through to a place where they can recognize where their professional careers might be going and make a commitment to themselves."

For the entire advance, go here.

Photo of Sonya Smith & Dancers
by Lydia Daniller

Scott Wells & Dancers at Project Artaud

Scott Wells & Dancers
Presented by ODC Theater
At Project Artaud Theater
July 10, 2008, 8PM

Scott Wells & Dancers flew through the air last night at the Project Artaud Theater. With captivating lifts and contact movement, Wells seemed poised to take our breath away, but I left without needing an inhaler, a slight shame when reflecting on the overall scheme of things.

Wells’ “Home,” an early 90s cult hit, closed the show, and while it reminded me of how my high school and college days could have been but weren't, the ending fizzled into a blur. The five dancers spent the first portion building relationships to a montage of music and old-style radio ads, but then it became more about headswishing to Nirvana and swaying to Handel than anything else. The mood, though, filled me with hope that I might just be able to perform a double twist onto my living room's aged Busvan for Bargains sofa. I more so enjoyed the smaller and more intimate connections built throughout. Suzanne Lappas and Lindsay Gauthier explored girl power with sweetness, and Hallie Aldrich and Ross Hollenkamp shared special times over chairs. Andrew Ward played the odd one out, yet still won our hearts.

“Gym Mystics,” which premiered last year, opened with Rajendra Serber twirling and coddling a wood beam. Eight dancers gracefully flew across the floor with an eye-catching cartwheel-and-somersault canon, and the work later moved to a hilarious pas de trois with Serber, Lappas, and Aldrich on the segmented balance beam. These three played with ideas of emotional and physical support while building confidence to tackle the difficult, all while looking semi-swanlike, even in their striped yoga pants and tanks.

“West Side (story) Dances” also made it’s debut on the bill, but fell short of expectations. After seeing San Francisco Ballet sing and dance its way through Jerome Robbins’ ballet version, I felt like this one didn’t quite cut the mustard. Or as Randy Jackson may say, Wells didn’t make it his own. Using a lot of unison, both in groups and partner dancing, the audience sort of “got it” quickly. People are happy. People are sad. People are fighting. People are singing (and these people shouldn’t sing). Oh, and people are doing the mambo. For me, the choreography shined when Wells jumps about fifteen steps outside of the box. Part way through, dancers ran, slid, jumped, and spun onto the dimly stage from the audience’s side entrance, and all of a sudden, there was something unexpected. And that left me breathless.

West Wave Dance Festival, Program 9, 7/2005

Wild (yet) Mild West
West Wave Dance Festival
Program 9 at ODC Theater
July 30, 2005

A few weeks ago, I saw Program 2 of the West Wave Dance Festival, and while sparsely attended, the majority of the choreography infused originality with maturity. Last night at the opening of the two-day run of Program 9, the audience filled all of the seats and more. Perhaps this was a preview of things to come, as the works presented were not nearly as fulfilling as those of Program 2.

Two pieces stood out above the rest. With energetic and poignant music performed live by Sekou Alaje and Garno Da Paz (composed by Alaje and Ajai Jackson) and powerful vocals by Rhonda Benin, Kendra Kimbrough Barnes’ excerpt of Enduring Legacy, based on the death of her mother, combined traditional African dance with modern movement into an abstract retelling of a memory of her mother. Barnes’ choreography never stopped flowing, and her dancers’ (Shelley Davis, Clairemonica Dixon, Kelly Kennard, Latanya Tigner, and Barnes) ability to move from one genre of dance to another was quite impressive.

EmSpace’s Erin Mei-Ling Stuart presented an excerpt of How to See Red, a work that focuses on consciousness and the attempt to contemplate and understand what goes on inside of our heads. With costumes by Leigh Anne Martin that resembled an Anthropologie catalog, Stuart’s dancers, from a raised arm to sitting Indian-style, exuded a physical and emotional professionalism not seen anywhere else during the evening. Inventiveness, structure, and developed phrases tend to be Stuart’s strengths, and How to See Red proved to be a great example of this. While the overall work is still unfinished, I can’t wait to see the final product, which premieres later this October at Dance Mission.

Heidi Schweiker, a dancer in both Margaret Jenkins’ and Janice Garrett’s dance companies, presented the premiere of Come Rain, a solo for herself accompanied by an original score by local music extraordinaire Daniel Berkman. Her directional choices peaked my interest; she progressed from sharp and jagged to soft, sensual, and reflective, and her movements were focused, deliberate, and thoughtful. But Come Rain appeared more as a movement study than as a choreographic work. The debate between these two is for another day, however. Nancy Karp’s Trio Set, performed by Christy Funsch, Diane McKallip, and Anne-Lise Reusswig, felt like a placeholder. Based to some degree on the play Three Tall Women and with minimalist movement reminiscent of the early 80s, Trio Set focuses on graceful dancing that builds up and then POW, changes direction or focus. While some aspects are successful, I felt that the dancers never quite related to each other; instead, there were three separate entities dancing onstage instead of a trio. The first work of the evening was by Moving Art’s Michael Lowe with the premiere of Ghost, Life Unfinished, a fictional work that is abstractly based on the life and death of Teresa Teng, a popular Chinese folk singer. Lowe attempted to fuse traditional ballet with Chinese folk dance, but the outcome appeared superficial and unclear. Much of Lowe’s focus was on actual classical ballet positions and flexed wrists and not on the movements in between, and I felt uncomfortable watching the work, as though I were looking at pictures of Caucasian women dressed up as an American’s traditional image of a Chinese woman (black bob wig, white face, white cheongsam) with the addition of pointe shoes. Lowe has received a lot of praise for his choreographic skills, so I hope this work is simply a fluke of nature.

Overall, Program 9 presented some worthy choreography, but I feel that the expansion of the festival has caused some of the quality to be watered down. In both programs that I viewed, there was one piece of choreography that was clearly not up to the level of the others. Perhaps the festival needs to revamp how works are selected, who presents on the emerging choreographers’ program, and who presents at all. Even with the below-average selections, I believe that the festival as a whole offers Bay Area choreographers a supportive and intimate forum to present their work. Let's hope the festival is a little more focused next year.

West Wave Dance Festival, Program 2, 7/2005

West Wave Dance Festival - Program 2

The Waves Come Crashing In
July 14, 2005
ODC Theatre, San Francisco

The West Wave Dance Festival has returned to San Francisco for its 14th season. Composed of nine programs over two and a half weeks, the Festival presents new, emerging and established Bay Area choreographers at the ODC Theater and the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Center through July 31st.

Program 2 included three world premieres and two additional works. Definitely a standout, John Kloss’ toe-tapping “Measured Response” combined crisp sounds with varied rhythms to create a build-up of melodious energy that burst at just the right time. Lisa Townsend’s choreography always embodies structure, originality and freshness, and “can i want it?” is no exception. With music composed by Piro Patton, the six dancers moved with speed, purpose and agility, and Townsend’s sense of choreographic maturity was the highlight of the night.

Lori Bryhni, on the faculty at Modesto Junior College, presented her “Familiar Voices in Tender Passing.” While her dancers, all students at MJC, were highly competent, the choreography itself combined an excess of modern dance clichés: running in a circle; big, jazz-like straddle leaps; and chaîné turns into big jetés. Bryhni’s dancers were also caught in the shadows at times, perhaps because the blue-toned lighting design by Michael J. Sundquist was originally set for a different theater.

In contrast, watching Annie Rosenthal Parr and Ashley Holladay’s “Field,” to music by Tin Hat Trio, I felt transformed to a large wheat field where women were running about under the starry sky somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Parr and Holladay showcased strong, physical movement such as sweeping grande battements and developés into scissor-sharp arabesques, and the lighting, wind effects, and props were smartly used.

Huckabay McAllister’s Jenny McAllister premiered “Don’t Open Until Christmas,” a quirky take on all things merry with a wonderful musical score by Danny Elfman, Huey P. Meaux, and Garrison Keillor. While not as intricate as “can i want it?”, McAllister’s zany ride through Christmas via modern dance, gestures and parody gave a sense of lightness without becoming too bubblegum sweet.

Program 2 contained a variety of modern and contemporary movement styles, and I am excited to view Program 9 at the end of the month. For more information about the West Wave Dance Festival, visit www.danceartsf.org.

West Wave Dance Festival, Program 2, 7/2004

Program 2
ODC Theater
July 23, 2004, 8PM

Summerfest/dance's mission is "to provide veteran and newly-established choreographers of all cultures and disciplines, in and beyond the Bay Area, an opportunity to present their work in a professional venue in order to experiment, develop, and refine their repertories, and to build audiences without the burden of self-producing." This year, Summerfest/dance's West Wave Dance Festival, held jointly at ODC Theater and the Cowell Theater, showcases 22 choreographers and includes 15 world premieres. Program 2 opened Friday night at ODC Theater and included works by Lisa Townsend Company, Deborah Slater Dance Theater, Scott Wells & Dancers, Brittany Brown Ceres, EmSpace Dance, and Company Mécanique.

The sold-out program opened with Slater's "TRIO (in the space between)", set to music by Erling Wold, Thom Blum, and St. Germaine. Based on a painting by Alan Evans Feltus, "TRIO" is a work for three dancers and utilizes text by Deborah Crooks, balls, and chairs. The movements varied between very circular movements, such as contractions and rounded arm positions, and intricate balances on the chairs. While the balances were impressive and unusual, I felt that they could have been better woven into the greater scheme of the work, which felt unfocused and unpolished.

Following "TRIO" was Scott Wells' "Duet in three parts: Fun. Struggle. may-be Beauty," danced by Gabriel Forestieri and Christine Cali. Emphasizing a relationship's progression, Wells used strong lifts and weight balances to represent the give-and-take aspect to great effect. Forestieri and Cali danced with great control, and their use of breath added a realness to the pure physical movement presented.

Next was Britanny Brown Ceres' "Wandrian," with music by Chalres Amirkhanian. Dressed in busy-patterned yet flowing garments by Linda Brown, the 6 female dancers wove in and out of intricate patterns with ease and agility. Ceres developed and expanded her release movements through the incorporation of canon and repetition, yet the work did not become dull. Instead, it created a sense of urgency towards the climax of a new place, of change and resolution.

Opening the second half of the program was one of the more successful pieces of the evening. EmSpace Dance's "Songs for You," is a dance about 6 paranoid people trapped in an empty room, choreographed by Erin Mei-Ling Stuart with music by The Mountain Goats/John Damielle. Stuart's thoughtful and unexpected choreographic choices were refreshing and unique. And while the strategically placed duct tape and use of brick wall were visual reminders of being physical stuck, the movement still contained a great abstract quality.

Lisa Townsend's "that i am not you" was set to music composed by Piro Patton and spoken word by Tom Patton. "that i am not you" is an excerpt from the upcoming full evening work entitled ENVY Project. Townsend and Alisa Rasera performed Townsend's choreography with great energy and conviction.

The final performance of the evening was Sara Shelton-Mann's "Eddy/ against the main current," which was the only non-premiere of the evening. Performed by Company Mécanique Dance Theater, this work integrated insightful text by James Kass and dynamic music by Daniel Berkman. Shelton-Mann's choreography and phrasing used circular patterns and arcing movements to convey ideas of progression, regression, and revolution. The dancers' motions seemed effortless and, combined with the powerful side lighting, appeared continuous like a never-ending story.

Program 2 of the West Wave Dance Festival is diverse choreography-wise, presenting performance art, live music, and interesting and creative movements well. But the one aspect that disappointed me was the lack of ethnic diversity. Ethnicity was pretty much a no-show, with no asian american or black dancers, and I cannot remember the last dance performance that I have seen where this was so apparent. Hopefully, the upcoming programs will be more representative of the dancer community.

Program 2 repeats tonight, July 24th, at 8PM at ODC Theater. Programs 3 and 4 will be presented at the Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Center. For more information, visit www.summerfestdance.org or call 415.863.9834.