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by
Carrie Stern
Information
welcomed at
dancenews@brooklyneagle.net
The
Gowanus Arts Building
glows in the middle of an industrial block between Park Slope and Cobble Hill.
Waves of improvisational jazz waft from a first floor club. An intricate,
mosaic hallway leads to two flights of ancient, wide plank stairs. At the
top is Spoke the Hub’s performance space — black velvet
curtains defining a box stage, twinkling lights overhead instead of house
lights.
Choreographer
Elise Long of Spoke the Hub has been producing mixed venue showcases since
1980; first in her Park Slope living room, then in the Gowanus Arts
Building (a renovated soap factory opened in 1985) and now also in the
Spoke the Hub Re:Creation Center (opened in 1995).
The
year-old Gowanus Wildlife Preserve showcase was an informal, mixed series.
“A good live lab,” Long calls it, for “performing
artists, not just choreographers, to publicly share new, even a bit raw
work in a safe, comfortable, well-equipped space.”
Long
looks “for a variety of aesthetic approaches,” forms, and
backgrounds. They look for “a certain level of competence,”
though some of the artists are at the beginning of their careers, while others
are experienced and trying to maximize performance opportunities, or
“seasoned creators who need to get something up in front of strangers
so they can go home and work on it more.” Mixed programming builds
audience, and the house was full.
Using
celebratory rhythms from throughout West Africa,
the four women percussion ensemble, Batuba Collective, works with
traditional, complex, syncopated, jazz-like patterns. In Doundoun
Arrangement Gabriella Dennery’s fiddle plays call and response with
Jacqueline Francis’, Gena Jefferson’s, and Corey Myers’
doundoun drumming. Their delicate interaction makes for powerful music.
Toward the end Dennery divides the audience, giving a distinct clapping
rhythm against the drums to each.
Susan
Cherniak, whose fifteen years as Cherniak Dance’s choreographer make
her the most seasoned on the program, heard about Wildlife from another
established dancer, Claire Porter, who showed a piece last spring.
Cherniak’s aim is to give her dancers — Kristina Horn, Jennifer
Smith Lee, Rod Rufo — a chance to “really get the
movement” of the relatively new Temporal Circles “into their
muscles.” The dancers enter running, leaning and pulling against each
other, circling the space and each other. After initially slow rhythms, the
paths and patterns become increasingly complex as the dancers break into
overlapping spirals and circles.
The
beauty of Cherniak’s piece is its deceptive simplicity. The six-woman
Bosilek Bulgarian Folk Dance Ensemble is simplicity itself. Twenty-seven
years old, it is a classic representative of Soviet-style folk
choreography. Wearing stunning, traditional, rainbow-colored costumes
embroidered everywhere with lush flowers or geometric designs, even socks
worn under the traditional opanci are decorated. Suites of walking dances
and melodies represented the six regions of Bulgaria
and the capital, Sofia.
Walking
dances intersperse forward walks with tiny hops, side steps, and reverse
steps. The best dancers’ steps are clear and small, their bodies
straight, arms down or swinging. Such simple choreography requires great
precision. While these dancers showed none of the verve that marks the best
performers of this genre, the simplicity of their feet moving in unison as
their line split into a multiple of formations was a welcome break from
modern dance.
Eva
Perrotta’s Promenades Soporifiques (excerpt) opens with a white
costumed dancer occasionally shifting position inside a gold picture frame.
Intriguing as this opening is, the choreography rapidly bogged down;
Perrotta didn’t seem to know how to keep the frame in motion. The
lovely, skilled dancers were given little to work with and the big gold
frame truly became part of the piece only near the end.
Synthesis
Dance Project’s Illion is simply not my cup of tea, but that is the
point. A mix of gymnastics, jazz and ballet, its unison, uninflected
choreography is reminiscent of the Grammy awards. This is not to disparage
the dancers, strong, lithe and incredibly on balance, not a misstep among
them.
Belinda
Mello’s Monologue Workshop cleverly turned popular songs into
dialogue. Alexander Romanitan’s, Michaela Lind’s, and Lucie
Bezdickova’s characters made the lines of “Autumn
Leaves,” “Just a Thought,” and “It’s All Over
Now Baby Blue” new through gesture and physical play. Next at Spoke
the Hub: “Winter Follies,” a seasonal Local Produce production.
Uncurated, the first 25-30 people who call to sign-up get 5 minutes to
perform; the audience votes for their favorite at the end. Winners get 50
hours of free rehearsal space and a full, fall weekend production. |
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