Month: May 2015

May 30th, “Stay” and “Material of Attention”

Choreography by Hope Mohr 

I have never met her, but I love Hope Mohr

I think we could talk for hours about dance, movement, rhetoric even.  I very much enjoyed the show and her dancers. Although her work is abstract, it still speaks, articulates, thinks.  The program notes clearly reflect this attention/direction. The key, as it seems from the outside looking in, are dancers that can speak, articulate, and think with movement while holding performative space and doing performative practice.  I think I did what the program notes asked me to do – to  “stay inside [my] own subjective experience of these dances,” which is not easy to do, but easier with the right kind of dance and mood).

PS: went to Sandra Chin’s Professional Level ballet class and met James Graham, one of the dancers in the show.  We both ducked out during a complicated petite allegro, and had a great conversation about the making of the dances (and wearing that awesome skirt).  During our brief chat he reminded me that I am a dancer (even if I no longer get on stage) and that made me smile. 

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May 8th, “Margaret Jenkins Dance Company: An Intimate Evening of Three Choreographers”

Choreography by Margaret Jenkins, Katie Faulkner, and Risa Jaroslow

Last year I saw the Margaret Jenkins anniversary show at YBCA.  It was the first time I had seen her work live, and it was a great show so I was keen to see what she’d been up to.  I also wanted to go to see Katie Faulkner’s new piece, Coat of Arms.  I was happily surprised to see Lauren Simpson dance again (Still Life for Two No. 2) but this time in a different piece – a lovely mover.  Katie is also a lovely mover, and her piece was also lovely. The piece by Jenkins, A Gallery of Rooms, was not that interesting.  The dancers were great – as expected – but the choreography didn’t seem to do much, or rather say much. I really wasn’t inspired by the end of the evening.  I wasn’t disappointed.  I was just….well, just. 

PS – Just realized I didn’t write about Jaroslow’s two pieces, Thinking Aloud  and Evolutionary Tales.