Tag Archives: choreography

Jan23

One Billion Rising: A Global Dance Revolution

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One Billion Rising: A Global Dance Revolution

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One Billion Rising, a global dance revolution slated for Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 2013, invites the world to take it to the streets and dance in support of ending violence against women. Imagine one billion people all over the world, using the power of numbers to spread this message…. And you could be one of them. Call it the world’s largest flash mob –and who doesn’t love a good flash mob – especially one with a purpose that aims to serve the greater good.

As a sticker on the OBR website states, hard times require furious dancing.

The catalyst of this dance phenomenon is V-Day, a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls started by playwright Eve Ensleur (creator of The Vagina Monologues ) and a group of women in New York City. Each year Eve allows groups around the world to produce a performance of the play, as well as other works created by V-Day, and use the proceeds for local individual projects and programs that work to end violence against women and girls.
V-Day also stages large-scale benefits and produces innovative gatherings, films and campaigns to educate and change social attitudes towards violence against women.

The legendary dancer Debbie Allen has choreographed a simple dance sequence to the One Billion Rising anthem “Break the Chain” written by acclaimed songwriter Tena Clark. “Break the Chain” was recorded by young women and the flash mob features teens from around the New York City area.

Feeling inspired? It’s easy to get involved. Search the website to find a local rising in your area or start one yourself. You can also download the toolkit and help promote the event or start your own rising. There’s still plenty of time to learn the choreography; it’s simple and straightforward.

Here’s a video to get you started. Learn the moves directly from Debbie Allen:

All over the world, the word is spreading and people are rehearsing. It’s easy to see why when you consider:

• IN THREE WOMEN ON THE PLANET WILL BE RAPED OR BEATEN IN HER LIFETIME.
• ONE BILLION WOMEN VIOLATED IS AN ATROCITY
• ONE BILLION WOMEN DANCING IS A REVOLUTION

One Billion Rising France:

OBR Hong Kong:

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Oct24

Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet: A Review

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Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet: A Review

Lines

 

Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet is not your typical ballet company for so many reasons. At the top of that list of reasons is mastery of fluid, flawless movement. The dancers are polished, amazingly capable athletes and artists. They are the closest thing to perfection I’ve ever witnessed.

 

At intermission my daughter noticed that I was crying (yes, they were that good. I’ve never cried at a dance performance before). “Why are you crying, Mom?” she asked.

 

“Because they are the most beautiful dancers I’ve ever seen,” I said.

 


I’ve never seen such a breathtaking and unusual array of dancers: wild-haired Spaniards, tall, lithe Amazonian pixies, long, willowy African American men and women; incredible athletes of every size, shape and race. This is not a company where each dancer is supposed to be a perfect carbon copy of the next. Instead, every individual’s strengths and style are encouraged and showcased.

 

King’s choreography is fine-tuned for each dancer; it is expressive and progressive. “It was ballet but not really,” according to my daughter. It is ballet, but it is so much more. King takes ballet and gives it modern-day relevance. The dance vocabulary is all his own, but it’s a language that today’s audience can understand and relate to. His collaborations with other master artists such as Zakir Hussain and Pharoah Sanders add further vitality to his work.

 


King’s choreography is demanding!! There were times that it was hard to believe that I was seeing what I was seeing. Yet the dancers pulled it all off seamlessly. Watching them move with an understanding of how much energy is involved is awe-inspiring… and the dancers were on fire! Every one of them worked to their limit to “bring it”.

 

Many years (okay, decades) ago, a friend brought me to one of Alonzo King’s classes. I’d been studying classical ballet for more than 13 years at the time, 6 of them at the prestigious School of American Ballet and San Francisco Ballet School. I distinctly remember how difficult I found his class- mostly because the moves were so foreign- I couldn’t make my body do what was being asked. It was ballet, but not exactly… or rather, it was contemporary ballet as opposed to classical… something else entirely.

 

Those of us who live in the Bay Area are fortunate to have such an amazing gem in our midst. I plan to partake of that good fortune as often as possible.

 


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Jul18

Post:Ballet: Bringing Ballet into the Present

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Post:Ballet: Bringing Ballet into the Present

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Post:Ballet makes dance relevant to modern society. Artistic Director Robert Dekkers accomplishes this through his choreography (which is both expressive and organic) and the use of modern technologies, including cinematography and digital photography. The company also collaborates with visual artists, musicians and composers to create new works. Post:Ballet successfully completed its second season this past weekend with performance at the Herbst Theater, located in the center of San Francisco’s cultural aorta.

The program opened with Colouring, a piece that explores the nature of the creative process. Original score was created and performed live by Daniel Berkman. Artist Enrique Quintero diligently painted the backdrop with successive symbols and strokes as two dancers, Jared Hunt and Beau Campbell, reenacted a mock rehearsal. Photographer Natalia Perez captured the moment by moment action, which was projected at the end of the piece, showing everything in reverse. In essence, the audience was reliving everything they had just experienced with visual proof of how they had arrived.

Flutter showcased a trio of men, Daniel Marshalsay, Jonathan Mansgosing and Christian Squires. The piece opened with music by Steve Reich, a percussive, primitive, repetitive score, which later transitioned to the lyrical strains of J.S. Bach. Here Dekkers shows what he does best- explosive movement that made great use of three-dimensional space and highlighted the strength and abilities of the dancers, through successive turns and tours en l’air. Flutter is aptly named, for the behavior of the heart while watching their shirtless forms and the choreography – the dancers often looked as though they were moving through water…

Happiness of Pursuit, a playful piece for seven dancers, was a highlight, both for the wild abandon with which the dancers moved, and the music- this may well be the first ballet ever set to beat-boxing, flawlessly performed live by Joe Hickey.

The program closed with a world premiere of Interference Pattern, a study on the effects of observation. Dekkers was fascinated by a quantum physics experiment that showed that observation had an effect on the behavior of subatomic particles. This study lead to other questions: if observation effects the world on such a microscopic level, what other effects occur? The piece was performed against a cinematographic backdrop of the same choreography being performed during rehearsal times, both observed and unobserved by other dancers. Dekkers concludes that although the differences are subtle, they are palpable.

All of the dancers are classically trained, and collectively possess an impressive background. Post:Ballet provides them with a new expressive outlet of cutting edge choreography paired with creative collaboration. The sum total is a performance unlike any other. Ballet has taken a quantum leap.


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Jul13

Starting a Dance Company: My Journey With Terpsichore D’Amour

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Starting a Dance Company: My Journey With Terpsichore D’Amour

 

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I’ve become compelled, at age 44, to start a dance company. After decades of following other peoples’ visions and performing their choreography, it’s a welcome relief to do things my way for a change. There is no director monitoring my every move, which means less pressure in some ways, and more pressure in others. For just as there is inherent freedom in doing your own thing, every responsibility is also yours, from choreography to costumes and planning to publicity.

 

It has been about ten years since I’ve last performed, although I’ve never stopped dancing since I started forty years ago. I took a hiatus from performing from the time when my daughter was born through the preschool years, and in the last few years, the desire to perform again grew. And grew.

 

Finally, opportunity knocked when I was invited to participate in Trails and Vistas, a live outdoor performance in Lake Tahoe where the audience happens upon various performances during a docent-lead hike. Another friend had been involved for several years, and I had always loved the idea. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to join in, and promptly called another friend (and fellow mom) who was also itching to perform, and we immediately went to work. Our company, named Terpsichore D’Amour, was born.

 

Thus far it’s been an interesting journey. Our choreographic process has been both organic and extremely democratic. There are pieces that we have come up with separately and others that have arisen out of experimentation and discussion. As I was watching the film of yesterday’s rehearsal (we’ve begun filming every rehearsal so we can see what we’re doing and what might need fine-tuning) I realized that the piece is such a cooperative effort that I can no longer even remember who contributed what. And the beautiful thing is, it doesn’t matter! We are dancing purely for pleasure and we are both old enough and experienced enough to have left ego out of the equation altogether.

 

Trails and Vistas is happening on September 17th and 18th,. We’ve finished choreographing (mostly) except for a few minor adjustments. We have placed our costume order. For now, we continue to work. Luckily we have plenty of time for polishing our first piece, giving it every chance to be the best it can possibly be.

 

In the meantime, we’re working on our promotional materials (more on that soon) and looking ahead. We hope that our dance company will grow over time and that we will be able to share our love of dance with varied audiences, particularly school children.

 

Starting Terpsichore D’Amour is one of the more wonderfully terrifying things I’ve done.

 

 

Trails and Vistas 2009:

 

 

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