The Latest Reviews

DANZA ESPANA

Flamenco Continues Its Colorado Renaissance At CU's Old Main Theater
Pablo Rodarte's Flamenco shows continue this weekend (February 5 and 6, 2010) under a new name, Danza Espana, at the University of Colorado Boulder's Old Main Theater. The show at Old Main exhibits the same energy resident when this group performed as Polka Dot. Rodarte himself exhibits an amazing presence, whether dancing or providing rhythmic palmadas (hand clapping), zapateados (foot stomping), or finger snaps, and he has brought together an amazing ensemble of other dancers and musicians. The guitar accompaniment by Kevin Romero and Steve Mullins includes precise conversations with the dancers, and endearing solos, punctuated by both vocal and rhythmic encouragement from Rodarte and the ensemble. Mullins subdued and often background work on the caja (box) melds well, and vocals by tenor Marco Herzog and alto Natalie Perez de Villar vary from commanding presence to understated raison d'etre.

When it comes to dance, Danza Espana is pretty much about Lisa Trujillo, Lisa Trujillo, and Lisa Trujillo. Her embodiment of the form is lovely, and beautiful to watch. Her use of braceo (arm movements) are graceful beyond description, and her florea (finger movements) speak volumes. Trujillo's skillful and staccato zapateados provide stunning rhythms to both adagio and allegre sections of her dances, the whole dance being an embodiment of her torso, arms, fingers, feet and face. And in a Solea her use of her long batas de colas (dress) compliments all of that in delightful ways.

Donald K. Atwood
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Wrecking Ball Theater Lab

Worried Women Wrestle With The Rules
"Good Girls Do, But I Don't" can at least partially be described as about eight women, all over 20, who confront the "rules" on how to seek and find Mr. Right, and try and make decisions about following them. They explore their options in over an hour of charming song, dance, and varied theatrical approaches that both engage audiences, and at times literally move into their laps. Most of them seem to never make a decision of just how they are going to use, abuse, or ignore the rules. Only one is really ever clear about that choice. She says "No way." And that is because she is gay. The rest carry on delightful explorations of self and psyche in ways that mirror all the angst and introspection women seem to have - at least North American women - at the very least North American women who live in the United States. Often their explorations deal with stereotypes. Other times real insights are revealed. And sometimes those insights are graphic to the core.

The show is a non-stop bundle of energy that holds even the most sated audience members rapt. There are quiet parts that allow audience a breath, but caution in that breath is advised, or you might either miss a subtle point, or find a cast member in your face - or your lap. Director Joan Bruemmer has an excellent sense of performance life and keeps sections just the right length to read well. The music is both sung live, and recorded. The singing is well done with enunciation that can be heard and understood in both choral and solo modalities, and the recorded music choices are perfect for where they appear. The dance is engaging, mostly rhythmic ensemble works, and never takes any performer past her capabilities. Theatre voices project well and are understood, and there is lots and lots of great, well timed comedy.

Donald K. Atwood
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Momix

Momix Delights Audience With Movement and Light
Momix creator, Moses Pendleton, uses light to control not only what audience sees in Momix performances, but how they see it. That allows him and the company to take dance approaches developed when he was at Pilobolus to new places - especially in staging them in ways that absolutely delight audiences. That was certainly the case at Momix's concert in CU/Boulder's cavernous Macky Auditorium (January 29, 2010), in a program that featured a puppet, lots of live dancers, dance, and light, light, more light. And with unique props as big as anything even Diavolo could devise. Lighting was often a device used to focus audiences eyes, and was sometimes so dim, or heavily torqued to side lighting, as to fatigue those eyes.

The program provided fourteen works of varying length, almost all of which resulted in audience gasps of delight and surprise. Some like "Discman" - which presented a uniquely lighted Bread and Puppet sized puppet - and "E.C" - which was based in dancer shadows projected on a back lit scrim and very similar to Pilobolus' "Dog ID" - were delightful performance art. Other works such as "Tuu" were less about lighting and more about dance movement, although even there lighting was a major aspect of the work.

Donald K. Atwood
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Pilobolus

An Intertwined and Cantilevered Pilobolus Sells Out - Again
One dance company audiences love is Pilobolus, and the reasons for that were abundantly clear in their performance at the University of Denver's Newman Center on January 26, 2010. The company reached deep into their earliest repertory with "Pseudophobia" (1973), as well as presenting almost brand new choreography in duets such as "Dog ID" (2009). The works varied from ones where one can find profound meaning, like "Gnomen," to delightful and comedic romps, and a common Pilobolus, high energy closer in "Megawatt."

"Gnomen" (1997) is a quartet of four males, in which, one by one, each dancer is singled out by the other three for attention - said attention varying from nurturing to blatant abuse. Within the work the often seemingly impossible single and multiple body intertwinement and lifts that are signature to Pilobolus are raised to a new and higher level of amazement and virtuosity. The work can be seen as struggles with self, where such struggles vary from dealing with pleas to be included in any fellowship, to abuse suffered within same. Pilobolus, which is too often dismissed as presenting "eye candy," finds profound meanings in "Gnomen."

Donald K. Atwood
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Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company

Fondly Do We Hope ... Fervently Do We Pray
Bill T. Jones likes to ask questions. During the Q and A session following the performance (January 15, 2010 in Chapel Hill, NC) of Fondly Do We Hope...Fervently Do We Pray, Jones turned each question back to the audience: "Well, how are you making sense of it?" "What are you feeling?" Indeed, appropriate questions to ask, after this complex dance-theater work that asks a set of weighty questions of its own. What is the nature of legacy? Of memory? How do our (hi)stories intersect? What is our responsibility to each other, to our country or our world?

Jones uses the life of Abraham Lincoln to frame these questions, presenting several moments in Lincoln's life through dance, song, and text. This work is not a narrative biography, however; he juxtaposes these episodes with present stories, bringing Lincoln's presence forward in time. Time, for Jones, is not linear. We see time represented in the circle of stage, bounded by curtains that open and close to bring us a clear or hazy view of times past, present, and future. We see time in the recurring movement and musical themes, the shadows cast, the echoes of earlier words and gestures. We feel the rhythm of time, measured not in minutes or years but by musical beats and the rhythm of speech.

Anne Morris
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Photo by Steve Clarke

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