Friday, April 30, 2010

Ellen Chenoweth's Review of FDC

Art&Seek Blog for North Texas and beyond
Guest Blogger Review: Jumping Jacks of Joy – Dance at UNT
Posted on April 30th, 2010 by echenoweth
Mary Lynn Babcock's Eclipse Project Part II. Photo credit: Kenneth Verdugo

Guest blogger Ellen Chenoweth is an arts writer and administrator based in Washington, DC. She maintains a blog at Widening the I and received her M.A. in Dance from Texas Woman’s University in 2009.

Contemporary dance has a hard time with happy. Sometimes you’ll see movement that could be cheery, but the dancers are performing it with completely blank faces, perfectly devoid of emotion. Or, even more painful to witness, the dancers will revert to studio dance training from childhood and display a wide pasted-on smile, as if showing teeth equals happiness. Which is why it was especially gratifying to see undergraduates from the University of North Texas perform renowned postmodern choreographer Bebe Miller’s work Blessed with what read as pure and sincere bliss. If you can imagine a giant jumping jack of joy, extending throughout the whole body and elevating you from the ground, you’ll have a good starting place for imagining the work. The stage was bathed in a warm, red light as the cast of six women and two men bounded around the stage to the gospel music of the Australian group Cafe of the Gate of Salvation. Ideas of community were explored as dancers provided perches for each other on their bodies, slapped their thighs, and propelled themselves backwards with glee. Standout performers included Emily McNabb, who was so radiant I think she might actually have a light source in her body, and Tina Jefferson, who wasn’t afraid to put her own individual stamp on the movements. Sarah Gamblin, a former Bebe Miller company dancer, reconstructed the work and Teresa Cooper served as rehearsal director.

Choking the Earth? Just Take Off Those Clothes and Join the Water in D-Flat, choreographed by Shelley Cushman, provided a more sobering note and opened with a tableux of trash. The trash slowly came into focus as the lights came up and the theme from “2001: A Space Odyssey” played as one leg suddenly splayed from a creature in a trash bag. The dancers were oddly restrained as they threw newspaper-trash around the stage. The booty seemed to be the focal body point throughout the work: the dancers wore white unitards that covered their whole bodies with blue blazers accentuating the butt. Choking the Earth offered an overload for the senses, between the trash on the stage, the flock of white dancer-birds, the soundscore filled with aural flotsam and jetsam, and a video projection of indiscriminate bits of nature scenery. The gorgeous ending tied some of these strands together, as the video projection finally linked with the movement as the dancers transformed the trash into an ocean, and they became waves that were part of the sea, throwing up a handful of newspapers as the tide rolled out. The sounds of the newspapers being thrown were eerily reminiscent of the sound of ocean waves, conjuring up some apocalyptic imagery.

Watching choreographer Ellie Leonhardt’s offering Not WithStanding (Part I and II) felt like being transported to an alien land where women were frozen at will and often treated as objects to be carried, draped, placed, and re-arranged. Seven female dancers wore frocks of blue or green and shimmery black, giving a vaguely science fiction atmosphere. The ethereal solo cello music composed by Kaija Saariaho and solemn poetry recitation in French added to the sense of being in a strange environment. The pace was slow but never boring; instead all of the stillness meant that to see the dancers spring into viscous movement was all the more satisfying. These beings had their own language to communicate with each other, which was a softly whispered shoo-shoo as a thread through the piece. The lighting design by Adam Chamberlin did wonders, as I found myself continuing to marvel at the stage as a whole. As the piece worked into its climax, there was a dizzying amount of pairings and re-pairings, sudden disappearances and reappearances. I don’t know who these women warriors were, with arms that could transform into pincers, but I’m glad to have witnessed them.

Alien landscapes were also invoked with Mary Lynn Babcock’s Eclipse Project Part II as images from the cosmos were projected on two large rectangular orbs that dominated the stage. Three dancers played among the objects, two would peer from the right as one would dash out from the left. The lines created by the women’s arms would echo the geometry of the objects and carefully crooked legs were left like a question mark as the dancers balanced on their shoulders. In the end, the dancers left the stage completely for long seconds and the audience was left to ponder the visions of space before the dancers came back for one last dash against a blackened stage in a breathtaking moment.

The show title, “Closer to the Earth and Sky,” promised to explore the tension between the two directional pulls. But on balance, after visiting extraordinary worlds and being uplifted and moved to tears by Blessed, I think the sky won this one. The show will be performed April 30 at 8:00 pm, May 1 at 8:00 pm and May 2 at 2:30 pm at the University Theater in the RTFP Building on the campus of the University of North Texas.

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From the Denton Record Chronicle

Movement afoot
‘Blessed’ be the upcoming faculty dance recital
11:04 AM CDT on Thursday, April 29, 2010

The music for Bebe Miller’s “Blessed” is unabashed, a cappella gospel, with praise to God belted out toward the heavens. But dance professor Sarah Gamblin said the moves fired up by the music are spiritual food for Everyman.

Photo courtesy the UNT Department of Dance and Theatre
Dancers perform a portion of “Migration,” by UNT dance teacher Ellie Leonhardt, at the faculty dance concert in 2009.

The piece for eight dancers is one of four works in “Closer to the Earth and Sky,” the faculty dance concert opening at 8 p.m. today and running this weekend at the University of North Texas.

“The music is beautiful,” said Gamblin, an associate professor of dance at Texas Woman’s University and an alumna of the Bebe Miller Company. “It makes you want to sing. It makes you want to move.”

Miller, an Ohio-based dancer, choreographer and dance evangelist, set the piece to songs by the Cafe of the Gate of Salvation, an Australian a cappella gospel choir. For Miller, the chorus was a soundtrack to put bodies in flight. For Gamblin, the music is but an ingredient of the piece that asks dancers and audience to let go of restriction and restraint — both spiritual and physical — and reach for the stratosphere.

UNT lecturer Ellie Leonhardt invited Gamblin to teach UNT dancers “Blessed.” Gamblin danced the piece herself with Miller’s company, where she was a member from 1993 to 2000. Miller visited Denton for two days to join Gamblin in setting the dance on the students, rebuilding the dance from two videos.

“The movement flows from the chest, and the arms, moving from the heart — not just the chest, necessarily, but from the heart. Bebe choreographs dance by asking where the dance comes from, and in this piece, it’s the heart — to above. That’s what the whole concert is trying to do, explore the connection we have to the ground to what’s above,” Gamblin said.

Miller’s choreography is informed by contact improvisation, a dance form that demands each performer connect with another’s body — be it hand to hand, torso to leg or hand to foot — and follow where the body wants to go. It’s a playful form of choreography and lends itself to visual fireworks, with dancers colliding or propelling one another.

Gamblin said Miller’s piece affects a universal appeal.

“It is gospel music, but this isn’t a religious piece at all. It is spiritual, though. At least I think so,” she said. “There’s a lot of warmth and care. Its lush and sensuous.”

The concert also features: the premiere of “The Eclipse Project Part 2” by UNT professor Mary Lyn Babcock; “Not Withstanding” Part 1 and the premiere of Part 2 by Leonhardt; and “Choking the Earth? Just Take Off Those Clothes and Join the Water, in D-Flat” a revision of the 2009 premiere by UNT professor Shelley Cushman.

Performances are 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the University Theatre in the Radio, Television, Film and Performing Arts Building, located at the corner of Welch and Chestnut streets. Tickets cost $10 for adults and $7.50 for students, UNT faculty/staff and seniors. Call 940-565-2428.

—Lucinda Breeding
http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/dws/drc/entertainment/dentontime/stories/DRC_Movement_afoot_0429.c587652.html

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Bebe Miller's Visit to UNT

Taking class:




after lunch with sue collins, bebe miller, claudia howard queen, teresa cooper
Jake, rehearsing Blessed
bebe and the cast of Blessed in the UT after spacing
bebe and the cast
bebe and the cast
after dinner with: sarah gamblin, bebe miller, teresa cooper

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Monday, April 12, 2010