First performance in Ashland!

Ashland, OR

Hello from my new home in Ashland, Oregon! It was my dream to live here. And, now I do! What is your dream once your dream comes true? I am learning the dream becomes a feeling and a need to keep the dream alive.

I type this from my new built-in desk inside of my new house where I look up and out a window to face north. North, from where I sit, there are mountains that seem more like California mountains. They call the high point GRIZZLY PEAK. Behind me is south: Mountains with lush green trees and a hike 15 min to a waterfall.

I found it surprisingly hard to leave Texas. How is it that when one finally gets to a place of peace with place- the place changes? I wonder if I will live in Ashland the rest of my life. I can see how people forget to look up and out - and the mountains become a blur or invisible. I hope that does not happen to me.

I feel freer here to be myself. I don't feel like I have a heavy weight around me anymore. It feels more like AIR here-- I can breathe. My dogs can hang their head out the back seat windows just like every other car in town. I think many people here have reinvented Jesus. He is on shopping bags and t-shirts as someone who symbolizes love and fun and kindness (as it should be). People are connected to Mother Mary because she is in the earth here -- not because someone else told them to believe in her. Everyone I meet here is creative, exercises, is understandable, and is relatable. This is a much better place to be.

I am teaching students that are much more engaged. The female students I have are decisively more mature than the male but everyone acts like adults. Maybe this will all change in a few weeks - but right now I notice a marked change in educational maturity from Texas to Oregon.

I think I have a lot to offer but I can't help but feel like I am NOT an expert on anything right now. I am a generalist: i know a lot about a lot. This has always been a hard thing for me to accept about my carrer. I am also trying to see my teaching as my job and not consume my psyche-- though it has been doing just that as I fall asleep at night. I think living here is the best shot I have at actually having a life outside of work.

Tonight I am going to a talk about "why father's leave". I am looking forward to that. There are so many interesting things to do here that make my mind feel more awake.

I'm trying to not be ashamed of my age, my body, my level of non-movement, and my self. I felt so ashamed in Texas. I couldn't unlock why or how or who was causing that feeling. But it takes commitment to not be ashamed, to not shave your legs, to wear what you want, to know that you will be loved by strangers, by students, by colleagues, by people in power.

This is how I want to live. I want to live being myself.

photos from FDC

Running

This is the poem I wrote after the first spacing rehearsal of "The Well/Interruption". In this dance there is a lot of running and change of direction. I asked the dancers: Why are you running? Where are you going? The poem is my response, as the choreographer, to these questions.

"I'm running to get away and wrap underneath my sides

split sides, support sides,

sinking sides, surrounded around

and between or sometimes.

Sometimes there is strength

sometimes there is nothing.

I can't really tell and I can't

really understand what I'm running from:

It is oblique, opaque and understated and misunderstood.

I'm going here, right to where I am. Right to where I have been.

Wondering and wondering back to that place

that I always end up

up is where I always go and up

is where I am here and now and

never behind. How is that true?

How is it possible for truth?

So I go and go and catch and fetch

for you. I'm looking for you

around the corner of my body

around and around and around

looking..."

From Lau-Tzu

"Men [and women] are born soft and supple;

dead, they will only be stiff and hard.

Plants are born tender and pliant;

dead, they are brittle and dry.

Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible

is a disciple of death.

Whoever is soft and yielding

is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken.

The soft and supple will prevail."

-Tao Te Ching, chapter 76

Academic Symposium I am Directing:

Teaching Yoga to Dance Majors at UNT

Pixel Dances Reviewed by Mary Clark

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Theater reviews part deux:

Out of the Loop Fringe Festival in Addison

by Mary L. Clark of John Garcia's The Column , Carol Anne Gordon of John Garcia's The Column

Ellie Leonhardt presents Pixel Dances/ Satellite-Dance Collective -- Reviewed by Mary L. Clark

I am admitting right here and now that I am not a dance expert. I have taken dance and know several specific techniques, and I definitely know what I like. My entire reason to review both Ellie Leonhardt presents Pixel Dances and Satellite-Dance Collective is because they both describe their work as a combination of dance, music, and video art.

For their productions at the Out of the Loop Fringe Festival, they both use computer technology as another art form within the pieces.

First, Ellie Leonhardt performs solo in both Caught.Catching and Encapsulating. Static movements and long holds interwine gracefully as a camera picks up her moves and immediately displays them on the large projection screen behind. Sitting onstage to the side, with computer and other technical devices at hand, composer and intermedia artist, David Bithell, captures Leonhardt's dancing and, as she moves, the computer (I assume) duplicates her, then pauses her as Leonhardt continues to dance. Later, the technology layers her movement, brings her in and out of the picture, and back again to present time. In Encapsulating, Bithell adds a metallophone, a beautiful Javanese wood and brass instrument. Like a small xylophone, it's low, gong-like sound blends mysteriously with Leonhardt's movement.

Pixel Dances' ensemble piece, The Well Interruption, combine eight women in duplication with Bithell's "vertical set design" - videos of the tops of different trees at winter; swaying, rustling, being still. Colors of ochre, dark green, amber and rust in their clothing further accents the natural setting and the entire piece illuminates calmness. I always love to watch dancers moving in unison and this ensemble easily meld together, fall away, join again and the piece accentuates their talent and ability.

Ellie Leonhardt has gathered a fine ensemble of young women who know their craft, perform with elegance and maturity and I look forward to seeing their future endeavors.

___________________________________________________________________

If you take Satellite-Dance Collective's name literally, it is a wonderful description as their work is collaboration between dance and interactive media – camera and computer. The first piece, The Eclipse Project, use two tripod cameras at each side of the stage with a V wedge projection screen at center. As the two women move from behind and around the screen and into the cameras, their images are distorted by both the computer and the screen. One camera did not seem to be projecting anything but it did not deter from the performance.

I hardly ever use press release text to enhance my reviews, but in this case, it will assist in describing the beauty of their second piece, Water's Edge. This work "is an intermedia dance infused with text, sound score, and projected water images ... illuminating a continuum of change." "Three women aboard a vessel (and)forage into the abyss of change ... pouring, drowning, climbing ... approaching the water's edge" ... "and resolve into freedom on the other side." These three are clothed in diaphanous tunics and pants of red, navy and gold. As they flow, battle and succumb to the water, gauzy color images are projected in the background. The piece is so ethereal, so delicate and beautifully performed.

Artistic Director and Choreographer, Mary Lynn Babcock, founded this company in 2009. While they are still young, the talent onstage is far from novice and has the richness and confidence of more seasoned dancers. I am anxious to see where this young company will perform next and am now intrigued to see more of this imaginative blend of dance and technology - human and machine.

http://www.pegasusnews.com/news/2011/mar/10/theater-reviews-out-loop-fringe-festival-addison/

Pixel Dances Review by Margaret Putnam

Loop Review: Pixel Dances
More on the weekend's dance at Out of the Loop.
by Margaret Putnam
published Monday, March 7, 2011

Dance and video make uneasy partners, but that doesn’t deter choreographers who think video gives them an edge. It does, as demonstrated Sunday afternoon at WaterTower Theatre as part of the annual Out of the Loop Fringe Festival.

At its worst, video can be distracting, even overwhelming. Sometimes, too, the video turns out to be more imaginative than the dance. At its best, it adds a fascinating new dimension, creating in effect a whole new art form. Going even further with video and to brilliant effect was Hans van Manen’s Live for Houston’s “Dance Salad” in 2003, where a camera followed every movement of two dancers and threw the images onscreen.

Most of the time, however, the effect of video falls in between those two camps.

In presenting “Pixel Dances,” dancer and choreographer Ellie Leonhardt skirted close to letting video overpower her two solos,Caught. Catching and Encapsulating. In the first, sound and video artist David Bithell provided low-grade noise comprised of whooshes and bell rings and a very grainy, black and white video. Wearing a chartreuse dress and maintaining an air of somber reflection, Leonhardt kept her eyes to the ground as she danced in a stolid, somewhat clunky manner. The clunky was no doubt deliberate, since it also included a striking image of her lying flat on her back, legs lifted and bent, and her head up. She stayed that way for a long time, like a helpless insect.

The video captured bits and pieces of her movement in a teasing manner, like whiffs of smoke trailing off. Leonhardt held her own, however, if only barely.

In Encapsulating, the tide turned to Bithell’s advantage. This time wearing a blue dress and curled up on the floor, Leonhardt gradually rose to change directions constantly, sometimes spinning with her head tilted back and arms stretched out.

She even repeated the helpless insect pose, and then grew wild and frenetic. And like Caught. Catching, the video danced too, but in very short spurts of even more filmy images. At times, it enclosed Leonhardt’s image in sliding panels, at other times cast out multiple images that faded away in a fog. Sometimes only her torso was visible, and at other times only her feet. The sounds were that of muted gongs, played byBithell on a xylophone.

While video and dance fit very well together in Encapsulating, you couldn’t help but feel that the most imaginative element was the video.

The program also included Leonhardt’s ensemble piece for eight dancers, The Well Interruption, that I reviewed last week when it was performed on the Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth program.

♦ Margaret Putnam has been writing about dance since 1980, with works published by D Magazine, The Dallas Observer, The Dallas Times Herald, The Dallas Morning News, The New York Times, Playbill, Stagebill, Pointe Magazine and Dance Magazine.

◊ These dance performances were only presented once. View a full Out of the Loop Fringe Festival schedule here.

http://www.theaterjones.com/outoftheloopfringefestival2011/20110302004250/2011-03-07//Loop-Review-Pixel-Dances

2011 - Out of the Loop Playbill

Beautiful photos by Milton Adams of The Well Interruption

Review by Margaret Putnam

No End in Sight
As in the collaborative premiere from Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth. The rest of the program made up for that, though.
by Margaret Putnam
published Saturday, February 26, 2011

Close Up and Personal
presented by Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth

Hardy and Betty Sanders Theatre
Fort Worth Community Arts Center
1300 Gendy Street
Fort Worth, TX 76107
click here for a location map

Even the silly title was off-putting: iAm uAre. And that was just the beginning. Everything about this ridiculous piece—performed Friday night at Hardy & Betty Sanders Theatre as part of Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth’s "Close Up and Personal"—raised my hackles.

Quasi-theater-art that included the obligatory video projections, text (spoken in sophomoric intonations) and pedestrian dancing—called for "Edit! Edit!" No chance of that since it was a “collaborative” effort by choreographer (and company director) Kerry Kreiman and the dancers.

Even worse, it seemed to have no end.

As best as I can remember, here’s the gist of it: with a cello at her feet, Sara Donaldson explains how new technology allows her to hear her own music, and how it could also play with reality. As she sits at stage left, characters of her imagination appear, or rather, many alter egos. There is Jessica Thomas, in 17th century regal dress and a preposterous, towering headpiece of buttons, tinsel, star, do-dads and Velcro-taped cell phone who says sweetly, “I eat. I sleep. I breathe. I love my amazing, beautiful dress.” It’s just zany enough and expressed in the right, lilting tone, that she almost draws you in. Her other asset is that she dances with a languorous grace.

The rest of Ms. Donaldson’s alter egos include a warrior woman from Zeno, a belly dancer, a CIA agent and a Miss Manners offshoot in purple wig and flounced dress made of newspaper. They all have their silly things to impart, and do it in endless repetitions, both in movement and text (“I think, therefore I am”; “I Google, therefore I am”; “I eat, therefore I am.”)

Fortunately, iAm uAre was not the whole show. The best included four solos, a duet and an ensemble piece. In seenunseen, the barely visible figure of Thomas appears wearing a billowy red slip over flesh-colored shorts. Facing the side, she bends and sways, moving faster and faster. As she does, her strawberry blonde hair falls loose past her waist, giving her even more the suggestion of a mysterious creature tossed by the sea.

In Two, a dim light captures Courtney Mulcahy hunched over a bench. The light disappears, and next Ms. Mulcahy is stretched out prone. The dance continues in that way, with little glimpses of her body in changing positions. Eventually, the light stays steady, and Ms. Mulcahy leaves the bench to take on some of the same angled poses. At the end, the stage turns dark, and when the light comes on, the bench is bare. Simple, but effective, it works like a shadow-box of movement.

In Claroscuro, Claudia Orcasitas gets dressed in front of us, putting on a white blouse, taupe-colored skirt and apron, and then takes on the appearance of a field maiden in a painting. The rock she lifts is almost too heavy for her, but the water bucket that she dips her face into gives her fresh hope, and she leaves carrying it on her shoulders.

Blind Faith is just a snip of a dance, where choreographer and dancer Tina Mullone makes her way from the far edge of the stage in a diagonal path to the other side, using arms to initiate spiraling loops and plunging arabesques.

Against a video background of bare trees, guest artist Ellie Leonhardt’s The Well Interruption brings dancers together in a calm, almost Zen-like forest setting. A dancer rolls on the ground, flanked by a cluster of three and of four. Eventually, all fan out, and as the images on the screen flicker like leaves, the dancers curve their arms and sway. At one point, they group together to shoot out limbs at all angles, a striking tableau. At the end, one rolls on the floor, and comes to a halt at the feet of waiting friends.

What all these dances have in common is a hint of mystery and atmosphere and a clear sense of purpose. That atmosphere comes to the most beguiling fruition in Ms. Orcasitas’ Madre Luna where Jacqueline DePetris and Ms. Thomas—one dressed in a white top, the other in black—suggested lunar opposites that separate and reconnect without ever losing curiosity for the other.

◊ Margaret Putnam has been writing about dance since 1980, with works published by D Magazine, The Dallas Observer, The Dallas Times Herald, The Dallas Morning News, The New York Times, Playbill, Stagebill, Pointe Magazine and Dance Magazine.

http://www.theaterjones.com/reviews/20110225235939/2011-02-26/Contemporary-DanceFort-Worth/Close-Up-and-Personal

Review in the Fort Worth Star Telegram

BY MARK LOWRY
Special to the Star-Telegram
FORT WORTH -- If you've been hankering to sample what North Texas has to offer in the way of modern dance, Contemporary Dance/Fort Worth's spring concert, "Close Up and Personal," is a great starting place.

It's a box of assorted choreographic chocolates, if you will. And if it doesn't always feel cohesive, that's not necessarily the point. The spotlight is on the variety of styles, ideas and forms of area choreographers.

Solo work is represented in Jessica Thomas ( seenunseen from 2010), Courtney Mulcahy ( Two, a premiere) and Tina Mullone ( Blind Faith, premiere). Whereas Thomas uses her long red hair as an expression of emotion and movement (reminiscent of Margie Gillis) and Mulcahy gives a dramatic look into the cyclical life of a woman suffering from a mental disorder, Mullone goes for something less introspective with a more traditional and athletic dance that is no less profound.

Comedy comes with Sarah Newton's delightful postmodern jig, (premiere), using kicks and head bobs with modern choreography in a fun duet with Mulcahy. On the sillier side is Lori Sundeen Soderbergh's Safe (premiere), with scenes that capture the absurdities and frustrations of the airport and airplane experience.

Denton choreographer Ellie Leonhardt's premiere of The Well Interruption is an exciting ensemble piece, using asymmetric groupings of eight dancers, sometimes working in unison, other times separately, with strong use of extended limbs to create angular geometric shapes. Perhaps the idea is for the dancers to reflect the swaying bare tree branches in the backing video (by Dave Bithell).

The evening's standout was Claudia Orcasitas, dancing the story solo Claroscuro, originally created for San Marcos Ballet. She enters the stage, puts on her peasant clothes and finds a love-hate relationship with a wooden pail.
Then, in the premiere of Orcasitas' Madre Luna, Jacqueline DePetris and Thomas give us an expressive, beautifully danced duet.

The program's final work, the company's premiere of iAm uAre, came too late in the program to be reviewed.

http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/02/25/2878508/contemporary-dancefort-worths.html#tvg

The Well/Interruption to be premiered at CD/FW show

Friday February 25, 2011 at 8pm, Saturday February 26 at 2pm and 8pm
at the Sanders Theatre at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, 1300 Gendy St., Fort Worth, 76107 (corner of Lancaster and Montgomery across the street from the Amon G. Carter Museum of Western Art)
TICKETS: $15 General/$8 Students & Seniors. Cash at the door or advance payment using PayPal here.

CD/FW company member Jessica Thomas will perform her solo "seenunseen" photo by Milton Adams

The intimacy of the black box theatre at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center illuminates the motion, emotion, and energy of dance in a tangible way. This diverse repertory program reveals the dancers' characters in a variety of circumstances from the humorous to the deeply personal. Special guest Ellie Leonhardt (Denton) will premiere a new group work featuring projections. CD/FW company members Jessica Thomas (The Colony), Claudia Orcasitas (Fort Worth/Peru), Courtney Mulcahy (Euless), and Sarah Newton (Dallas) will present a mix of solos, duets, and group works. In addition, CD/FW artistic director will work in collaboration with the CD/FW company members along with photographer Milton Adams, costume designer Crickett Pettigrew, lighting designer Nikki DeShea Smith, and composer Sara Donaldson to create a new group work inspired by the increasingly fluid boundaries between fantasy and reality in our electronically-driven lives.