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below is a link for more local press on h20. can’t stress enough to see and support the brolly arts pre-show with work by two choreographers (sofia gorder & mallory rosenthal).

also can’t stress enough to apply for mudson (apps due in november!) by clicking on the mudson link on our home page

also have to announce the .pdf for the journal just got sent to the printer. look for copies at a coffee shop, bookstore or university near you in about two weeks!

http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/article-12293-repertory-dance-theatre-h20.html

h2o

visit the link below for kathy adams’ preview of h20 by brolly arts with rdt
most visitors are probably in it for the iconic waterstudy and the ever-dramatic lady of the lake

but i’m in it to see the more d.i.y. projects that take place in the alternative spaces (namely the choreography by mallory rosenthal & sofia gorder). i think a piece in the bathroom sounds more germane to the show concept and also more like something i’d go out of my way to see. who knows what becca and sam (our dedicated reviewers) will have to report…..

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment/50306737-81/arts-dance-rdt-dancers.html.csp

we’ll layout the journal you apply for mudson

Mallory Rosenthal has been furiously proof-reading for the journal and I’ve been learning to use this computer for something other than blogging and facebooking. The journal gets sent to the printer in less that forty-eight hours and will features essays and reviews by many people near and far.

While you wait for us to come out of this coma and return to blogging dance events in SLC you should apply for a spring mudson. Just click on the link below and forward to your friends.

https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AQiuBSB2bruWZGc1dGoyZ2RfODJjdGhxOHpqdA&hl=en

Configurations

Below find the review for Configurations written by Mallory Rosenthal & Emily Terndrup.

Emily & Mallory are senior BFA students at the University of Utah.

read the review here

Salt Lake Art Center – Dark Horse

Sometimes I get tripped up by the labels of things. “Installation” is a term in particular that I can be very picky about. The word makes me yearn to be immersed in something otherworldly and strange, something I can enter into and wonder whether the rest of my day was more real or less real than this other environment.
SLAC’s main gallery this weekend has been (and currently is) the site for a “nonstop performance and site specific installation”. There is a large square of white on part of the floor, with lighting trees at each of the four corners. One edge is lined by sixteen metronomes. There is a chair, and a red phone. A cord separates this area from another in which there resides old wooden bleachers. There are two gramophone horns on one side pointed at two chairs on the other. Finally, there is a small staircase that bridges the two spaces. Couples are invited to enter the space and slow-dance in silence. Individual performers wander the space doing their own dances. An ambient electronic score washed over the room.
Here’s my line of thinking as I entered this space: I thought there would be more. I’m happy there’s less. It’s nice to watch people dance. I don’t want to slow-dance. I don’t have a partner anyway. Maybe if I take my shoes off I can pretend to be one of the performers and dance my own way by myself. Why is there the sound of a woman panting? Is she running from something? Is she having sex? Somebody just came out of the bathroom. Wait a minute… this installation is remarkably like a stage.
And there you have the more-or-less ten minutes of immersion I could sustain before I realized that there was literally no reason this “installation” couldn’t just be some stage somewhere. Moreover, the space has windows into upstairs hallways, and the orientation of the audience to the stage meant that everything we saw was framed by us also watching people enter and exit the bathrooms behind the stage.
Still pondering what slow-dancing and horses had to do with the various bodily functions being performed in the background, the special 9pm performance started up. Here I feel like we arrived at the meat of the work. The dancing was splendid and the choreography was fresh. I was glad to be watching this in SLAC’s gallery-turned-black-box, and I hope that SLAC continues to explore the idea of providing an alternative venue for the performing arts.
In sum, it was an evening of some very refreshing dance presented in an unusual space. I wish the installation aspects of it were stronger and better integrated. Why bleachers? Why rules about what we can do or how? Why not let us wander the space freely? Why not construct the dance to immerse us more instead of maintaining a traditional audience/performer barrier? While the invitation to cross this barrier and become performers ourselves (in couples, dancing in a specific way, in silence) was intriguing, why not create a situation in which perhaps we’re not sure anymore who is watching and who is doing?
And please don’t pretend that we’re not going to notice the bathrooms, or that having the bathroom hallway as background isn’t going to change the meaning of your work. I’m interested in many of the ideas that went into Dark Horse, and I was impressed by the dance that was embedded in it. But for me the execution did not support those ideas enough and left me with a lot of questions about what the artist really intended. Or maybe I was just disappointed that this idea of installation didn’t fit my idea of installation.

Matthew Beals is a Modern Dance MFA candidate at University of Utah.

they are still

slow dancing the night away at salt lake art center.
a review of the performance within the installation
is impending from matt beals.

but if you want to slow dance quietly on a lovely white dance floor to some ambiguous ambient music with dance hall interludes then salt lake art center is the place for you.

inFluxdance

This weekend Sugar Space presented the premiere of their artists-in-residence inFluxdance. The group is a dedicated team of women under the direction of cross-continental collaborators Alysia Woodruff & Rose Pasquarello Beauchamp. With a large team of video, sound and design artists, inFluxdance certainly presented a lot of material to consider.

In it’s best moments, justice for all some presented honest and complex partnering between the uniquely all-female company. Their energy toward one another was sensitive and engaging. No matter your opinion of the topics they tackled each performer maintained strong investment in their subject matter and in one another. In that way, the piece was a pleasure to see.

In other moments the piece resembled another recent work which tackled protest and social justice. The work was reminiscent of David Dorfman’s underground and both dances feature strong performance and physical research. Unfortunately both works also share problematic parts. Featuring a lack of performers of color yet employing traditional iconography of civil rights creates tension. Both also use strong visual and aural components like video montage and an identical “step forward if, step back if” dialogue regarding the dancers’ relationship to social struggles like internment or suffrage.

In the end was another startling similarity where all the dancers started placing cloth figures of people about the space. Dorfman did the same thing but with graphics. And in both cases there was a startling sense that the piece was still figuring out its ultimate direction and what it wants to show regarding such a massive topic as protest.

inFluxdance (like Dorfman) seems at a crossroads of choosing whether the subject matter of the protests they support is where the piece lies (let’s not forget the Tea Partiers are protestors too) or whether, (as I imagine) that the piece lies more in about what protests do– bring bodies together and then watch bodies dissipate, show bodies in both revelry and suffering. The lingering image of all those small figures in the space alludes to this idea, that it’s more about the body and less about the design elements. In  justice for all some the dancing told the story and I would be interested to see what more it has to tell.

ashley anderson

ashley holds ba’s in dance and english from hollins university and an mfa from the hollins/american dance festival program. find her full bio at ashleyandersondances.com

more shows. reviews soon.

see below the link for one review of configurations by ririe-woodbury.

emily terndrup & mallory rosenthal will be adding their two cents after the saturday performance and you should too.
you can comment here now or on their review later. but comment.

i’ll comment now by saying (yet again) i’m constantly surprised at the range of each performer in that company. it’s exceptional and i enjoy seeing them move from one piece to the next. every time.

additionally i’ll throw it out there that i don’t know if i can watch men (gay or straight) toss women around or grab their mouths in 2010. i mean it is 2010. susan b. anthony? susan manning? anyone out there?

http://www.saltlakemagazine.com/blog/2010/09/preview-a-feast-for-the-eyes-ririe-woodburys-configurations/

get it get it

Get the spring Mudson application

It’s free to apply. If accepted you’ll definitely get a DVD of your work, you might get a small stipend.

The show will be free for your friends to attend.

If you want to see what it’s like come to the show on Oct 18 before you apply. But apply. And tell your friends.

reminder about reviews….

the performance journal comes out in just a month.
it will feature a lot of things but at the back will be a fat stack of reviews of shows from the spring through the fall.

this is a reminder that if you want to write a review, or your random thoughts about a work, or a poem about the piece you wanted to make a result of seeing…..anything.
send it to lovedancemore@gmail.com

i’ll probably print it and will even more probably post it here.

there are three opportunities this weekend for just such a thing
ririe-woodbury thu-sat
sugar space artist-in-residence thu-sat
slac installation fri-sat with dances in the main gallery @9pm