covering the dance scene in the San Francisco Bay Area

August 25 , 2003

Flashy Flamenco

Carolina Lugo’s Brisas de España Flamenco Dance Company
Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek
August 10, 2003

reviewed by Ann Murphy

Flamenco dance is a rhythmic tattoo of percussive footwork set against an upper body as volatile and dangerous as a whip. It demands deep restraint and an even deeper internal boil, whether the emotion is fury or joy. Classical Spanish dance calls for an almost balletic range of motion and stately elegance. Coat either of them with sugar, variety show mugging, or sexy come hither looks, or even drench them in too many clothes, and you’re on the road to Vegas, not Seville. This is the road that Brisas’s dancing took.

Despite some lovely Spanish classical movements and costumes to die for, Majas devolved into cuteness. The coy mood seemed to try to hide the out-of-synch ensemble work, a look of being not quite ready to go on. So did the wierd "nice girls get naughty" insertions (what were they doing with those scarves?), as though overlaying a blur of lyrical Spanish classical dance steps with dance hall hoopla might save the day.

full article

A Lush and Lucid Dance-in-progress

Wild Life a movement refuge
Choreographed by Wendy Rogers
UC Berkeley Extension DanceAbout Studio
August 15. 2003

reviewed by Ann Murphy

Although the Wild Life title is a play on wildlife, it wasn’t only a world of jungle dwelling animals or captive zoo creatures that Rogers was interested in capturing. We humans were as much her subject, as were the patterns nature duplicates, from aggregating rocks and people in crowds, to the elegant symmetries in mineral arches, trees, flying buttresses and the human body. At times the dance took on a beautiful, incantatory plainness, reflecting nature while itself of nature, and making nature’s implicit patterns explicit.

Wild Life was also lush, moody, roiling and lucid. I loved that we could feel the movement swelling and receding as in a tidal flow, or watch as steps and configurations collapsed and reconstituted, at times materializing and dematerializing at such breakneck speed that, rather than bodies, apparitions seemed to be speeding by.

full article

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AUG 29-30: ODC HOUSE SPECIAL 2/SUMMER DANCE RESIDENTS
Last year this classily produced showcase, the culmination of summer residencies for emerging choreographers, elicited some stunning moments from Erika Shuch and her ESP Project performers. Shuch returns this year, along with Kunst-Stoff's Yannis Adoniou and the ambitious UC Berkeley grad Benjamin Levy.
Aug. 29-30, 8pm, ODC Theater, 3153 17th St. (at Shotwell), San Francisco, (415) 863-9834, www.odctheater.org.

—Rachel Howard

Calendar Listings source courtesy of IN DANCE, a FREE monthly publication of Dancers' Group at http://www.dancersgroup.org

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