Re-incarnation
Monk
by Sara Shelton Mann
Contraband
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
October 2, 2003
By
Rita Felciano
©
2003
If
you are a fan of Contraband, be prepared, Contraband is dead. The rowdy,
rough-not-only-at-the edges ensemble that starting in the 80s tried—and
succeeded—to create powerful dance theater pieces, is gone. In its
stead, there is a new Contraband, though still under the aegis of founding
artistic director Sara Shelton Mann. Yet it has almost nothing to do with
that gloriously daring, nothing is impossible group of artists that rocked
the Bay Area for more than a decade. I wish this was a case of “Contraband
is dead, long live Contraband.” It’s not.
The new Contraband
is more like pick-up ensemble of independent, very diverse dancers most
of whom have their own ensemble, who got together to work with Mann on
her latest project Monk. Yannis Adoniou is a ballet dancer; Ramon
Ramos Alayo trained in Afro Cuban; José Navarrete among others
is a tango dancer; Marintha Tewksbury, Kathleen Hermesdorf and Leslie
Seiters express themselves through release and contact improv. They bring
their own skills to this project but conceptually this Monk belongs
to Mann.
full article
Re/Cycling
Monk
by Sara Shelton Mann
Contraband
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
October 2, 2003
By
Ann Murphy
copyright Ann Murphy
Twenty years ago I was wildly irritated by dance experts who said dance was dead. How arrogant, I thought. Cycling, yes; dance, like history, has cycles, and in the 80's it was leaving its phase of full houses and hot tickets—part of a dance mania that accompanied the spandexification of America—for a more desultory, confused period. Life is like that. And yet, it's also true that certain dance styles can die, trends turn moribund, eras come to an end.
Monk,
Sara Shelton Mann's multi-year choreographic project, which opened in
its final form Friday at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, was an evening
of dance composed of serialized fragments I feel I've already seen dozens
of times in dozens of places—and never in the same place twice.
With Monk Shelton Mann reaches for something epic, something
to encapsulate our age, but instead comes up with a dozen threads that
together never find their weave, never enlighten, and never lead us to
that underground river, whether of the unconscious or of time, on which
all the flotsam and jetsam of life flows. She believes in the river and
she doesn't, and in the end it is her inability to trust that something
transcendent binds life, which leaves us with the same kind of undigested
fragmentation that constitutes life's daily grind.
full article
What's On This Week
OCT:
6 FLYAWAY PRODUCTIONS
Flyaway Productions' second annual "10 Women Campaign Celebration"
performance and award ceremony. October 6, 6pm, ODC Theater, 3153 Seventeenth
Street at Shotwell, San Francisco, 415-863-9834, http://www.ticketweb.com.
OCT:
7-12 KIROV BALLET & ORCHESTRA
In a much-anticipated Cal Performances engagement, the Kirov brings two
programs: an all-Fokine evening of “Chopiniana,” “Sheherezade,”
and “Firebird;” and Balanchine’s full-evening plotless
ballet, “Jewels.”
All-Fokine: Oct. 7-9, 8pm. “Jewels”: Oct. 10, 8pm, Oct. 11,
8 and 2pm, Oct. 12, 3pm, Zellerbach Hall, Bancroft Ave. at Telegraph Way,
Berkeley, (510) 642-9988, www.calperfs.berkeley.edu
OCT:
9-12 LESLIE SEITERS & RACHEL SHAW
Seiters and Shaw present "Such October 9-12, 8pm, 848 Community Space,
848 Divisadero Street at McAllister, San Francisco, 415-922-2385, 848@848.com,
http://www.848.com.
OCT:
10-11 HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO
Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, Hubbard Street has become one of
the country’s premiere repositories for contemporary works by the
world’s best-known choreographers. The 20-member company brings
works by Nacho Duato, David Parson, Harrison McEldowney and others, including
a world premiere co-commissioned by Stanford Lively Arts.
Oct. 10-11, 8pm, Stanford University Memorial Auditorium, Palo Alto, (650)
725-ARTS.
OCT:10-NOV:
2 SMUIN BALLET
Michael Smuin’s company presents the world premiere of “Tango
Palace” along with “Suite Gershwin” and Smuin’s
setting of “Les Noces.”
Oct. 10-Nov. 2, Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Bldg. D, Buchanan and Marina
Streets, San Francisco, (415) 431-2234, www.smuinballet.org.
—Rachel Howard
Calendar Listings courtesy of IN DANCE, a FREE monthly publication of Dancers' Group at http://www.dancersgroup.org
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