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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
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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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copyright
2003 by danceviewwest
page last
updated on
October 8, 2003
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what's on this week
Aug. 25- Sept. 1 |
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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