Mark your calendars! Monday, July 16th is our time to party at The Las Vegas Valley Theatre Awards!
Are you on our mailing list? Be sure to sign up so you don't miss exclusive subscriber offers for this event! Get on THE LIST here: THE LIST
Mark your calendars! Monday, July 16th is our time to party at The Las Vegas Valley Theatre Awards!
Are you on our mailing list? Be sure to sign up so you don't miss exclusive subscriber offers for this event! Get on THE LIST here: THE LIST
★★★★☆ - Delicious
Experience shapes art. UNLV Dance's recent fall concert "In Between" featured profoundly personal works by student choreographers that seemed to emanate straight from the heart, as well as those which took a panoramic look at more abstract ideas.
Carolyn Lajara offers a deeply-felt meditation on grief in her piece "For My Papi," set to the wistful music of Oliver Tank. About a young woman (Alissa Kuhn) struggling to deal with the death of her father (Malik Gray) who appears to her in a vision, it features religious imagery and captures the psychic inner turmoil of sorrow, which both Kuhn, Gray, and the ensemble of otherworldly beings embody with their frustrated movements and mournful facial expressions. We see the bond between Kuhn and Gray in their fleeting duets and lifts, and feel for them when Gray is swept away by the beings while Kuhn tries in vain to follow. The clarity of Lajara's narrative along with the haunting music, movement, and performances make this a piece that lingers.
Gray's own riveting work "Insecurities of a Dancer," set to "She Used to be Mine" by Sara Bareilles, is an introspective and spare, melancholy chair dance that examines the crippling self-doubt that keeps many women from achieving their dreams. After describing their perceived physical shortcomings in voiceover, five seated women dance with restricted movement that builds in momentum until the music stops abruptly, and we are jarred out of the moment as the women slide off and under their chairs. As the music resumes they dance and move the chairs freely - they have broken out of the chains of doubt and are now in control of their destiny.
The slow-jazz piece "Love Unraveled," choreographed by Rebecca Huppenthal to "Almost Blue" by Chet Baker, is like watching the memory of a painful break-up through a filter into the past. To tinkling keys and a soulful trumpet Gray and Kristina Hakobyan make a sensuous pair, perfectly attuned to each other as they gesture and move softly in unison both separately and through anguished lifts and penchés. It's an ache to which everyone can relate.
Kalie McLaughlin blends dance with theater to create her clever "Time Has a Time of its Own," set to music by Collen Whitton, which studies time as a human construct and our exasperating race with it. Both funny and complex, a quartet of dancers perch on individual hourglasses, tapping their feet as they wait impatiently for time to pass, and enact comedic voiceovers with movement to match the words.
Kuhn's evocative "Evolving Existence" is set to "Bend Your Knees" by James Vincent McMorrow and is a spiritual piece about the struggle for self-fulfillment. A central dancer in spotlight moves plaintively while confined on a rotating disc as others move freely around her. The yearning, reaching, and pretty positions contrast starkly to another piece of the supernatural kind, Lay'la K. Rogers' unsettling and cinematic "I Can't Help Myself," choreographed to the music of Svedaliza and others. A procession of women in mourning wear black dresses and veils of Spanish lace, carving the space with their forceful movements under moody lighting (atmospherically lit by Eric Haufschild), pointing fingers like it's a day of reckoning and giving a feeling of despair that we are reluctant to experience.
There's a calming quality to Jayden McCree's "Ái," choreographed to the music of Wong Hu Mao and others, with a sculptural, Asian-inspired aesthetic. The dynamic lighting intensifies dancers' angular movements as they shape the area around them, and the mood shifts with the music as dancers balance and bow with intricate hand gestures giving a beautiful visual effect. Another aesthetic and spacious work is artist- in-residence Kristine Keppel's "Unforeseen," set to "I Found" by Amber Run. Inspired by inspiration itself, there's a dreamy sadness to the piece that features fluid, emotional movement in ever-changing combinations of dancers leaping and lifting with the wonderful Zack Frongillo in a central role.
At first glance the final piece of the program, "Vega: #vegasdancestrong," choreographed by faculty member Vikki Baltimore-Dale, might seem like a work about the Oct. 1st tragedy. But perhaps that's for another time, because it's actually an elegant tribute to the extensive dance tradition of Las Vegas. Set to the music of Rupert Gray-Williams and others, the piece is metaphorical on many levels. The "Vegans" in their disco-look, colorful dresses, stiletto heels, and subtle headpieces evoke not only showgirls and Cirque performers on stilts, but also strippers, especially when the "Watchmen" appear, carrying their long poles. Baltimore-Dale paints a mesmerizing stage picture of dualities as the Vegans glow with their conservative,
controlled-yet-bold movement that gradually becomes flowing and soft. The Watchmen use the poles as levers for their own difficult moves and leaps, and support the Vegans during acrobatic lifts.
Kudos to all the choreographers, dancers, and technicians who participated in the compelling "In Between."
Updated: Oct 13, 2020
★★★★★ - Irresistible
With their “10th Year Anniversary Celebration” the Las Vegas Contemporary Dance Theater came full circle in early September, giving an emotional, final performance on the same stage at West Las Vegas Library where they have given many free concerts for the public through the years, in co-sponsorship with the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District. But the multicultural company, which has a repertoire of over 40 ballets, is not shutting down. Far from it. As founding artistic director Bernard H. Gaddis explained to the audience during a break between dance pieces, it’s time for the company to “think out of the box and continue to grow and evolve.”
Which means going global--though the company will be headquartered here--and “branching out past Las Vegas” to “obtain new followers” and to make a name for themselves on the national and international stage. Hence the new motto “The end of an era and the beginning of a new one,” and the brand new company name Contemporary West Dance Theatre which becomes official on January 1, 2018.
The ten performers--Marie-Joe Tabet, Eddie Otero, Abdiel Figueroa, Josie Camp, Adrianna Rosales, Rachel Murray, Avree Walker, Matthew Palfenier, Maria Vicuna-McGovern, and Ashley Gezana--danced their hearts out with such emotional intensity that their last concert under the LVCDT moniker felt especially meaningful.
Which is apropos since the search for spiritual meaning and connection seems to be a theme in associate artistic director and original company member Tabet’s compelling ballet “Disassociated,” which had its world premiere at the show.
Set to Kanye West’s gospel tune “Ultralight Beam” and the music of Max Richter, the piece has a futuristic, apocalyptic feel, with a red backdrop and hazy streams of sepulchral lights shining on dancers as West sings “this is a God dream, this is everything.” They move in angular, slow-motion pairings and poses and weave in and out of each other as if trying to connect but not really knowing how. On Friday the piece was at first disjointed with dancers seeming to lose their place, but it slowly began flowing together and built momentum to a powerful conclusion as dancers moved as one organism while reaching and pleading, and then fell abruptly to the floor like dominoes one after the other to dramatic effect. Veteran company member Otero plays a Christ-like figure; he has the amazing ability to embody charismatic archetypes like the spiritual shaman and the sensuous man. And Gezana’s luminous eyes pierce eerily through the haze.
Gaddis also enjoyed a world premiere with his sophisticated ballet “Stolen Moments,” set to music by Olafur Arnalds, Max Richter, Hans Zimmer, and Alvo Noto. A hypnotic work of art, the piece features three couples who begin with an intimate, repeating gesture as each turns to gently touch their neighbor and so on down the line. The dancing is beautiful yet also athletic with difficult acrobatic lifts expressing the emotional dynamic of couples in various complex pairings coming together, splitting apart, and then back again. Tabet and Walker create a fiery backstory as a couple with a painful relationship which draws us like moths to a flame because it’s a collective experience to which we can reluctantly relate, while Palfenier and Vicuna-McGovern show off their pure lines. Otero does a solitary dance, and there’s a neat bit where a couple moves from one spotlight to the next as they duet across the stage.
There’s a clarity of feeling to Gaddis’ ballet “Mood Azul,” set to the music of Dave Brubeck and Marc Frank, that brings to mind a cool ocean breeze on a warm summer night. Idealized romanticism with an exuberant mood, the dancing is lyrical, jazzy, and oh-so-delicate. The sound and look is ethereal and airy, with multiple layers of blue including the girls’ long dresses that carve shapes as they float in space. Lighting designer Sandra Fong has a wonderful talent for enhancing the look of the dancers--their creamy skin shimmers and the whites of their eyes glow. And smooth Eddie Otero shines again when the piece takes on a Latin flair and he performs a sensuous salsa with a wink, a sincere laugh, and the flick of a hand.
“Mood Azul” makes us feel contentment, happiness, and peace. Seems like a great place to leave the legacy of LVCDT.