On Sunday: Dance at 2.


It’s Saturday night at 10:20, and I’m just home from the Outlet Dance Project’s concert at Art YOUniversity, 4 Tennis Court, Hamilton. If you care about dance, go – either to the Outlet concert (see map above) or the one featuring Princeton University students at McCarter tomorrow, both at 2 p.m. I can’t vouch for the latter (it’s on my schedule for tomorrow) but the Outlet concert might fill your soul. In a rush to encourage attendance, I’m just going to scribble something down, spell check it, and spit it out. Here goes.

Of the 12 works by as many choreographers and three dozen dancers there are a handful of Don’t Wanna Forgets, starting with Dasi performing with the Kalamandir Dance Company in an excerpt from “Pritihibhi – Earth” by Malabika Guha. Four women breath as a godlike one, rejoice while streaming long banners, then set themselves for war among the gods, fiercely stamping, strong, aggressive, then resolving all in an over arching “OM.”

To the plaints of Edith Piaf, Maureen Glennon’s “Want” also shows two strong women, but here one of the women pairs up with a man and three’s a crowd. Powerful dancing, and unlike most modern dancers, including some on this program, who operate in an emotional vacuum, Rachel Brown, Kyra Kennaugh, and Bryan Matland engage each other with their eyes and their movement.

Hee Ra Yoo’s “Catwalk” is the showstopper that ends the program. Five women all in white, dressed couture-like by Lara De Bruijin, compete on the catwalk. The dominant one (probably Yoo), all you see is her back (in a low cut gown) and oh what a back, as she twists her shoulders diagonally in haughty disdain. The others dodge her slicing arms. The other four get their moments in the spotlight, then challenge Yoo. Design, movement, technique, emotion, suspense, it’s got it all.

I’m also remembering Nicole Mahncke’s “Controlled Frenzy,” to blackboard scratching music by Dirty Three. Four dancers seem to have an internal rash, an infernal itch like their scratchy-seeming tulle underskirts, well danced to a St. Vitus T.

Joyce King’s dancers – a trio to the music of Steve Reich and a lovely solo by Megan Doyle, part of a longer work called “Safely Put Upon” were lovely. It was the eighth dance on the program and I couldn’t believe how much excellent technique, good dancing, I was seeing.

Everyone, no matter their experience, was fully committed to their movement. I liked the snake-tongue “flicks” of legs and hands, in “Winter in the Belly of the Snake” by Rachel Korenstein, who also knows how to use stillness to build to a climax. I liked the fluid swings of Rachel Abraham’s “Lapse,” which was structured around lamps that were turned on, then off.

It was satisfying to see seemingly random movements meld into unison, either unison movement, as with Amy Harding’s “Introspection,” or, as with Natalie Teichmann’s “Pigeon City,” a sudden still tableaux.

There were three solos: Keila Cordova’s narrative danced by Kate Abernethy, “Meteorologica,” Amanda Hinchley’s “The Effortless Mastery,” also a narrative; and Danielle Hernandez’s “iCare,” centered on a large box.

It’s 11 pm, my time’s up. Early day tomorrow. But put dance at 2 p.m. on your list if you are reading this on Sunday, April 11. That and the Holocaust observance at the Jewish Center, 7 p.m. You need joy to experience sorrow.

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