DanceWorks '04.

DANCEWORKS '04 CLEVELAND PUBLIC THEATRE CLEVELAND, OHIO MARCH 11-APRIL 4, 2004

Bring it on! shouted the theme of Cleveland Public Theatre's twentieth-anniversary season, and that's exactly what the seven companies on the alternative theater's DanceWorks roster did.

GroundWorks Dancetheater, a mature ensemble of former ballet dancers, rose to the challenge with Artistic Director David Shimotakahara's The Book of Water, a poetic abstraction that ebbs and flows in imagery suggesting ocean waves, sea creatures, and human beings connecting to one another. The four-member company also performed Beth Corning's At Once There gas a House, a stunning theater piece that reveals the despair beneath the smiling surface of contestants in a reality TV show.

Verb Ballets, an accomplished ensemble that mixes mainstream modern dance and contemporary ballet, unveiled Scan Curran's Mozart Piano Trio in C Major, a witty, spoof of eighteenth-century manners. From Charlotte Boye-Christensen came In Passing, a sunny romp that sends seven dancers swooping through space on buoyant Brazilian rhythms, and Artistic Director Hernando Cortez created a static miniature for dancers on pointe in The Last Sun.

A company of trained dancers and community volunteers, MorrisonDance--and its audience--had fun with "Human Behavior 101," a collection of short pieces acknowledging Artistic Director Sarah Morrison's academic background. Appropriately enough, the seven-months-pregnant Morrison evoked a Hindu goddess of fertility in Molecular Bodies Within, a fabric-and-prop piece inspired by neuroscience.

Antaeus Dance, a troupe that takes its name and weighty movement style from the mythological Greek giant who gained strength from the earth, tested the audience's patience with Moments of Repose, an evening-length evocation of odalisques choreographed by Artistic Director Joan Meggitt and guest artist Doug Lodge. The cast of languid sculptural figures competed for attention--and sometimes lost--with percussionist Jason Treuting, who gave a vigorous onstage performance of Cleveland composers Paul Cox and Greg D'Alessio's Gehry Variations.

In B'roke, Inlet Dance Theatre Artistic Director Bill Wade brilliantly visualizes a Vivaldi violin concerto with space-carving movements for four women in eye-popping, painted unitards. It was one of the well-crafted works developed in Case Western Reserve University's Food for Thought choreography project, directed by Gina Gibney for this small contemporary ensemble of university-trained dancers and advanced students. Another standout was Jennifer Lott's Duet, which mysteriously imprisons the dancer-choreographer in a rectangle of moving light patterns.

Experimental performance art ensemble SAFMOD (Sub-Atomic Frequency Modulation Overdose) explored stilt-walking, aerial fabric techniques, and everyday movement in Odyssey, a trio of high-energy group pieces conceived by Artistic Director Young Park and Managing Director Ezra Houser and accompanied by Music Director Neil Chastain's original percussive scores. Though raw in execution, each work made a pointed political statement.

Emotional works that address relevant social issues took the stage with Cleveland Contemporary Dance Theatre, a company committed to cultural diversity. In Eilene, SAFMOD's Park paints a poignant portrait of an elderly woman who, unable to speak, bids a silent farewell to a loving caregiver. Artistic Director Michael Medcalf's Urban Love Song spotlights a sensuous woman who receives a red bandana (a symbol of HIV/AIDS) from each of two male partners, while the dramatic human relationships in Linda Kahn's Dear Adnil mirror the turbulent emotions of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.

For more information: www.cptonline.org