Ellis Wood Dance.ELLIS WOOD DANCE DANCE THEATER WORKSHOP Dance Theater Workshop is a New York City performance space and service organization for dance companies. Located on West 19th Street in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, DTW was founded in 1965 by Jeff Duncan, Art Bauman and Jack Moore as a choreographers' collective. , NEW YORK, NY NOVEMBER 17-20, 2004 Ellis Wood's two-part premiere, Hurricane Flora, is a riotous, satisfying, female Lord of the Flies Lord of the Flies showing man’s consciousness and fear of dying. [Br. Lit.: Lord of the Flies] See : Death . One reason is the visceral desperation, the barely contained abandon, in Wood's choreography. Energy explodes from torsos, courses through limbs, and shoots out fingers splayed, reflexively, like a child's. Another reason is the work's operatic tanztheater melodrama, which pitted the dancers against one another. The first part, "Air," began hauntingly, with eight women scattered around the stage, whispering urgently to themselves. A tableau worthy of Delacroix followed--Leslie Johnson swept into an arabesque arabesque (ărəbĕsk`) [Fr.,=Arabian], in art, term applied to any complex, linear decoration based on flowing lines. In Islamic art it was often exploited to cover entire surfaces. at the center of the clustered group, while some pulled her forward and others restrained her. Johnson confronted a persistent demon, at one point invoking a higher authority as she knelt with one leg extended high to the side. Composer/violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) is a classically trained composer, performer, violinist, and band-leader noted for blending funk, rock, hip-hop and classical music into an energetic and experiential sonic form. accompanied recorded tracks of himself in music that moved through repeated, modulated phrases, doleful dole·ful adj. 1. Filled with or expressing grief; mournful. See Synonyms at sad. 2. Causing grief: a doleful loss. sonorities, and chugging funk, setting the tempo and mood. In "Earth," six dancers carried trays of cut flowers that emitted a sickly sweet scent. Jennifer Phillips and Claire Benton paused to sniff their posies, then swooned and collapsed. The six others cradled their bouquets and waddled on their rears to form a line, each occupying a circle of light. Then the women became increasingly feral, stepping on others like conquests and walking on all fours bearing riders on their backs. They broke into two groups, each team handling Phillips and Benton like battering rams, dropping them face first into piles of flowers. The piece ended with the cast hurling fistfuls of flowers toward the audience; eventually the air was thick with flying flora, some of which reached the back of the house. Also on the bill were Timeless Red, a mystifying mys·ti·fy tr.v. mys·ti·fied, mys·ti·fy·ing, mys·ti·fies 1. To confuse or puzzle mentally. See Synonyms at puzzle. 2. To make obscure or mysterious. piece from 1998 that featured Wood as a taunting Victorian go-go dancer, plus a yogi and three fierce women with chairs. This work, with its ear-splitting score, merely diluted the impact of the premiere. Wood also danced a solo, Stella, which demonstrated her muscular and linear prowess in deep plies plies 1 v. Third person singular present tense of ply1. n. Plural of ply1. and stretched limbs and used suspended releves as fulcrum-like, kinetic punctuation. FOR MORE INFORMATION www.wooddance.net |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion