Creating meaningful collaborations is a labor intensive process that Pegasus Contemporary Ballet artistic director Diana Crowder has decided is worth the trouble. Many of the young Dallas company’s shows take a multidisciplinary approach, none more so than the its annual Synergy performances that match local musicians with choreographers from hither and yon.
“It’s a lot of work,” Crowder concedes in a phone interview as the dates for Synergy 2025 approach. “It’s the most challenging show of the season for our dancers. But bringing these artists together is indescribable, the coming together of these different pockets of the art scene, different genres, people of different backgrounds, their training and experience. It truly creates something greater than the sum of its parts.”
One of the ways that Pegasus ensures unusual, original mashups is to identify musicians who are working in styles not normally associated with dance. For instance, singer-songwriter Jacob Metcalf makes pop records and plays primarily in clubs. Metcalf has melded a few of his songs into a 15-minute score to accompany a piece by Filipino-American choreographer Norbert De La Cruz III.
Like the other two dance works on the bill, Love Language is a premiere. The music is always performed live, in this case by Metcalf’s trio.
Crowder first approached De La Cruz a couple of years ago. He had choreographed a duet for TITAS/Dance Unbound’s annual gala and was in the midst of making new pieces for Bruce Wood Dance and Dallas Black Dance Theatre. She also knew of him through choreographer and teacher Carter Alexander. De La Cruz had studied under Alexander and attended Juilliard with Pegasus rehearsal director Allison Schuster.
When his pieces were shown in Dallas, Crowder was impressed by what she saw.
“This year, when we were thinking of choreographers to bring in for Synergy, his name was still at the top of my list because I think his work is really beautiful,” she says. “He was on my radar.”
The match with Metcalf started with a Spotify playlist maintained by the manager of one of the musicians from the first Synergy in 2023. De La Cruz liked what he heard, Crowder says, so she asked Metcalf to coffee. “It’s kind of an exciting prospect for our choreographers to be able to work with a musician that’s creating in their own vein here. There’s so much breadth in the Dallas music scene.”
The other pairings feature University of Southern California dance professor Bruce McCormick with multi-genre musician Martin Morgan — both of whom have previously worked with Pegasus — and former Bruce Wood Dance company member Gabriel Speiller with experimental Denton violinist Leoncarlo Canlas. The music was written for Synergy, to be performed by composer-led ensembles.
Once the choreographers arrive in Dallas to make their pieces on the Pegasus dancers, the musicians attend at least a couple of rehearsals. Crowder says Canlas, who came for a week, composed in real time as Speiller created Under a Blood Moon with the dancers.
“That was a special process that was awesome to witness. They would talk about how to transition from one section to the next, maybe working off of a dancer making a move. That’s when you strike a chord. There’s a lot of beautiful, synergistic collaboration that happens in those moments.”
The cast of Synergy 2025 includes Pegasus troupe members Aia K. McInnes, Elena Olshin, Emma Krusling, Kiera Mays and Natalie Panayi and guest performers Elijah Lancaster, Dominiq Luckie and Jackson Bayhi. Lancaster and Luckie are former members of Dallas Black Dance Theatre. Bayhi is a company member of Texas Ballet Theater.
McCormick’s piece, From a Beating Heart, is on pointe, with Morgan playing his soul-fusion composition on a grand piano accompanied by drummer Christopher “Chill” Hill. Hill was featured on last year’s Synergy program accompanied by Morgan, whose wife Kyee will provide vocals this time. The band also includes an upright bassist.
For Speiller’s Blood Moon, which Crowder describes as a big, physical, dramatic work, Canlas will create his trademark electronic looping sounds live on his violin. “Even though it’s only for five dancers, it feels very full,” she says.
She calls De La Cruz’s Love Language soulful, matching well with Metcalf’s poetic lyrics. The piece follows four couples and their different expressions of love. The composer will be accompanied by a drummer and saxophonist.
Beyond the unexpected collision of disciplines and genres, there’s no overriding theme to Synergy 2025 or any of its other iterations for that matter.
“Although it’s the same concept, each piece and each year is an entirely different experience for the artists and the audiences,” Crowder says. “It introduces dance audiences to musicians that maybe they haven’t heard of, and it introduces music audiences to concert dance in a way that maybe they had never experienced before. It’s an exciting way to not just cross-pollinate artists but also the communities and the audiences that support them.”
Details
June 13-14 at 8 p.m. at Moody Performance Hall, 2520 Flora St. $38-$79. pegasusballet.org.
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