Most of the major companies in the small but vibrant Dallas dance scene are putting on shows this month. The concerts cover a gamut of styles from classical ballet to cutting edge contemporary work, from jazz dance to flamenco.
The troupes include Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Ochre House Theater, Pegasus Contemporary Ballet, Beckles Dancing Company, Bruce Wood Dance Dallas and the student ensemble of Southern Methodist University’s dance division. Meanwhile, presenter TITAS/Dance Unbound is bringing Canada’s Anne Plamondon Danse to town for its U.S. debut.
Plamondon is best known for her work with the innovative Mexican American choreographer Victor Quijada, whose unique style blends hip-hop, ballet and modern dance. From 2002 to 2015, she was part of Quijada’s Montreal-based Rubberband Dance Group, first as a performer, then as co-artistic director. She collaborated with fellow Canadian Crystal Pite and Pite’s group Kidd Pivot during that same period.
Her company will perform her 2023 work, Myokine (Nov. 7-8), named for the protein released during exercise. These “hope molecules” help regulate metabolism, muscle growth and repair, inflammation and organ function. Plamondon characterizes the piece as an exploration of the body “as a source of resilience, beauty and hope in the face of the urgency to act that characterizes our times.”
If that sounds politically tinged, it’s not the only such approach on the dance schedule. One of three new works that Dallas Black Dance is premiering on this year’s Director’s Choice program (Nov. 7-8) is Fort Worth-based choreographer and educator Christen Reyes’ The Wage of Existence, described as “a visceral exploration of the human condition under capitalism, exposing the relentless exchange between survival and sacrifice.”
The concerts also feature the debuts of The Breath Within by DBDT junior company artistic director Nycole Ray and Pilobolus company member Krystal Butler’s A Love I Once Knew, along with a revival of German American choreographer and Guggenheim fellow Nejla Yatkin’s Lost in Memory.
Dallas flamenco artists Antonio Arrebola and Delilah Buitrón Arrebola and New Orleans second-line preservationist Michelle Gibson recently appeared together in a production of Yemayá Flamenco as part of Cara Mia Theatre’s Latinidadas Festival. Now they are involved in separate shows.
The Arrebolas portray King Aragon and Queen Trianna in their latest dance-theater collaboration with Ochre House. Artistic director Matthew Posey’s Libro de los Sueños Olvidados (Nov. 1-13) is a fantasy about two homely sisters who steal a book of spells with plans to use it to turn them into movie stars. Instead they conjure a world of magical creatures. Flamenco music will be performed by singer Chayito Champion and guitarist Calvin Hazen.
Gibson, founder of performance and educational group the Original BuckShop and professor of practice at SMU, has created an Afro-modern, second-line jazz piece for the school’s Fall Dance Concert (Nov. 13-16). It premieres alongside a new work by jazz dance professor Brandi Coleman, a restaging of David Parsons’ witty and virtuosic The Envelope and a pair of excerpts from Act III of August Bournonville’s classic 1842 ballet Napoli.
On the contemporary ballet front, Pegasus is premiering artistic director Diana Crowder’s immersive The Egg, based on The Martian author Andy Weir’s short story of the same name. The piece explores themes of life and death and is set to a commissioned score by Grammy-winning violinist Scott Tixier.
“From the way that we're using the space in the round, to incorporating some immersive theater elements, this production is really created to invite you into the world of The Egg,” Crowder says.
Rounding out the month, Beckles Dancing Company is hosting the South Dallas Dance Festival (Nov. 14-15, program not yet announced) and Bruce Wood Dance is putting on a triple bill (Nov. 21-23) that includes a new work commissioned from Robert Battle, former artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, set to jazz score by Dizzy Gillespie, Chet Baker, Sean Jones and Seatbelts.
The shows also feature Wood’s classic No Sea to Sail In, described by company artistic adviser Kimi Nikaidoh as “a stark and suspenseful ballet noir,” and his mentor Lar Lubovitch’s Concerto Six Twenty-Two.
Details
Tickets at attpac.org, dbdt.com, ochrehousetheater.org, calendar.smu.edu, pegasusballet.org, becklesdancingco.org and brucewooddance.org.
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