Results tagged “moderndance”

The illustrious downtown theater in the basement of Frank Gehry's iconic Disney Hall, REDCAT is bringing a dance classic onto its stage this week. But NOT ballet, to be sure! This week, the now near ninety year old pioneer Anna Halprin is presenting her 1965 masterpiece parades & changes, replays with an international cast of highly regarded performers and including the work's composer, the legendary electronic music trailblazer, Morton Subotnick.

For the fourth year running, "impresaria" Jamie Nichols is presenting what she calls "9 of the most cutting edge dance companies in Los Angeles" for one performance only, this Saturday, March 14th in Celebrate Dance at the historic Alex Theatre in Glendale.

World renowned Batsheva Dance Company returns to UCLAlive’s Royce Hall to present the L.A. premiere of MAX on Saturday and Sunday night, Feb. 28-March 1. This new work by award winning choreographer Ohad Naharin is an evening length piece for 10 dancers that continues Naharin’s research into the roots, origins and essence of movement. The highly refined choreography investigates notions of structure, time and space, with each dancer compressing utmost attention inward. Set to original music composed and performed by Maxim Waratt, an onstage awkwardness turns into beauty when performed by this athletic and innovative dance company.

Maria Gillespie brought Oni Dance, her company of strong, charismatic and engaging dancers, to a rarely used performance space in Santa Monica last weekend. Premiering wasteland ( arrival, she presented the evening length work in the round in the hundred year old home of the Santa Monica Bay Women's Club.

Returning to the Irvine Barclay Theater for another of its quasi-regular appearances there, the Joe Goode Performance Group will present the southern California premiere of Wonderboy this Friday for one show only!

Maria Gillespie has been dancing in LA for the past dozen years, exciting audiences with her strength, power and fluidity in the work of other choreographers. Forming Oni Dance in 2005 to showcase her own dance-making, the company has performed in venues as prestigious as the Getty Center, REDCAT, the Ford Amphitheater and Highways Performance Space, as well as several other venerable locales. The company has spent the last two years bringing work to New York City and returns this weekend with their latest evening-length dance, wasteland ( arrival.

Re-arranging the cavernous Diavolo Dance Space to seat the audience on all four sides of the "stage," the California Touring Project opened our eyes to some inventive and entertaining new dances. Choreographed and performed by artists from both the north and the south of our golden Mecca, the evening was filled with samples of good dancing, creative minds and solid performances.

Now in its second year, the California Touring Project will finally arrive in Los Angeles! A shared program of cutting edge dance work by some of our state's finest experimental choreographers and directors, the event happens this weekend at the Diavolo Dance Space in the Brewery Arts Complex downtown.

Bradley Michaud’s Method Contemporary Dance Company opened up its fourth season with a three-night stand at the Diavolo Dance Space in the Brewery Arts Complex this past weekend. Having seen last year’s evening length premiere, I was happy to see the choreographer’s growth as a dance maker and the evolution of his company.

Bradley Michaud's Method Contemporary Dance Company is opening up its season with "Remarkaly Content Free" at the Diavolo Space this weekend. Presenting three premieres and one work from the repertory (all choreographed by Michaud), the company of eight relishes the off-center, high speed world of sheer abandon without a need to embellish with artifice or explanation.

The closing program of the fifth annual New Original Works Festival (NOW) ended this weekend at REDCAT with a trio of works-in-progress. Composer Anne LeBaron with librettist Douglas Kearney, choreographer Rosanna Gamson and performance artist Kristina Wong presented excerpts from projects they’re currently working on in all their not-fully-edited, let’s try this, and I-wonder-if-this-belongs-here glory.

Moving into the third and final weekend of REDCAT's New Original Works Festival, the program is at its most varied--music, dance and performance art. Included in this evening of innovative projects are alumni of previous REDCAT productions Anne LeBaron (with Douglas Kearney) and Rosanna Gamson/World Wide with one woman bundle of fury and fun Kristina Wong!

Program Two at the New Original Works Festival at REDCAT revealed a challenge in the programming department. With two modern dances placed side by side, the audience was asked to watch the second piece without being overly affected by the first. Difficult job for any viewer. If the performance pieces are even minutely similar to one other, the initial act is always a hard one to follow.

Photo by RJ Muna

The first program of the 5th annual New Original Works Festival at REDCAT opened last week with a whiz-bang!

Under Disney Hall this week, there's more movement afoot with Dance Magazine's one of “25 to Watch” (2007) Holly Johnston, along with Trisha Brown alumnus Lionel Popkin and, in a more theatrical bent, the wild, humorous and nearly chaotic Poor Dog Group.

In what their promotional materials call "a theatrical tour-de-force," Hollywood's Unknown Theater continues its 2008 Dance Series with Lean To Productions' evening length An Attic An Exit for two weeks (Thursday-Sunday July 17-27).

New York modern dance artists performing in Los Angeles are always exciting contributors to the local scene. They bring energy and an up-to-the-moment snapshot of diverse and, hopefully, compelling ideas. This past month has seen a small handful of gems with Tere O’Connor’s Rammed Earth at the Skirball, recent resident Stephan Koplowitz’s Liquid Landscapes at California Plaza and other sites throughout the city/county and Meg Wolfe’s Show Box productions at the Unknown Theater in Hollywood.

Jordan Peimer, program director at the Skirball Cultural Center, does a great job of bringing interesting non-mainstream dance talent to our city. In the recent past he brought Neil Greenberg, Liz Lerman, the Sitelines series and international companies and artists that don’t fill the seats in the large venues, but who, nonetheless, expand the art form beyond its traditions and conventions. Always interesting, if not mind-blowing.