The Independent Weekly’s seasonal arts blog
Footage of the 2009 American Dance Festival program Past/Forward with performances of Faye Driscoll’s There’s So Much Mad in Me and Laura Dean’s Infinity, as reconstructed by Rodger Belman. The piece Various Stages of Drowning: A Cabaret by Rosie Herrera is not shown here, but will also be performed.
Produced by Belem Destefani and Sarah Ewald.
The footage you see here is of Beloved Renegade, as rehearsed by the Paul Taylor Dance Company at the 2009 American Dance Festival. Paul Taylor established his company in 1954 in Manhattan along with five other dancers. The dance company since then has performed in 520 cities and 62 countries. Among other accomplishments, Taylor has won an Emmy award for outstanding choreographer for 1992’s Paul Taylor’s Speaking in Tongues.
Beloved Renegade premiered in 2008 and is inspired by the works of the great American poet Walt Whitman, and set to Francis Poulenc’s Gloria. Reviewing the work in February, The New York Times‘ Alastair Macauley called the piece “one of the great achievements of Mr. Taylor’s long career and one of the most eloquently textured feats of his singular imagination.”
The company will also perform two pieces in addition to Renegade. Mercuric Tidings (1982) uses excerpts from Franz Schubert’s first and second symphonies while Scudorama, an ADF-commissioned-work created in 1963, is described by the festival as a “gem most Taylor devotees haven’t seen, complete with a jazzy-classical score by Clarence Jackson.”
Images of Doug Elkins and Friends performing Fraülein Maria at the 2009 American Dance Festival. Commentary and production by Belem Destefani and Sarah Ewald.
Frequent Indy contributor Kate Dobbs Ariail saw the show Monday night and just published this review at cvnc.org.
Images of the world premiere of 2b by Pilobolus at the 2009 American Dance Festival. Commentary by Belem Destefani and Sarah Ewald.
Images of the world premiere of Flowers of the Bones and a performance of The Rite of Spring by H. Art Chaos at the 2009 American Dance Festival. Commentary by Belem Destefani and Sarah Ewald. Produced by Byron Woods.
“But…it looks really different when it’s placed on ballet dancers!”
That’s what ADF sources told us when we asked about the differences between the version of Decadance that festival goers saw here in 2004 and the version Cedar Lake Contemporary Dance performs this week at DPAC.
Though the company provided us with the 30-second clip above, you can view a 5½ -minute excerpt from the company’s website here.
The work constitutes a potent fast-forward through ten years of choreography Naharin created for his Batsheva Dance Company in Israel. Vivid sequences excerpted from works including Naharin’s Virus and Anaphaza pointedly critiqued the politics of coercion, surveillance, intimidation and religious extremism, while others probed the questionable ethics of erotica. Its original decanting at ADF gave audiences an example of artistic protest as bracing as Maguy Marin’s One Cannot Eat Applause—and possibly more entertaining.
We’ll let you judge the differences between the ballet dancers above, and the original version, below:
Collaboration with Sarah Ewald and Belem Destefani.
Exclusive photo call footage of Emanuel Gat’s Winter Variations at the 2009 American Dance Festival. Dancers: Emanuel Gat and Roy Assaf. Commentary: Dance critic and correspondent Byron Woods. Produced by: Belem Destefani and Sarah Ewald.
The American Dance Festival announced the lineup for its 2009 season at the end of last week. Dance cognoscenti had braced for the worst, given warnings earlier in the year about financial reversals in support due to the economic maelstrom. 
Rumor confirmed: the 2009 season will be one week shorter than usual, covering five and a half weeks from June 18-July 25. The festival has also cut the number of marquee main-stage presentations this year from 13 to 10, a reduction of almost 25 percent.
Upsides, with season highlights, after the jump. Continue reading »
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