There was nothing wrong with Dance Charlotte! 2010 that a few more dancers and a few more dances couldn’t have cured. Staged at Booth Playhouse last Friday and Saturday, the seven-piece program clocked in at a shade over 55 minutes, including bows and pauses. A 20-minute intermission helped stretch the program but not the personnel, which reached a mere 13 for the entire evening.
No, it wasn’t planned that way. An insert in the playbill diagnosed one key problem. The staging of Martha Graham’s Maple Leaf Rag by the South Carolina Contemporary Dance Company was canceled without explanation – not even at SCCDC’s website, which is still hyping the performance. Sporting Calvin Klein costumes to accent the Graham choreography and Scott Joplin music, the playbill description of Rag listed 18 dancers and certainly would have provided the festival with a flashier climax.
Best of the rest was E.E.Motion’s presentation of E.E.volution, set to the music of John Allemeier by choreographer E.E. Balcos. Joining Balcos in this elegant piece were two stalwarts of the local scene, Tai Dorn and Audrey Ipapo Baran. Honors for the back-to-the-drawing-board prize went to dancer/choreographers Mickje Geller and Sybil Huskey, who set Just Here Body to the recorded sound of a car engine, an idea that must have looked better in theory than in practice.
There were no fewer than three solo dances in the program, Ashley Suttlar Martin dancing to her own In the Soul, Tracie Foster Chan dancing to Jan Van Dyke’s Luna, and Young Sun Lee dancing to an untitled work of her own. Luna was handicapped by the saccharine noodling of New Age pianist George Winston, so I preferred the Martin piece and its griot flavorings. Of the three soloists, Lee may be the talent to watch. Chan was actually showcased to better advantage in a work of her own, Spoon, a duo piece with Alex Smith to the music of Zafer Tawil.
Set to music by Cyril Morin, with text by Edgar Allan Poe performed by Amanda Rentschler, “Mesmeric Revelations” was surely the most tantalizing piece of the night. Excerpted from a full-length piece, “Revelations” didn’t really begin to reveal its true “Masque of the Red Death” context, though the dancing by Rentschler, Elizabeth Sturgis, and choreographers Caroline Calouche and Brian Winn was at a level very close to the E.E.Motion ensemble’s.
Common sense would seem to indicate that Dance Charlotte! was left in the lurch really, really, really late in the game, because the full Macabre Masque, from which “Mesmeric Revelations” was excerpted, saw its premiere in Gastonia just this past May. Calouche & Co., the producers of that piece, are also the producers of Dance Charlotte! Given more time to rehearse and mount additional segments of Masque, which has never been staged in Charlotte, Calouche & Co. would presumably have supplied Dance Charlotte! with the additional inventory it so conspicuously lacked.
This article appears in Nov 16-22, 2010.
I disagree completely with Perry Tannenbaum’s assessment of the performance. First of all I think when reviewing a dance performance it is of the utmost importance to include correct information. Young Sun Lee’s work was not untitled, but entitled “Young Sun Lee”, clearly a work inspired by her own journey though art to find herself. Lee is a beautiful mover and inspiring choreographer bringing the audience members around me to a collective exhale upon the finale of her work. The duet by Tracie Chan and solo by Ashley Suttlar-Martin were additionally beautifully hand crafted works of art while the three more established choreographers in the show left much to be desired. E.E. Balcos’ work was beautifully danced but totally uninteresting and all too similar to other works he has presented in the last several years. Caroline Calouche’s excerpt felt like two separate sections without a through-line. The first section was well performed and compelling while the second was unrefined. And finally Jan Van Dyke’s work was simply repetitive.
In my opinion, Perry Tannenbaum failed to supply the reader with narrative to support his response to Dance Charlotte 2010!. Therefore, his comments seem to be based entirely on personal preference rather than professional judgment. I would ask P. Tannenbaum many questions including the following regarding judgments he made: Why did you consider E.E. Volution “elegant.”?; Why did Just Here Body seem to you “…an idea that must have looked better in theory than in practice.”?; What made you believe Young Sun Lee’s solo was untitled?; Why did you “…prefer the Martin piece and its griot flavorings.”?; and In what ways was Chan “…actually showcased to better advantage in a work of her own, Spoon…”? Finally, did you designate Lee “…the one to watch…” because of her performance quality, choreographic skill or both?
In addition to providing context a critic/reviewer must be a poet (description), a teacher (interpretation) and a judge (evaluation). My point is P.T.’s review of Dance Charlotte! 2010 was heavily weighted in unsupported evaluative comments rather than descriptive language that would allow the performance to live and breathe for the reader. Instead of supporting evaluative comments with evidence based on what he actually observed in the choreography, P. Tannenbaum gave the reader very little beyond viewer centered often unnecessarily sarcastic comments. Why?
Many thanks to Caroline Calouche and the Dance Charlotte! 2010 choreographers, dancers, designers and crew for keeping the spirit of modern dance alive in this city!