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By Francine
L. Trevens
ART TIMES Jan/ Feb
2006
Time was, just about every dance company and most dance schools offered light holiday entertainment around the Christmas/Hanukah season. Now, most avoid planning anything for this overly busy time of year
In big cities such as New York, major dance companies
present an annual NUTRACKER, so what’s a small company to do?
Some, such as Manhattan’s Kinetic Dance Theater, now
in its sixth year, plan events for other holidays. Kinetic did a pre-Thanksgiving
program called THE CYCLONE from Nov. 5th to 20th in 2005.
It is one of their favorite repertory pieces, described as a “gritty-side-show
circus-act take on the human condition.” It was directed and choreographed
by Joanna and Ryan Greer.
Her cofounder of Kinetic Dance, Joanna’s husband Ryan
Greer, explains scheduling thus: “We have seen very positive results
scheduling shows thematically during appropriate months. But it’s
important to listen to the inner creative voice and put up shows when
you hear the cry, ‘it’s time to get to work.’ You find that the work
goes up when it’s supposed to…a fatalistic thing that happens.”
“The Cyclone”, named for that huge old Coney Island
roller coaster ride, compares the human condition to surreal, circus-like
variety acts with the maelstrom of existence presented in center ring.
When the line between real life and circus characters is blurred, you
better hang on. You just might find yourself on the ride!
While Kinetic is unconnected to any dance school, Joanna
noted, it does “offer company dance classes and arts in education workshops.”
They plan a fund raising event for Spring.
Aphrodite Clamar is president of another New York based
not-for-profit company, Tom Cat Cohen Productions. Ms. Clamar
explains it got its unusual name from “my husband’s cat. Richard
had never had a pet, and I found this black and white cat in the eighties
and brought him home. I'm a psychologist, so I applied psychology saying
it was HIS cat and he should name it. He called it Tom Cat, which
I thought plebeian so I added my husband’s surname.”
Tom Cat Cohen was thus christened.
“Years later, when an actor rehearsing at my house and
I decided to start a theatre group with the mission to do theater applicable
to children and adults with an educational bent, he thought a good name
for the company would be Tom Cat Cohen. The cat himself was producer,
as he ruled the roost.”
Helen Butleroff-Leahy is artistic director of Tom Cat
Cohen. Under their auspices, with funding from the Ficalora Foundation,
Helen runs a physical fitness initiative called THE NEW FOOD GUIDE PYRAMID
MUSICAL PROGRAM. In 2004, this program which she directs and choreographs,
won a New York State Certificate of Achievement Award for promoting
all three of the eat well play hard-core strategies.
It debuted in the NYC school system with fourth and
fifth graders in Brooklyn where it was performed by professional Broadway
actors and three of the school children at an assembly. It’s especially
significant, as its purpose is the prevention of childhood obesity,
a major problem with youth today. Helen also is the creator and
choreographer for THAT’S LIFE, another touring piece. For Christmas
2005, this former ROCKETTE taught 40 tourists to New York a Rockette
Dance; her holiday project.
Brooklyn based UpBring Dance Company is both a dance
school and company. UpBring celebrates its fifth anniversary this
year. It has a touring company that tours four or five times a year,
to theme parks and festivals with new works including Fantasy Forest,
Fairytale Fusion and Planetary Shakedown. They spent their holidays
readying for performances Jan. 24 and 25 in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn where
they have two dance studios at the Micro Museum.
Artistic Director Shari Lee Polis feels their use of
kids from five to eighteen years old who employ all styles of dance
– jazz, hip hop, modern, African, Hula, ballet, break dance, Salsa
– and perform at street fairs, dance festivals and geriatric homes
throughout the year makes them unique.
“Our philosophy,” says Shari “is to create a nurturing,
positive and supportive environment while teaching all aspects of performance:
choreography, dance and stage vocabulary, costumes and props, stage
presence and performance etiquette.” They are now planning a Spring
show May 14th.
Maryland’s five–year-old Clopper’s Mill Dance
Theatre in Germantown, one of five dance studios owned by Concepts of
Motivation, Inc., concentrates on dance recitals in June. Each
teacher choreographs a new work for this event, as well as for special
performances in the community during the year. According to Janet Harwood
who runs Clopper’s Mill Dance Center, there was a Clopper Mill in Germantown.
Its ruins can be seen from the bridge over the creek in Seneca Creek
State Park near Clopper Road. The dance school’s name commemorates
that old mill.
Ms. Harwood said the closest they got to a holiday show
this year was planned for December 3 at the shopping center where they
are located. In April they'll be doing shows in nursing homes, using
their students. They also have an Olney Elite Competition team
that repeats its works throughout the competition year and does new
works annually.
It isn't only in the Northeast that specifically planned
Christmas shows are a thing of the past. In New Mexico, Sandra Baker-Dillingham,
director of New Mexico Dance Theater, was busy with a new fantasy ballet
she conceived and choreographed, THE KING FISHER AND THE CLAM, relating
to Alzheimer’s disease and how that locks a person in a world of his
own. It was not planned for the holidays. Sandra runs dance classes,
where she uses the strengths of her students to choreograph for them.
She holds auditions for her dance performances, however.
Tradition was upheld with a twist at the other end of
our nation, however. In San Francisco, on Dec. 10 and 11 the San
Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band held its annual Dance-Along Nutcracker.
The event is now in its 20th year. Conducted by Artistic Director
and Best of the Bay winner Jadine Louie, the wackiest Nutcracker on
earth mixes Tchaikovsky’s NUTCRACKER SUITE music with film music.
Carolyn Carvajal, veteran of the San Francisco Opera
Ballet and San Francisco Dance Spectrum, returned to choreograph the
show’s specialty number, which includes a tribute to silent film and
MGM sing-alongs. More than a zany San Francisco holiday tradition, THE
DANCE-ALONG NUTCRACKER is the primary fundraiser foe the San Francisco
Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band, the Official band of San Francisco. Since
THE NUTCRACKER BALLET itself showcases fantasy dreamscape, they feel
there is no better way to move this 19th century Russian montage into
21st Century U.S.A. than setting it against music and icons of the cinema.
In 1997 the conductor, in black tie and tails, barely
started an introduction when a tiny fairy princess, perhaps three years
old, and not three feet high, slipped from her mom and drifted dead
center on the now-empty dance floor to the podium. The conductor, mike
in hand bent to ask what she needed and she chirped into his mike, “We
have FANTASIA.”
This is the very stuff that makes DANCE-ALONG NUTCRACKER
so special. The magic is simple – in a society that treats
art as polished product and financial investment, this show reminds
folks of the sheer joy of joining the dance. Although not required
to join in, many of the audience do. There were many repeat performers
this year, but the central role is its audience-cast. Sugar plum
wannabes leap and pirouette about the dance floor. Tutu rentals
and fairy wands are available for those with nothing to wear, and even
wallflowers have fun at this unusual dance fest.
“It’s a wacky event” sums up Doug Litwin, clarinetist
and long time member of the band. “Anyone can jump in at any talent
level and the costumes are always fabulous.”
For the rest of us, a merry un-Christmas and to all
a good new dance year!