[NEOPAL]Berko review: Inlet Dance, Morrison Dance, Anteus Dance and previews

[Roy Berko]

DANCEWORKS ‘06 at CPT meets with mixed success

Roy Berko

(Member, American Theatre Critics Association)

--THE TIMES NEWSPAPERS--


Lorain County Times--Westlaker Times--Lakewood News
Times--Olmsted-Fairview Times	


Inlet Dance Theatre is impressive

Bill Wade, the Artistic Director and Founder of Inlet
Dance, has a mission.  He intensely believes that
contemporary dance training and performing can
positively impact lives.  Besides directing the
regular company, which is in its fifth season, Wade
works with a trainee/apprentice program, mentors
pre-professional dancers who have come to Cleveland to
study, and works in outreach programs in various
school districts, such as the recently completed
month-long Mosaic Experience at Cleveland Heights High
School.

It is obvious in attending Inlet Dance concerts that
Wade is enamored with a search for wholeness, for the
truth, for relationships based on a respectful balance
and full of trust, and journeys toward redemption.

The company was impressive in their recent residency
at Cleveland Public Theatre, as part of Danceworks 06.

’WONDROUS BEASTS’ found the well-disciplined dancers,
who were dressed in colorful tie-dyed unitards, moving
in slow-motion controlled maneuvers.   Working as
individual animals, through a series of gymnastic
moves they masterfully combined into a single
centipede.  The gymnastic moves perfectly fit Ryan
Lott’s editing of Mum and Siguar Rose’s jungle music
and sounds.  Dennis Dugan’s lighting helped enhance
the ever-changing moods.

‘SKIRTING THE HEART,’ in its premiere presentation,
used religious ritual as an illustration of moving
toward salvation.  The dancers, dressed in black
flowing skirts, eventually disappeared below a ground
cover only to emerge in cleansed all-white costumes. 
Choreographed by Stephen Wynne, the movements
perfectly fit Transglobal Underground, KIA’s
tribal-type music.  The piece was intense and, though
a little too long, impressive.

‘THIS COULD HURT,’ based on John Eldredge’s book Wild
at Heart, was a wonderful enactment of a group of guys
having an adventure full of risk-taking behavior.  The
gymnastic movements were well executed by Dan Barnes,
Joshua Brown, Brett Parker and Justin Stentz.  Stentz,
who is a company trainee, was impressive throughout
the evening.  He has the makings of an excellent
dancer. 

‘ASCENSION,’ also a company premiere, contained many
of Wade’s signature maneuvers:   controlled gymnastic
movements, duos balancing like teeter totters, strong
arm thrusts, unchanging facial expressions, male and
female equality in strength movements, repetition
without redundancy and serious undertones.  The piece
was danced to the electronic music of Ryan Lott. 
Lott, who is becoming the favorite of not only Wade,
but Groundworks’ David Shimotakahara, is a master at
creating contemporary sounds that lend themselves to
creative choreography.  Performed like a three-ring
circus, the trio of couples became acrobats as they
balanced and worked with full trust to create
impressive visual images.  Leila Pelhan, Rebecca
Inman, Margret Ludlow, Joshua Brown, Elizabeth
Stratton and Justin Stentz were amazing in their body
control.

The program ended with Steve Rooks’ ‘THE DOOR.’   The
least impressive piece of the evening, it was the most
traditional in use of modern dance movements.  Billed
as a journey through redemption, the dancers were not
as engaged in the piece as in other offerings.

CAPSULE JUDGEMENT:  Inlet Dance Theatre impressed a
sold out audience with a program that generally showed
fine choreography combined with excellent dance
skills.

The next opportunity to see a public performance of
Inlet will be at a free performance at Cain Park’s
Evans Amphitheater on Wednesday July 26 at 8 pm.

Morrison Dance fails to capture audience with Irish
dance-theatre piece

In its recent residence as part of Cleveland Public
Theatre’s Danceworks 06, Morrison Dance presented
Christopher Johnston’s ‘THE MAD MASK MAKER OF MAIGH
EO.’  It was an attempt to combine dance and story
into a unified whole.

The dance/play was based on two Irish myths.  ‘THE
RED-HAIRED GIRL FROM THE BOG’ centers on a bewitching
fairy who could appear as a hag or as a beautiful
young woman.  The second myth is that there were good
fairies to whom people could turn when there was
trouble in their village or town.  The combined tale
found the red haired girl coming to a village and
removing the mask-maker, who had been taking the souls
of people to make masks.  Johnston states that the
primary theme of his play is “how at times conflicting
and times comingling influences of paganism and
Christianity have forged the distinctly Irish spirit.”

In spite of valiant efforts by actors Derdriu Ring,
Meg Chamberlain and Andrew Narten, the dialogue was
generally flat, fringing on boring.  Sarah Morrison’s
choreography did not integrate well into the story
line.    

CAPSULE JUDGEMENT:  Seeing a dance company combined
with a company of actors to present a performance can
provide a compelling evening.  It requires a creative
script based on an engaging story into which the
dancing must blend so that it becomes a seamless unit.
 Unfortunately, ‘THE MAD MASK MAKER OF MAIGH EO’ was
not such an offering.


Anteus Dance Company investigates human cruelty

“Mankind is capable of great cruelty.  Humanity also
possesses a vast capacity for love and forgiveness.” 
These two themes were at the core of ‘BURN THE
HEAVENS,’ Antaeus Dance Company’s recent production as
part of Cleveland Public Theatre’s Danceworks 06.

Performed to the music of Mudbaby, the piece, which
was developed through a collaborative process between
the dancers and the choreographer,  set a clear tone
at the beginning.  Unfortunately, though
well-intentioned, the piece was repetitive and instead
of building empathy as it progressed, it lost the
audience’s attention and the impact of the offering by
being overly long and static.   How many times do we
have to  watch pushing and shoving, hitting and
recoiling, dragging and punching before we get the
point?  As a twenty-minute piece this would have been
effective.  As an entire program it was just too
agonizingly slow and redundant to hold attention.

The dancers successfully executed Joan Meggitt’s
intent.  The music ate into our souls.  James Longs’
jail-like set was well-intentioned, but,
unfortunately, by Meggitt allowing the “victims” to
escape outside the cell, she broke the feeling of
“there is no escape.”

CAPSULE JUDGEMENT:  Meggit needs to carefully examine
what effect she wants from her audience and
choreograph to that end.  Her well intentioned concept
in ‘BURN THE HEAVENS’ lost its impact due to a lack of
restraint.

Danceworks 06 continues

Danceworks 06 continues at CPT’s theatres through
March 26.  Upcoming events include:

COMING OF AGE AND FAMILY OUTING, March 16-19, features
a dance/theater piece created by Chris DiCello in
which she examines nine decades in the life of a woman
who is shadowed by a Kabuki-inspired figure who
assists her through the transitions from decade to
decade.

CLEVELAND CONTEMPORARY DANCE THEATRE, March 16-19,
celebrates the male dancer and highlights his
athleticism, power and strength in an evening
entitled, ‘THE MEN’S PROJECT;  MEN IN MOTION.’

GROUNDWORKS DANCETHEATRE, March 23-26.  Returning to
CPT for its seventh annual performance series, this
Groundworks program features the company’s new
branding theme, ‘Notsoobvious Entertainment.’  The
program, with two world premieres, will feature the
Groundworks company dancing to the choreography of KT
Niehoff, the founder of Velocity Dance Center in
Seattle,  In addition, Artistic Director David
Shimotakahara will create a new work with original
music by Gustavo Aguilar.  GROUNDWORKS is a must see!

SRISHTI DANCES OF INDIA, March 25-26.  Featuring
classical Indian dance, the collaborative work will
feature two classical dance styles of internationally
acclaimed artists from the US and India in a program
entitled, ‘YUGMA:  ODISSI BHARATANATYAM SCULPTURAL
KINETIC.’

For tickets, which range in price from $10 to $24
call216-631-2727 or visit www.cptonline.org.


Roy Berko's web page can be found at www.royberko.info.  His theatre and dance reviews appear on NeOHIOpal, an on-line source.   To subscribe to this free service via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.fredsternfeld.com/mailman/listinfo/neohiopal.

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