Project Artaud Theater
At fifteen years old, the West Wave Dance Festival, which opened last week in the Project Artaud Theater in San Francisco has become one of the best places to see what the Bay Area’s modern dance choreographers are up to in the long summer months that stretch between one season and the next.
Boasting the work of some 48 choreographers, this year’s festival is a three week extravaganza that offers the many small companies and young choreographers of the area the opportunity to put their work -- some still in development, some excerpts of finished pieces – in front of an audience.
True, the festival’s early programs can be something of a mixed bag, with more polished pieces appearing side by side with ones that have the feeling of a college dance concert. Nevertheless, being there at the start of a young modern choreographer’s ventures is a tempting draw and the format of six to seven pieces per performance which the festival has settled into means that each program is nicely varied, but doesn’t outstay its welcome.
Both last Thursday and last Saturday night (Program 2 and 3), for instance, featured stark duets, a bit of theater, some dance played against video and a dash of slapstick humor.
In fact, it was pleasant to see a little levity in an arena where the dance is often about serious issues. In Kerry Mehling’s “Just a Little One,” Mehling takes on the persona of a 20s lounge lizard visiting a speakeasy. Her inebriated solo, accompanied by an equally inebriated monologue -- the text was Dorothy Parker’s short piece of the same title – from his young flapper date who appears larger than life on the video screen behind. Another video-dance work in Thursday night’s Program 2, Rebecca Wender’s “Afterward” took less advantage of its video component, failing to mesh the onscreen with the live action movement.
If Jenny McAllister’s “Only in Fairytales” – a series of miniature “Fractured Fairytales” -- was less rigorously executed, it still brought a few chuckles, but generally, the more literal “literary” pieces were often a weak point in the program. A danced version of Prospero’s Act V “but this rough magic I here abjure” speech from “The Tempest” took little advantage of the richly descriptive word imagery available, and Apryl Renee’s “Trope of Seuss” -- a riff on “Green Eggs and Ham” – couldn’t get past it’s own absurdity to evolve into more than a one-note vignette.
On the serious side, Sue Roginski and Christy Funsch’s “Alone Together” was easily the most clearly structured and cleanly executed investigation of space and form on the program. At times languid, and yet highly specific in the way they fit shapes together, Roginski and Funsch gave the work an internal logic that had a focus missing in other pieces.
Interestingly, the program also demonstrated the limitations of presenting a work in a theater setting. An excerpt of Cheryl Chaddick’s “Landslide” -- which her company performed last May in the underground rave hangout, the Gingerbread Warehouse, now called the Danzhaus – made less sense out of context and took on a histrionic tenor that missed the elegant sweep of Chaddick’s more choreographed sections of the same piece.
The nice thing about the West Wave Dance Festival is that these programs promise to only gain momentum as the festival continues this week and next and some of the strongest and most experienced contributors are yet to come.
In the next two weeks’ lineup of choreographers and dancers are reliably inventive dance-makers, including Manuel Biag’s always intriguing SHIFT>>> Physical Theater with a sneak preview of his latest work “The Shape of Poison” and the talented Amy Seiwert, whose “Tonic” will close Program 6 (Friday & Saturday, July 22-23).
And there will be no shortage of form and structure on Program 7 (Thursday & Friday, July 27-28), which will feature work from such experienced hands as Janice Garrett, Heidi Schweiker and the always exciting mixed-ability troupe, AXIS Dance Company. Benjamin Levy will reprise his “Violent Momentum” and there will be new pieces from Alex Ketley, and the promising Kate Weare. And Viktor Kabaniaev, who continues to develop a unique contemporary choreographic style, will be presenting a duet for Smuin Ballet’s Ethan White and Diablo Ballet’s Tina Kay Bohnstedt on Program 8 (Saturday & Sunday July 29-30).
WHAT: West Wave Dance Festival 2006
Program 4- Tuesday, July 18: Martt Lawrence, Patricia Banchik-Bell, Carmen Carnes, group A, Aura Fischbeck, Vanguard Dance Company
Program 5- Thursday, July 20: Linda Bair Dance Company, Katie Faulkner/little seismic dance, Monica Marks/UDanceElectra, Pappas and Dancers, Vispo Dance, Ross Dance Company
Program 6- Saturday-Sunday, July 22-23: Amy Seiwert, SHIFT>>> Physical Theater, Dance Ceres, Deborah Slater Dance Theater, Facing East Music + Dance, Alma Esperanza Cunningham Movement
Program 7- Thursday-Friday, July 27-28: Alex Ketley, LEVYdance, AXIS Dance Company, Kate Weare, Janice Garrett & Dancers, Heidi Schweiker
Program 8- Saturday-Sunday, July 29-30: KT Nelson (special guest appearance), SPOON, Navarrete x Kajiyama, Lisa Townsend Company, Viktor Kabaniaev, Randy Paufve
Program 9- Monday, July 24: A night of all dance and no tech, curated by Anna Dal Pino & John LeFan, At ODC Theater , 3153 17th Street at Shotwell, SF. This Program only, tickets: $10
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