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Category / Dance Reviews

Chamber Dance Project at Arena Stage

But let’s step back a bit to a week before the show. It’s 2pm at the BalletNova Center for Dance in Falls Church, Virginia. We’re at an open rehearsal and privy to one of my favorite pastimes; the process! Observing how the sausage is made not only helps with context and appreciation, but it’s also a chance to see another side of a choreographer. In this case, it was two choreographers, both presenting world premier works.

Côté Danse’s Hamlet at Wolf Trap by Audrey Brown

A danced production of Hamlet ends where it started; or, rather, it had started where it ends. We all know, whether or not we’re familiar with the intricacies of the plot, that Hamlet is a deeply tragic Shakespearean work. Thusly, Ex Machina and Côté Danse, in their entirely danced version of the classic, refuse to indulge the possibility that audiences to its “contemporary-slash-neoclassical Western dance company’s” staging of the classic might be surprised at the final scene’s bloodbath, instead cluing them immediately into the fact that the breathing bodies they see onstage throughout the piece will cease to breathe at its closing.

Born to Create: The Artistic Tales of Ronniquè Antoinette by Ashayla Byrd

Bathed in the warm glow and bustling groove of a local Busboys and Poets restaurant, Ronniquè Antoinette’s statuesque form ascends from her seat to greet me. Equal parts elegant and swagged out in a white, winged, patch-work blouse and a form-fitted, calf-length jean skirt, it’s a relief to finally have face-time with a staple figure in the DC dance scene whose name I had mostly heard and read. 

Crossing Boundaries at Glen Echo Park by Luella Christopher

In this multi-purpose venue adjacent to the Potomac River,  the outside air couldn’t have blasted any hotter (at least since last summer’s Capitol Hill Arts Workshop in DC) as an auspicious crew of choreographers joined forces again, bringing some new yet some returning faces to perform a kaleidoscope of premieres.  The matinee that I attended was noteworthy for its accommodation  of young children who witnessed these “creative geniuses at work” from the vantage point of floor mats placed directly in front of the dancers. (The choreography showcase was mounted in a highly intimate setting - the large studio attached to Glen Echo’s historic Spanish Ballroom. )

After you leave this, I hope you are better – Ashayla Byrd reflects on Chitra Subramanian at Atlas INTERSECTIONS Festival

“I brought you this from home. I hope that’s okay,” she offers.  The ever-prepared mother that she is, her coffee-filled thermos, two cups, cream, and sugar offer me warm, liquid respite from the biting cold of a DC morning in early February. I am in a coffee era at present, and this homemade cup of energy and comfort hit the spot.  “Of course, it is. You are too kind,” I say, taken with–yet unsurprised by–her thoughtfulness. In the common area of a chic apartment complex, our bodies and minds thaw to begin a new day, one that affords me the opportunity to converse with and briefly shadow Indian-American dancer, choreographer, educator, and human embodiment of serenity–I added that last bit–Chitra Subramanian.
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