Exciting. Scary. Satisfying. Frightening. Those are the kinds of emotions that have running through Kyle Abraham’s mind since June.
The Penn Hills native has been on a steep artistic curve lately with the success of “The Radio Show,” largely inspired by the silencing of WAMO, a pivotal part of Pittsburgh’s black community and his father, a pivotal part of Kyle’s life, who also stopped speaking when he contracted aphasia.
Certain subsequent events have been sad because some of his original company dancers have opted to have children and can no longer tour. At the same time, he’s getting plenty of opportunities to tour with the support of the prestigious National Dance Project.
It’s been a big slice of life for the still 30-something choreographer.
From the Joyce Theater’s Gotham Dance Festival performance in June, he’s been on the go. Some of the highlights: a return to Jacob’s Pillow for the second year in a row, the Fire Island Dance Festival, a number of residencies and adding fellow Pittsburgher Patrick Ferreri as company manager.
Kyle also found out that he is “the big poster boy person” for the dance season at his alma mater, SUNY Purchase, where his company will be appearing. He jokes that he “has such an inner giggle because I was probably the only guy in the dance program who did not enter with a scholarship” (although the school rectified that after the first semester and has offered continued support).
On his way to Ecuador in July, Kyle heard that his father was in hospice care. He made a quick stop, a good thing because he learned that his father had passed the day after he got back. “I’m glad I got to see him,” Kyle says, although his dancers had to work on a residency without him while he dealt with funeral arrangements. People responded with “a lot of letters and donations” and the International Aphasia Movement has since expressed an interest in “The Radio Show.”
These days, though, the grieving comes in waves. But Kyle doesn’t allow it to engulf him. He will be heading back to the Joyce in January on a program with fellow NDP recipient Kate Weare and, in the meantime, premiere his latest project, “Live: The Realest MC,” at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater.
“Live” will be a re-imagining of Pinocchio and his quest to be a real boy, “putting that into a gay urban context.” Kyle says that the piece took a darker turn when the Tyler Clementi story, about the gifted 18-year old Rutgers student who was outed on the Internet and committed suicide, broke in the middle of the creative process.
Tyler’s tragedy influenced the work, giving it a more aggressive outlook with much more movement. But there is still “a bit of humor” to be had in “Live.
As there is in Kyle’s return to Pittsburgh to visit some of his favorite haunts. Record Exchange, “one of my favorite stores.” Michael Varone at Shadyside’s Moda, where Kyle used to work and where his dad shopped. Gullifty’s for the apple pie.
And pizza in general, because Pittsburgh’s “doesn’t taste like any other.” Therein lies the quandary, because Kyle can’t choose between Aiello’s and Mineo’s. So he just gets both because “one tastes better warm than the other and one tastes better cold than the other.”
Which is which? You’ll have to ask Kyle.
Check Listings for the Abraham.In.Motion performance of “Live: The Realest MC” this weekend.
Usually audiences are introduced to a new work in its relatively finished form on the stage. Nowadays performing arts groups offer studio performances and rehearsals in what might be termed a less-than-finished format.
But THIRTEEN’s American Masters series on PBS has elevated that concept with a behind-the-scenes look during its latest installment, Bill T. Jones: A Good Man. The viewer gets a robust idea of Jones’ newest dance theater piece, Fondly Do We Hope…Fervently Do We Pray, inspired by Abraham Lincoln and commissioned by the Ravinia Festival in honor of the 16th President’s bicentennial.
It is a 90-minute documentary that toggles back and forth from stage to rehearsal studio. There are many questions to be asked along the way, but Jones says of Lincoln, “Is he a good man? Or, is he a good man!”
During the course of the documentary, the choreographer reveals that he was an admirer of the President from early childhood. But during his research, Jones begins to doubt that viewpoint, citing some passages that he finds, important enough to indicate that Lincoln might have been a white supremacist.
In the end, the “good man” phrase serves as a pivotal point to “locate Lincoln in the present.” And Jones ultimately settles on what it means to not only be a good man, but to be a free man and to be a citizen.
It gives food for thought for us all.
The creative process involved so many people and this documentary covers a lot of them. Granted, all processes are different, but this provides an up-close portrait of the difficulties that lay in assembling a work of art.
So we get personal biographies of some of the dancers who were involved, a look at difficulties that the composer/band leader (cellist Christopher Antonio William Lancaster) encountered, production problems (the huge white curtain, designed by Bjorn Amelan, had a mind of its own in the Ravinia breeze) and a studio performance for presenters. The cuts from rehearsal to stage, particularly near the end, are so precise and illuminating that they are nothing short of brilliant.
But at the heart of this “Good Man” is a portrait of Jones — his thoughts on his childhood, his emotional visit to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and numerous film clips. My favorites involved early footage with former partner Arnie Zane, but there are also brief glimpses of Still/Here, Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land and D-Man in the Waters.
Choreographic genius that he is, Jones isn’t given a glossy portrayal. At one point near the end, he loses his temper and storms out of the studio. The next day he apologizes and attributes it to putting that “last ten percent” into place.
It appears that one powerful image, when he recalls the Lincoln “ghost train,” only comes to him shortly before the debut when he actually sees a train on the Ravinia grounds.
Yet everyone wonders whether they have done enough. Although “A Good Man” provides us with tantalizing glimpses and is a deliciously finished product in itself, that decision will have to wait until the production comes to a stage near you.
In the meantime, visit Bill on WQED tonight at 9 p.m.
Over the weekend, August Wilson Center presented its first Black Dance Festival. Not much can go wrong at the first, but this festival exceeded expectations. Read about it in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and enjoy the accompanying photos.
We always saw the friendly face of Attack Theatre through projects from Bag Attack Boogaloo to Japanese composer Somei Satoh. It was that scintillating blend of fierce and fun-tabulous, quirky and quick-witted that attracted new audiences and sustained them over the past 16 years. But as freewheeling as this company seemed on the face of things, there was an assortment of very smart choices going on behind the scenes to keep Attack afloat.
And it all began at the Warhol.
During his off-hours at Dance Alloy, Peter Kope was working as an art handler at the Andy Warhol Museum, preparing for its opening exhibition in 1994. So was Donna Goyak.
They made up half of a four-person team, a project that was “a lot of work, but a fun year,” according to Donna. That phrase would be a harbinger of the future. While waiting for a shipment, the pair would “sit and talk and plan and think” about Peter’s dream — to formulate a site-specific dance company of their own.
As a result, Donna became “fast friends” with Peter and Michele, his partner and Alloy member who was getting a Masters of Science in Developmental Movement/Motor Learning at the University of Pittsburgh.
When the Warhol opened, Peter and Michele were back at the Alloy, while Donna went to the Pittsburgh Sports and Festival Federation, a new organization that was designed to create special events Downtown under Mayor Sophie Masloff’s administration.
With Jaime Todd, she co-founded First Night Pittsburgh and called Peter and Michele to help with the programming. Donna recalls that they were actually going to print with the program when she told them, “C’mon guys, I need a name.”
And Attack Theatre was born.
Maybe it was because they planned that Bag Attack Boogaloo and something called Kazoo Theatre, but the name seemed to symbolize their embracing way with the arts. The friends went on to do a lot of projects. The 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. Dollar Bank Jeopardy. The Persian Gulf War Welcome Home Parade.
just had to ask, “Here’s the situation — what can you do with this?” And off they went. She notes, “They’re very creative in that way.” So she relied on them for each subsequent First Night and more.
Then Donna moved to the state of Washington, but never lost touch. She brought Peter and Michele out to lecture in the schools and do First Night Tacoma performances. Throughout that time, she remained “a friend and an advisor of sorts.”
Donna was one of the stakeholders when Peter and Michele decide to go to non-profit status in 2004. It was a question they had been asking for a year.
“It was the right thing to do, analyzing the kind of work they were doing and the kind of attitude they had,” she explains. “Just about every dollar they earned went back into their authentic and deep commitment to community engagement and arts education. By their very nature, they fit all the criteria that makes it a good non-profit, what a non-profit should be for the benefit of the community. For all of those reasons, it was the right decision to make.”
Attack moved from 937 Liberty Avenue to Penn Avenue in Garfield. In the meantime, Donna had been making a living as an “intentional interim executive,” working with organizations that were in transitions or crises for a defined period of time.
One day Peter and Michele called and asked what she was doing. Actually Donna had just concluded with an organization in Cleveland. Coincidentally Attack’s general manager had just left. So Donna came in and did an analysis of where the company was. She recognized that what they were suffering from was “a crisis of opportunity” and assessed that it would take a number of years to capitalize on that opportunity.
Donna didn’t want to be an interim anymore. After being the “Mary Poppins of non-profits,” just flitting around, she wanted to be closer to Pittsburgh and her family. So she said, “Let’s do this.”
She came on board as general director (or “director general,” as she is fond of calling herself.) It seemed like she had always been there.
“I’m farsighted — I look further down the road and work creatively at absolving any potential problems looming on the horizon,” Donna says, fittingly content with this organization. “We’re very good at making course corrections and we proudly ended every year in the black. So we’ve been able to manage the ebbs and flows of the economy — we seize opportunities when we have them and change plans when it doesn’t wind up the way we had predicted.”
“There’s a skill in being able to sustain a company,” she continues. “Be light on your feet.”
The dance allusion is totally appropriate because people are constantly surprised at how small the company administration is, given its large footprint on the Pittsburgh arts and education scene. Marketing department? Accounts Payable? Fundraising? Donna and Rebecca Himberger, associate director marketing & corporate partnerships, just pass the phone back and forth.
Attack has also truly remained on the attack in other ways.They’ve added two part-time positions — finance and development associate Jennifer Macasek and operations coordinator Sean Holsing, who they share with Pittsburgh Opera. And new dancer Simon Thomas-Train joined the company.
“It went from Peter and Michele working out of their kitchen to now sharing this beautiful facility with the Pittsburgh Opera,” Donna says happily. “No utilities, no shoveling snow, no fixing toilets. So we’ve come a long way.”
Work and play often mix in this small, tight-knit arts organization. “I’m never miserable,” Donna admits. “But I’m often overworked.”
Recently the Paul Taylor Dance Company was in town, as I reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I also got to talk with veteran dancer Robert Kleinendorst, who offered some insight in working with the choreographic giant.
As they are about to set foot on the professional dance landscape, young dancers are not always aware of the choices available to them. Paul Taylor Dance Company, one of America’s finest, turned out to be an option for Robert Kleinendorst.
As a vocal major at Luther College in Minnesota, he was set to cast his lot with musicals and started dabbling in dance. By the time he was a junior, though, the pendulum had swung in favor of a double major and upon graduation, his parents wanted to send him to a summer dance intensive in New York City.
There were several to choose from — Jose Limon, David Parsons and, of course, Paul Taylor. Luckily his dance professor suggested that Kleinendorst was built more like a Taylor dancer.
The Luther student had seen a film of the choreographer’s classic, “Esplanade,” in his dance history class and loved it. But he wasn’t really a Taylor devotee…yet.
It didn’t take long, though. “I really think that, after the first day, I was hooked,” Kleinendorst recalls. “It just settled right into the way I liked to move.” After the month-long intensive, he was convinced that he would move to New York and set his sights on PTDC.
Easier said than done. There are only auditions when company members leave and they don’t readily do so because “it’s such a good job. The average life span is about ten years.”
Kleinendorst was in the Big Apple for two years before there was an opening. “I was so far behind because I had started so late and I was determined to know the style well,” he says. “Hopefully that would make up for my other inadequacies.” In the meantime, he had a job, danced with smaller companies and did a work/study at the Taylor studio to pay for classes.
He also got “pretty burned out.”
But the persistence paid off because Kleinendorst was accepted into Taylor 2. When he was hired, his new boss said, “You’ve gotten so much better. I remember when you got here you could barely walk.”
Now Kleinendorst has spent over ten years with the main company, which means that he has been right inside the modern master’s creative process. He calls Taylor “great to work with,” although he admits that it’s “nerve-wracking” at the start of a new work.
Taylor will sometimes come in with an idea, not knowing exactly where he wants to go and feel his way around. Other times he will tell his dancers, “You’re going to be this person and you’re going to be this person and this is how the events are going to take place.
Along the way, he gives them “clues as to what he wants, maybe emotionally and the overall theme,” Kleinendorst explains. “But you don’t really know right off the bat what he’s going to be looking for.”
As the rehearsals progress further, Kleinendorst says Taylor keys in on the themes, “so it’s easier to find things for him.” Now 81, the choreographer uses gestures or dances “a little,” so the dancers have to extrapolate from that.
But in “Changes,” Taylor decided to do four male solos and Kleinendorst was the last. Taylor said, “Just dance around for me — show me something.” He did as he was told and finally stopped when he saw Taylor just looking at him. So Kleinendorst said, “You didn’t like any of it, did you?” And Taylor responded, “No.”
“So you try something else.”
Yes, Taylor can be an “enigma” to his dancers. On the other hand, he doesn’t hesitate to compliment them in that soft-spoken Southern kind of drawl that he uses. Kleinendorst admits, “It’s nice to have him flat out say that he likes what you’re doing.”
First in an occasional series on Pittsburgh’s oldest modern dance company and its latest transformation.
The Kelly-Strayhorn Theater and Dance Alloy Theater formally announced their partnership yesterday in KST’s lobby. But more questions than answers remained at this point in the process as three of the primary figures in the merger spoke to a large crowd of supporters.
KST board president Francisco Escalante called it a “win-win situation for both organizations.” Cabot Earle, Alloy board chair, then admitted that the company had had some difficult financial times and the two organizations were now intent on building a sustainable business model. He revealed that both boards approved the merger and had submitted an application to the Attorney General’s office.
KST executive director Janera Solomon reinforced her mantra that KST is “committed to create the opportunity for people to get together in a meaningful way and experience incredible arts.” In 2008 KST challenged itself to be than a rental venue according to Ms. Solomon, who said, “We challenged ourselves to be meaningful to the local community, the people who live and work right where we are. But we also wanted to have relevance and interest to people nationally and internationally. We decided to focus on that by having artists of the day, the best and brightest, with a commitment to innovation and to risk-taking.”
It was a tall order that KST has already begun to address under her leadership and one that she wants to continue. Ms. Solomon said that the Alloy fits right into that brand and explained that the Alloy school, a non-competitive program that KST has already begun to administer, has nine classes with 70 students registered. The Alloy also teaches 100 students in Pittsburgh schools every day.
There was no doubt that the Alloy, Pittsburgh’s oldest modern dance company, has had an immeasurable impact in the growth of today’s dance scene, something easily seen in the alumnae who attended the announcement. Included in the group were founder and artistic director Elsa Limbach; former executive director Stephanie Flom, who also was instrumental in the early days of KST and now is associated with Cooper Siegel Comunity Library and Boyce Community Center; Michele de la Reza, co-founder of Attack Theatre; Susan Gillis, director of the dance program at the University of Pittsburgh; Andre Koslowski, now artistic director of Pennsylvania Dance Theatre; and recent Alloy members Jasmine Hearn and Michael Walsh.
But the announcement was only the first step in the Rebuilding Alloy process. Here are some points to keep in mind:
What is known:
School: KST is already administering the school, although it is not clear who is in charge.
Company: DAT is officially on “hiatus.” The dancers’ and administration’s contracts were not renewed for the upcoming year. According to Ms. Solomon, the negotiation committee was formed at the end of the contracts so it did not “have to wrestle with thinking about how the staff was engaged in the process.” But the dancers were asked to aid in the transition. Several of them, including Michael Walsh, Jasmine Hearn and Maribeth Maxa have agreed to participate and are already on board in teaching positions, although Ms. Maxa will become more fully engaged after her wedding this weekend. Raymond Interior has gone back to his native Canada and Gretchen Moore is teaching in Morgantown.
Board: The full Alloy board will be joining the KST board. That would mean around two dozen on the combined board.
What is planned:
KST will immediately be able to offer rehearsal space for local artists at subsidized rates.”We have lots of new ideas,” Ms. Solomon continued. Those included a series of residencies for local artists and national and international figures. With the added space at the Alloy, out-of-town artists will be able to spend more time in Pittsburgh.
What to watch:
KST: Will KST, which has been a major contributor to East Liberty’s rebirth be able to command its expansion? Mr. Escalante called the merger another “tool to economic revitalization,” citing how a “high quality arts product has a place in the community” and underlining how non-profits have played a crucial part in East Liberty’s development. Perhaps the burgeoning business community (Google, Bakery Square, planned boutique hotels) will provide an expanding financial base for the KST/Alloy merger.
DAT: When will the company return? Not any time soon and not in its past form. Ms. Solomon underlined that, for the time being, the Alloy will operate on a project-by-project basis. The dancers will be able to show their work at the Alloy studios. And presumably some of them will participate in the newMoves Festival in the spring, although probably not under the Dance Alloy name. This part of the merger obviously upset some of the long-time Alloy supporters that were present.
The Bottom Line: Given the prominence of dance at KST and Ms. Solomon’s personal interest in promoting it, this merger does show promise. But she also posed the question, “How much is this community willing to give to sustained dance activity?” Chances are that the Alloy would have gone bankrupt without this reconfiguration (although the reasons are still murky.) Of course, this is a company and a school worth salvaging. But it will be baby steps, baby. Stay tuned…
These days dancer/choreographer/teacher Heidi Latsky is considered an expert on disabilities, although she would be considered an able-bodied dancer. Starting the journey nearly 20 years ago, she found the answers deep within herself.
“I have been terribly injured all of my career,” the former Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company principal begins. She started dance late, at age 20, and “didn’t quite understand what it took to be a dancer.”
The petite dancer, such a powerhouse on the stage, also had ligamentous laxity, a condition where every joint is loose and unstable, including the spine and especially the pelvis. At that time doctors didn’t understand.
“If you could touch your toes you were fine,” Heidi continues. “But I couldn’t walk.” They told her she needed therapy. They told her she should see a psychiatrist. Then she talked with Irene Dowd, a noted specialist in the anatomy of movement. Irene “had the patience” to listen to every injury that Heidi had incurred.
Then she diagnosed it.
Heidi admits that she was “type A to the max,” pushing herself really hard in order to catch up, which took its toll. The young dancer was in rehabilitation all the time. Now, after 30-odd years, she knows how to take care of herself better.
She calls it The Latsky Method, something that “came out of my necessity to survive.” While working with actors in the ’90’s, she decided that they didn’t need a specific modern dance technique. So she started to design alignment-based, breathing-based and exercises to get actors to be in their bodies.
Then Heidi used it on dancers, helping them to let go and find a way to move with feeling. That meant listening — to the music, the audience, fellow dancers — and staying open, letting the dance “happen” to the individual instead of forcing it. “I’m a big believer in being true to who you are and it’s very hard to get there as a person, as an artist,” she explains.
Then Heidi met Lisa Bufano, a disabled dancer, in 2006. “She was my catalyst — I never would have done this on my own,” she notes. “Working with her, I could see how different body types are beautiful. It just opened up a whole new world for me.”
That new world was codified in “GIMP,” a dance work that incorporates both able-bodied and disabled dancers.
As it turned out, the disabled performers chose Heidi, not the other way around. And they taught her an “immense amount” about her own method. In some ways, they brought a more interesting approach than the trained able-bodied dancers.
So “GIMP” evolved to become a blend of virtuosity and stillness — and not necessarily in ways that we ordinarily think. “The trick is — you don’t want to set up a comparison thing,” offers Heidi. “I feel you want to honor what they can do and not what they can’t do. Every dancer has limitations.”
So she has worked with a woman on crutches and a woman who has a more extreme form of connective tissue syndrome. Recently she began working with a former dancer with Parkinson’s Disease. She had him just open and close his eyes, then touch different parts of his body. “That’s been done before,” she acknowledges. “But the way his hand would go through the sequence was this beautiful dance in and of itself.”
“”GIMP’ totally changed the way I choreograph,” Heidi says. “I think I’m better now that I ever have been because I trust my performers so much.” And she is still interested in the different rhythms created by an “unusual” body. “There’s a depth there that I’m still curious about…”
“Collectables” are things that have a personal meaning for someone. Usually we think of dolls, teapots and baseball cards, but Gia Cacalano had something more to offer at her most recent performance of Gia T. Presents – a 25-year old film of her student days in New York City.
It was complete with black-and-white footage of her dancing, almost like a mini-Martha (as in Graham) feeling that conveyed a burning appetite for movement. The segments were juxtaposed with dreamy images of the subway and some of the countryside, perhaps outside the city.
Presumably the film inspired this site-specific piece, although it was not always apparent how, perhaps the play of time and space.
“Collectables” probably was not meant to be site-specific, per se, but Gia subsequently mentioned that the artists arrived to find SPACE Gallery changed — a wall divided it in half and a tree-in-progress climbed up a pillar. And there was wire mesh at the back that became a venue for some peekaboo moments.
While the square area on the right housed the film projection and the musicians, led by Jeff Berman, the longer linear space on the left had only a small bunch of dried flowers against the wall. Everything was bathed in a dim light, rendering the movement patterns like traces of memories.
At first, I was perturbed that audience members would not have clear sight lines the whole way through the dance. But I came to embrace the imbalance because it forced Gia to apply her freewheeling improvisational style in a new and vital way, one where portions of the performance would disappear for a little while, as in real life.
The dancers, Jasmine Hearn, Beth Ratas and Breanna Short, came and went like fleeting memories, moving from one area to the other, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in other combinations. Gia, in particular, became a woman possessed while spinning like whirlygig, oozing through a series of splits or just simply toying with a dried bunch of flowers against the wall. There was a pressing sense of urgency, maybe a making up for lost time.
I also liked the way Gia’s solo work was interspersed with the others, how she moved in and out of groups, rather than just the extended turn that usually finishes off her performances. It would be refreshing to see her play with more improvisatory structures such as this one.
Here “Collectables” turned old memories into new ones, enabling our minds to jump from one to the other in a fascinating tunnel of time.
Pilobolus literally turned dance on its ear when four Dartmouth grads put their own spin on what they saw as movement. You understand why when you talk with Moses Pendleton, one of the original Fab Four who went on to found his own company, Momix. His imaginative nature study, “Botanica,” bounds and creeps and crawls its blooming way into town this weekend via the Pittsburgh Dance Council at the Byham Theater. (See Listings.)
I talked with him on the phone from his shabby chic (peeling paint and all) 1890’s Victorian retreat in northwestern Connecticut, where he rehearses in the barn and runs his $2 to 3 million company out of the basement. There he generously shed the light on all things Moses. But first, just for starters, he was born and raised on a dairy farm in northern Vermont and got a B.A. in English literature from Dartmouth, where he took his first dance class with three other guys. That turned into Pilobolus in 1971 and he transferred his unbounded talents to Momix in 1980, accompanied by his life partner Cynthia Quinn. Since then he has choreographed for the Paris Opera and the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. Also included in his wide circle are Arizona Ballet, the Romanian gymnastics team, Prince, the Montreal symphony, Julian Lennon and ballet superstar Diana Vishneva. He is also an avid photographer…particularly of sunflowers.
A simple question sends him off like a pinball machine, except he has the timing of a stand-up comedian. Part philosopher, part environmentalist, part run-on sentence. Follow along…if you can.
Photo by Moses Pendleton
THE NAME. Where did Momix come from? Well, like everything he invents, it could have been derived from multiple sources. It was originally a milk supplement from the Holstein-Friesian calves that he raised as a farm boy in Vermont, “so you’ve taken me off the farm, but you really haven’t taken the farm out of Momix,” he quips. Actually the supplement used to have two o’s, like Moomix. “It’s also kind of an alchemical idea about mixing and Moses Mix and whatever disparate objects we can find that we can drop into that retort and spin them. And maybe it’s a good mix and comes out a golden idea, but [that’s] not always the case. What it comes down to is the idea of mixing not just dance, but visual, physical theater, various kinds of principles that might be from athletics, fine art or sculpture, whatever it is. We try to put it in the mix, so that’s what it kind of means currently, I guess.” Some people have jokingly said that the name is really “Mom 9.”
THE CREATIVE PROCESS. “I just came from an icy lake in the remnants of Hurricane Lee. I’m the only human out there which is pleasant for me — I go out there to do my thinking. People say, ‘Where’s Moses?’ Well he’s gone to work in the lake. That’s why I have my own company. I’m the boss — I can go to the lake and work. It’s very good in terms of being able to move and breathe and have another gravity. I don’t get too many ideas sitting still — I have to keep moving, whether I’m walking in the woods — I rarely go without being wired, wired in the wilderness, an avant gardner.
CAREER. Moses says that his life was bounded by having to capitalize on accidents. For example, his father died when he was twelve and “all of a sudden the farming didn’t seem to work out.” A downhill skiing accident got him to take that fateful dance class at Dartmouth. “It’s a matter of going with the flow or going with the flower and taking advantage of those surprises that inevitably will happen to you.”
FLOWER POWER. With a mind as fleet as a shooting star, Moses stays grounded by “organizing tens of thousands of sunflowers in some very obvious symmetrical patterns. That kind of symmetry allows the chaotic mind to be massaged with enough to stay grounded. Otherwise I would be frolicking around in Alpha Centauri [the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus] with no umbilical [cord] to get back, the difference I suppose between the artist and the mad man. There is a very slight difference, except the artist has that little cord that he feels he can come back. Otherwise he keeps going and part of what I need to do and am encouraged to do and am expected to do is to keep going out there — out, out, out.”
JOHN LENNON. “What keeps me grounded is coming back and seeing that very far out is in your own back yard. It’s all, as John Lennon said, just underneath your nose. When you think you’re doing some great kind of great art and other things are happening that are more profound if you could realize it (that’s a bad paraphrase).”
ODORIFIC. “It’s not just smelling the roses but letting the marigolds and sunflowers begin to talk to you and they will only begin to talk to you if you first introduce yourself and begin to talk to them. Then you begin to understand the language of flowers.” (Actually Moses is considered an expert on sunflowers.)
Photo by Max Pucciariello
GROUNDING. “The natural world grounds me. That’s sunlight and water and air — very simple, but profound elemental essential things for humans and me in particular. I will follow the sunrise and, like a sunflower, face the source throughout the day. On a cloudy day I will build a fire, light a candle or stare at a sunflower, which I’m doing right now — they’re the closest thing to the source that I know of. I worship them because they ground me and they allow me in my grounded state to take off. I give myself that discipline and restriction — just here in the back yard and the garden. That’s all you need to know. Just pay close attention to it with audio, with video, with pen in hand, that kind of thing. Some of this good enthusiasm, this energy, this kind of process of living will find itself reflected in the work that I’m associated with.”
THE SECRET. ”The secret to everything is not to lose touch with whatever it is that excites you — whether it’s dreams and fantasy and foolishness and all this kind of thing.”
COMPANY REHEARSAL. “I’m like a catalyst, close to an Energizer Bunny when I go in there. My enthusiasm sometimes terrorizes them.”
“BOTANICA.” “It’s the Momix version of the four seasons. It starts with icy cold, dead winter, moves through the melting snows and the first buds of spring and midsummer nights’dreams and frenzies and a wild dance of the centaurs that leads to August storms and falling leaves and snow falling again to repeat the cycle.”
MORE FLOWER POWER. Yes, there’s a sunflower and marigold section — “you can’t miss them. You take a simple prop like a tutu and multiply by four on one girl — tutu times four. As the dance progresses, it starts on the top and they slowly move the petticoats or the marigolds down and it actually creates a different dance style as they are metamorphosing. And suddenly they are doing samba and then they go off on their marigold carpets.”
DANCE BALANCE. Given the large number of props, puppets by Michael Curry (“The Lion King”) and multiple costume changes, there is a danger that the dance can be suffocated. But Moses says, “There is quite a bit of dance in the show, so the dancers are happy. Their ballet barre is not in vain.”
CREATURE DANCE. “Certain pieces initially constrict or hold back. but if they’re smart and they figure out a way to survive, they can begin to take something that was restrictive and constrictive and dance your way out of it, you know, make a dance. Put on these corrugated sewer pipes and your arms look like you’re handcuffed and see if you can make a night crawler seem like it is as free as a bird. You may not be too free as a human. But as a worm, you’re covering space pretty nicely. Okay worms, let’s try that again [in rehearsal].”
TARGET AND HANES. “There’s a lot of nuts and bolts reality to bring dreams to the general public,” Moses says of his decision to be a profit-making dance theater company. That means commercials like the above-mentioned. “The corporate world can help. Fantasy is an integral part of reality,” he explains of his artistic approach. “The world is in trouble enough — I don’t like to add to that.”
CONNECTIONS. When asked to work with the Paris Opera Ballet, Moses accepted. “I worked with Holsteins, so I figured I could work with ballet dancers. You have to understand what you can do to bring them out. They’re a strange breed, a strange animal, but capable, definitely capable. And surprising, so I was fascinated by it. Full of fancy.”
AT THE START. Moses brought “a bunch of renegades” to his father’s farm to form the Vermont Natural Theater. He knew the Holsteins would follow him if he donned a white sheet, which he did. So the audience had the effect of a stampede of black-and-white Holsteins coming directly at them, led by a “little Casper figure running ahead of them.” Then he dove into a ditch right in front of the audience. The cows “lost the object of their pursuit and started grazing. Then someone would ring a little bell and the audience would be encouraged to go to a spruce grove and see a dance on a stump with one leg or a bird imitation and it went on like that. That was the origin of Vermont Natural Theater and I was a cowographer rather than a choreographer — those were the formative years.”
The New York choreographer has been in and out of Pittsburgh over the past several years, mostly at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater where she participated in the newMoves Festival, then was tapped for a residency and performance. That resulted in “Revue,” which drew from the filled-with-contrasts vibe of East Liberty, a place where characters still wander amid a neighborhood that is literally rising from its ruins.
I caught up with her during a rehearsal at the spacious August Wilson Center studio, lined with floor-to-ceiling windows that are reflected in the mirrors and anchored by a huge carved wooden door that rotates on a central hinge.
But evidently she’s not into her surroundings as she unexpectedly says, “I feel like I don’t know anything.”
“This happens to me each year,” Sidra goes on to admit. She usually takes off the summer to teach, just so she can find the “time to research and reinvent and rediscover and get re-inspired.”
So the attractive surroundings may very well have only a small influence on her current premiere for the August Wilson Center Dance Ensemble. She was relying instead on the company dancers and building a bond with them and among them. “I guess I’m dealing with memory, my dream world — I dream really heavily,” Sidra begins. As it was so early in the process, the work was fragmented and disjointed, but with “a lot of humanity in it.” That will translate, Sidra thinks, into love, intimacy and community, but in a new way.
It must be working because, by her own admission, Sidra’s career is moving “a step forward every year.” That despite the fact that she has always considered herself very shy.
Luckily she had parents who were born “self-starters.” Dad is a composer/musician and mom a musican/graphic artist. With such a strong arts heritage, it was no surprise that their daughter was drawn to yet another art form — dance. She had the best of training at Dance Theater of Harlem and as a scholarship student at Alvin Ailey.
“I was always a good dancer, but there was something holding me back,” Sidra explains. Maybe that was why she decided to major in history at Yale. It was also where she found her dance voice. Yale didn’t have a dance minor, but it had a community. Sidra was able to take more of a leadership position in organizing the Alliance for Dance and found that, even though she was shy, she could still organize people and bring them together.
After getting a masters degree in dance at SUNY Purchase, Sidra translated her newfound skills into the studio, where she could work with her company and break new choreographic ground. It’s the primary goal in her life, to make connections with dancers and pull something fresh and exciting from them.
As her career takes another step forward, she will begin exploring Europe and South America. But Sidra is not done yet with the Steel City. She will be back working with Point Park University students next month on a premiere there. And that means performances in the spring for both groups.
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