On Stage: A Pillow-y Performance

January 18, 2012

Photo: Cassie Kay Photography

I write a lot about “P’s,” but not so much “Q’s” when Pearlann Porter and The Pillow Project open up The Space Upstairs for Second Saturdays. The air is casual, where audience members can walk about and talk about, well, anything during the performances, perfect for those of us who can’t sit still for long. Just joking…I’d call this one a collaborative, inspirational effort between a virtual army of performers and the audience itself.  Read about it in the Post-Gazette.

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Dance Beat: Listings, Pillow, MSDC, Evolve, Lake, Luke

September 7, 2011

Off to Dance. Well the 2011-12 dance season is off on a robust note this week. Check the Listings page for all things September.

Cassie Kay Photography

Off to Paris. Pearlann Porter and The Pillow Project will move from the City of Bridges to the City of Lights this fall. They will collaborate with renowned jazz poet Moe Seager in a series of intimate underground jazz clubs during the evening Oct. 14-17. By day the Pillow, including Brent Luebbert, Kaylin Horgan, Taylor Knight, Rebekah Kuczma and Pearlann, will generate site-specific jazz performances around the streets of the city.

Off to New York. It was great to interact with Pittsburgh’s newest company, the Murphy/Smith Dance Collective at Dance Alloy recently. Jamie Erin Murphy and Renee Danielle Smith have been establishing their local reputations as members of Staycee Pearl dance project and as independent choreographers. Now they’ve established their own group and held a fundraiser to help finance a trip to the Big Apple for  the White Wave 2011 Dumbo Dance Festival in Brooklyn Sept. 23 and 25. There they will perform  ”Much More Than Bones” along with company members Alan Obuzor, Cassie Shafer and Laura Warren Warnock.

In the Mix. Sarah Parker reports that she will coordinate the dance for ARTS ALIVE, which benefits Chrohn’s & Colitis Foundation of Pittsburgh, on Oct. 21 at the Cardello Building on the North Side. Look for  Evolve Productions and Continuum Dance Theater, plus music, mural painting, sculpting and interactive performance art. For more info, click on ARTS ALIVE.

From the Lake. Word comes from Chautauqua that Stephen Crosby got a great reception from his two audio-video lectures called: “From Bach to Rock: Inspiring Great Choreographers,” where examples covered “classic perfection, iconic Americana, absurdist spoof, triple-genius collaboration, enigmatic rarity, Latin exuberance, a love-lost fairy tale, romantic jewels, war and redemption – and more.” The topic enticed such notables as Chautauqua Ballet heads Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux and Patricia McBride and former Dance Alloy artistic director Mark Taylor among the enthusiastic audiences. Wife Bonnie also  brought me up to date on a future notable, Laura Neese, who won the National Society of Arts and Letters Solo Choreographic Competition (New York) and went on to place third at the national level. She was accepted to the Limon Professional Studies Program for the fall, but decided against a structured program to develope a “just keep swimming attitude.” So she’s been taking a variety of classes and workshops (Trisha Brown intensive – “brain-bendingly challenging”), seeing work, auditioning, teaching a bit and has been interning at Dance New Amsterdam. Laura also performed with Vital Dance, Checkit Dance and Naganuma 2 over the summer and is

Photo by John Altdorfer

starting with Deborah Carr Dance, a blend of Irish dance and modern, for which Sean Curran is setting a work soon. As Laura puts it, “I feel very much in a period of flux. I’m meeting new people and experiencing new things, and constantly auditioning, making connections, like sending out a myriad of fishing lines, and a few are catching, so I’m following those leads right now.I know I ultimately want to choreograph my own work, but I want to experience performing with a variety of people on order to enrich my perspective. I want to make sure I have something to say and a variety of tools to articulate it.”

On the Page. Point Park fave Luke Murphy, who still maintains his Pittsburgh ties through the newMoves Festival, scored a quote in the Gia Kourlas’ article on his work with Punchdrunk. Read on with by clicking New York Times.

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Dance Beat: KST, Pillow Project, Pride, Dancing Classrooms

June 16, 2011

The freedom of movement was everywhere you looked last weekend — it was hard to believe we were in the throes of summer, when dance usually starts to come to a halt. But then, that’s been the way with this past season, packed with performances, many overlapping. I don’t believe we’ve ever had a busier schedule here in Pittsburgh. Here’s hoping it continues next season…

FULL BLOOM. The Kelly-Strayhorn Theater set its summer season off on the right foot, so to speak, with a spirited dance party. I caught part of the VIP party on stage, with Janera Solomon leading things and dance community members like Attack Theater’s Michele de la Reza, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s Harris Ferris and Dance Alloy Theater board member Mark Taylor. Although I missed Staycee Pearl’s dance project, the company will have a full-fledged performance in August, along with  Bodiography’s Maria Caruso, plus Columbus, Ohio’s Baker & Tarpaga Project and in July. Dance on!

THE PILLOW PROJECT. Next was a sort-of encore of Pearlann Porter’s “A Pale Blue Jazz,” which had its premiere at the Dance Alloy Theater in April. However, I caught the Sunday afternoon performance there, where the piece, all about star-gazing and pondering the universe via people like Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking, had to be altered with music improvisations where performers were planted among the audience members. Last Saturday Pearlann’s own improv dancers put another accent on the piece. Because it was evening, I saw Mike Cooper’s starry-eyed projections (a multitude of pale blue dots) that gave this dance meditation a wondrous feel. Unfortunately the afternoon temperatures marinated in the Space Upstairs, putting an air blanket over the nighttime activities, giving the slow, probing music and dance a sense of lethargy. PJ Roduta and Charles Hall had an energizing jam session beforehand, culminating in a finale where Charles passed out a passel of rhythm instruments and had everyone join in (shades of DAT). It was still good to note that, while numerous small dance organizations have different ways of engaging their audiences, the Pillow has built its own ardent and seemingly solid following.

PITTSBURGH PRIDE. The next afternoon I paid a quick visit to the street celebration that is Pittsburgh Pride and saw Jasmine Hearn and Beth Ratas in a casual, intertwining duet that tickled the crowd. Then the signature rolling chords of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 rang out and I knew more dance was at hand, this time Michael Walsh, topless in a long blue tutu, and a female partner, not topless, who I couldn’t make out. The dance was apparently about self-centered satisfaction, although it oddly ignored the excesses in the music. But then, there was plenty of that to go around in the Pride’s signature atmosphere.

DANCING CLASSROOMS. Following the Pride,  it was over to the Westin Convention Center for Mad Hot Ballroom Pittsburgh, a benefit for the local Dancing Classrooms program in the Pittsburgh public schools that included a buffet dinner, a silent auction, a performance by the year’s winners, Pittsburgh Linden elementary school, and a contest between adult amateur dancers. Emcee extraordinaire Pierre Dulaine had energy to spare, impressing all, and took time to visit runners-up, Pittsburgh Carmalt. He also left a message for everyone at Dancing Classrooms Pittsburgh.

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On Stage: A Cinematic Feel at the Pillow

May 14, 2011

Photo by Cassie Kay Photography

When the dance community generally starts to wind down each summer, Pearlann Porter starts to perk up, mostly with her Second Saturday series, part of The Pillow Project. But as she heads into the second SS (whew, a lot of alliteration!), there’s a lot more action than in previous years — newMoves, Pop City’s birthday bash, PrideFest and Dance Alloy’s “Pittsburgh on Pittsburgh.”

As usual, Pearlann is changing and evolving, this time tossing aside (in an environmentally-responsible way) her heavy-duty thematic evening in favor of “an overriding inspiration and feel.”

Right now she’s toying once again with Pink Floyd’s album, “Dark Side of the Moon,” for which she did a “physical” cover and some movement color studies, so that she can “learn to see her dancers through themselves,” not through her choreography.

Somehow that’s all going to play out in the performance, loosely divided into segments. The first part will feature post-modern jazz, featuring house musicians PJ Roduta and Charles Hall and friends. “I want there to be a ‘house’ feel to it,” she says. It’s where we all live. There’s a consistency, a familiarity.”

That will morph in two types of cinematic explorations. As she explains, “I’m going to try to show a movie quality flow and patterning and visuals and lighting in a live performance.”

The first will be about as long as previews in a movie. Various choreographers will offer up a scene, so that “it leaves the rest up to your imagination as to what the context would be.”

Right now she’s interested in Quentin Tarantino and how he designed the female character in his movies. “They’re always exaggerated and extremely strong, almost like caricatures,” she says. “It’s a masculine, yet feminine thing that’s going on.”

Pearlann will also tackle a more substantial rendering of David Fincher’s 1999 cult classic, “The Fight Club,” which she calls a modern-day version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this time portrayed by a single performer, Taylor Knight.

“It was elegant in a gritty way, violent in a very humorous, yet sadistic way. It had a really nice balance that always struck me. And there was something about the message, that we’re not our material things. We’re not an accumulation of the things that we own. We’re not consumers — we’re people.”

“It’s going to take a fearless performance.”

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Dance Beat: PBT, Daniel, DAT

April 26, 2011

EN POINTE. It was PBT’s season afterparty, with music by DJ Ed Cyphers and plenty to eat and drink in the exposed brick space above Bossa Nova. Best of all, PBT invited the orchestra members, a terrific idea, and it looked like a number of the musicians took the company up on the invitation. Costumier Janet Groom created a sensational ball gown for the silent auction and versatile corps member Nick Coppula donated a number of his photos. A good time had by all!

A GOOD CAUSE. New York City Ballet principal dancer Daniel Ulbricht continues on a busy path after his successful appearance here in Pittsburgh last October. He put together Dance Against Cancer, a benefit for the American Cancer Society yesterday at the Manhattan Movement and Arts Center. The event was inspired by his mother who was diagnosed with uterine cancer in 2007 and had a relapse early in 2010. The star-studded list of dancers included NYCB’s Wendy Whelan, Maria Kowroski, Craig Hall, Janie Taylor, Sterling Hyltin, Amar Ramasar, Robbie Fairchild, Tyler Angle and Daniel, of course, plus Alvin Ailey’s Matthew Rushing, Lar Lubovitch’s  Attila Joey Csiki, Top 10 Finalist of So You Think You Can Dance Alex Wong and Keigwin + Company. You can still contribute at http://community.acsevents.org.

JUICED UP. Dance Alloy Theater member Jasmine Hearn is turning into a budding Greer Reed-Jones. She has been seen around town at performances, dancing with The Pillow Project and, earlier this month, expanded her own improv jam into The Citrus Project at DAT’s main studio. While a visit at the 8 p.m. start showed more improvers than audience members than, that was okay because the whole concept probably evolved, at a later hour, into an event where audience and performers were one and the same. Jasmine and friends decked the space with lights and rearranged the platforms with cushions, encouraging the informal approach, so suitable for a whole array of young Pittsburgh dance artists who have the urge to move all night long.

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Dance Beat: Evolve, Parsons, Tharp, Carnegie

January 26, 2011

NEW YORK BARGAIN. If you happen to be in the New York area, David Parsons’ company, Parsons Dance, is presenting three world premieres at The Joyce Theater Jan. 26 – Feb. 6, 2011. David will account for two of them — “Portinari,” which was inspired by Brazilian artist Candido Portinari, whose sculptures, “War” and “Peace” adorn the United Nations, and “Walk,” reflecting on human positivity and negativity with music by Steely Dan. Choreographer Monica Bill Barnes was commissioned to do the third premiere, “Love, oh Love,” using music by Kenny Rogers, Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross to convey “details from everyday life.” Also on three separate programs are Parsons’ favorites such as “Caught” and “Hand Dance,” along with a couple of works that have been presented at Point Park University’s Conservatory Dance Company, “The Envelope” and “Nascimento.” But here’s the good part — for those of you reading this, there is a 50 percent discount on all performances except Fridays and Saturdays. The code is BLOG.

A NEW YEAR. With enthusiasm riding high at the New Hazlett Theater, EVOLVE Productions started 2011 with what amounted to a dance festival that  featured, for the most part, “Emerge”-ing choreographers. It was great to see some of Pittsburgh’s companies lending a helping hand, with Pearlann Porter (The Pillow Project) in a silky improvisation, “[here],”  Kaitlin Dann’s (Bodiography) neatly morphing trio, “Harbored Indecisions,” plus the sustained  intensity of Shantelle Jackson’s (August Wilson Center Dance Ensemble) duet, “Nightingales,” Gabriel Ash’s thoughtful urban style in “Bleed” and Staycee Pearl’s (STAYCEE PEARL dance project) own take on celebrity in selections from “circlePOP.” Uniontown’s Fluidity once again showed a disciplined approach to Pascal Rioult’s “Views of a Fleeting World” and artistic director Joci Hrzic’s “Extremity.” But it was mostly Sarah Parker’s show, with young talent under her umbrella organization, EVOLVE, and a sneak peak at her new group, called Continuum Dance Theater and due to debut formally this spring. Sarah and company were set in the mode of “So You Think You Can Dance,” wearing their hearts and accompanying emotions fully on their sleeves. But they will have to be careful to develop more thoughtful and  complex pieces. And a suggestion for the future — include program bios for the choreographers so that audience members can easily become more familiar with the next generation of choreographers.

TWYLA ON FRANK. A friend sent me this link to a conversation with resident American genius Twyla Tharp on KNPR radio Las Vegas and how she transcribed Broadway’s “Come Fly Away” to Vegas’ trimmed-down version, “Sinatra: Dance With Me.” A fascinating background look into a complex choreographic mind. Also great if you’re a Sinatra fan. By the way, it looks like the video has the Broadway cast pretty much intact. I don’t think enough has been made of the choreographic opportunities for these exceptional veteran dancers, who established successful careers along the way with Alvin Ailey, American Ballet Theatre and Merce Cunningham, plus other.

HIP HOP HEAVEN. Dedicated to creating well-rounded commercial dancers in Pittsburgh,  Jame Elis’ JamDANCE Productions is bringing in Sean Bankhead and Xavier Wilcher for an “Industry Ready Workshop” at Dance Alloy on Sunday, Jan. 30. There will be two 90-minute classes, the first at 11 a.m. – 12: 30 p.m. and the other at 12:30 -2 p.m. This duo has worked with Beyonce, Diddy-Dirty Money, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber and more. $20 per class, $35 for both.





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On Stage: Dancing Until Sunrise

August 13, 2010

“It started after the last Second Saturday — we never went home,” says Pearlann Porter. “We stayed until eight o’clock in the morning — just dancing. We never stopped. The audience left, everyone packed up, but the dancers didn’t.”

“We just stayed there and something clicked. I don’t know if we realized we were on the same page or we all turned the page at the same time, there was this sense of something else in our dance, beyond the technique and all the learned stuff that we had. I think we found it. It opened up a door that I didn’t even know was there.”

Recycling was on Pearlann’s mind, though, from the “Hot Box” in July. She had been toying with an encore performance of  ”The SwankEasy,” symbolized by neon sign that hangs above the bar. When a fan wanted a piece of the Pillow Project, it all fell into place for her August installment of Second Saturdays at the Space Upstairs above Construction Junction.

But it’s not recycling, she contends. “We’re opening and closing in the same night — it’ll be the last time we turn it on in the Space.”  Pearlann did “The SwankEasy” four years ago, although she still feels like “it’s so far in our past that it was very interesting to go back to do all the work — it shows how far we’ve come.”

Along with some new dance wrinkles, she’ll bring back parts of two original “Swank” pieces, onebased on a Charlie Parker remix, called “The Charlie Parker Recontextualization Experimentation,” and the other on Dave Brubeck’s classic, “Take Five.”

Back then “Take Five” was “straight choreography, with every movement was deliberate.” Now Pearlann is getting her dancers to understand the philosophy behind why she does jazz. “It’s not Bob Fosse jazz. It’s not Broadway jazz. If Miles Davis danced, what would he do if he wasn’t playing? What does Dave Brubeck move like?”

Now the dancers are moving through Pearlann’s idea, not her choreography. “It’s been intensely cool to help them discover their own handwriting,” she says in her best jazz intonation.

That means taking advantage of imperfect moments where she feels the dancers reveal themselves.”We’re letting that individuality and self-consciousness and apprehension come forth — this show exposes the guts of jazz.”

Photos by Aaron Jackendoff.

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On Stage: Small Dance, Big Effect

July 20, 2010

Two local dance organizations, one with increasing effect over five or so years, the other a newbie (sort of) on the arts scene, performed on the same weekend and inspired me to write about the need for small arts organizations. Read about it in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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On Stage: Science Begets Art

April 23, 2010

Pearlann Porter was in a scientific mood for the opening of her Second Saturday series, “Jazz on the Pale Blue Dot,” but she was oddly low-tech in her presentation. There were her wall-length blackboard, covered with complex equations (Maxwell’s, Lorentz, Drake) and a couple of overhead projectors, sometimes used to create slowly-morphing galaxies. The dancers even passed notes on movable wires strung overhead.

You might say school was in.

The real fascination is always about what is inside Pearlann’s mind anyhow — just read her discourse of jazz in a corner of the Space Upstairs the next time you attend an event there above Construction Junction. For this one, she also apparently tapped some academics to conceptualize this chapter of her always-thoughtful artistic journey.

I didn’t want to say dance journey, although Pearlann is first and foremost a choreographer, because her motion is part of a larger picture in an extremely fertile mind. At times though, the subject matter seemed distant, the connections almost forced.

The jazz, more abstract, lay like a nebula in the room. Peter Ahn, trumpet, Jason Rafalak, bass and guitar and Gordon Nunn, percussionist, were widely separated in different areas of the room. They deliberately entered and exited each piece with little fanfare, as if they were trying to blend into the background as a subliminal force. Often they made those entrances and exits individually. That also meant the pieces were largely devoid of rhythmic energy. Cool bordering on cold.

Much of Pearlann’s energy, and deservedly so, went into a group piece that conveyed an otherworldliness. Filled with angular squats and tangled groups, it conveyed our need for communication in an increasingly isolated society that relies on Twitter and Facebook, even email for a misrepresented idea of bonding.

Maybe Pearlann is on to something, and if you’ve talked with her, you’ll know why. Maybe we need to talk face-to-face, not Facebook. Where a couple sitting in a restaurant is Twittering instead of conversing. Where acquaintances meet on a street and one suddenly whips out an iPhone to text and ignores the other.

Science and the technology born of the scientific mind are certainly the wave of the future. But Pearlann may be on to something — we simply can’t lose sight of  humanity.

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Dance Beat: Dance Recitals, Jerry, Dirty Ball, Pillow

March 16, 2010

SPRING INTO SPRING. After wrestling with technical difficulties, it’s time to get back into action. I’m assembling the annual list of Dance Recitals, to be found on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website and on CrossCurrents. Send your studio name, date, location and contact information to jvranish1@comcast.net.

JERRY’S BACK. PBS is developing a bona fide Jerry Crush on American dance master Jerome Robbins. A couple of years ago we saw “Something to Dance About,” which was something akin to a biography told through archival photos and footage. Now New York City Ballet soloists Ellen Bar and Sean Suozzi have resurrected one of Robbins’ cult favorites, ‘Opus Jazz.” Conceived in sneakers, it was filmed on location in New York with 18 members of NYCB. Although it will receive its national broadcast premiere Mar. 24, WQED will be airing it April 4 (yes, Easter). More info later.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS. The fifth Dirty Ball erupts on Saturday, April 24. The “red-hottest, way-coolest, sold-outest” event of the year, Attack Theatre is playing it close to the vest, as usual, about the location, calling it their own “dirty little secret.” Performances, libations, DJs, plenty of dancing and art installations by CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center. Just be prepared.

MORE MARK YOUR CALENDARS. Pearlann Porter has solidified her latest series of Second Saturdays, running April through August. Catch “Jazz on the Pale Blue Dot” (Apr. 10), “Uncharted Syncopations” (May 8), “Micrography” (June 10), “Hot Box”  (July 12) and “another night at The SwankEasy” (Aug. 14), all at The Space above Construction Junction in Pittsburgh’s Point Breeze.

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