KDH Dance - 10!
This is not unbiased reporting. This is not a fair and even review. This is a mash note to a company I love enough to drive 6 hours round trip to see a 2 hour performance.
The Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company (these days more often seen advertised as the more abbreviated [initialized?] KDH Dance Company). I used to take a modern class with Kathy and yoga with associate Kate Warren. Of all the things I miss about Austin, these two women are pretty darn near the center of them.
So I'm flying out of Houston to the American Dance Festival tomorrow morning. I'd sort of assumed I'd just have to miss this KDH concert. So much not getting done here. Then I was looking at the program. They revived two of my favorite pieces: Brief Histories in Three Acts and Framed. I knew it would hurt---and I'll be up late tonight packing the final things I need for my trip---but I became determined to make this performance.
It was well worth the trip. Both of these pieces were tweaked. The company has changed a lot since they were first performed and Kathy naturally enough recasts the piece according to personalities and strengths of the current company. The feelings generated with the pieces remain intact, however. The longing and nostalgia in Framed is made more tender by Kate's taking over the central role of the piece, a woman sitting immobile, staring off into space. The role was originated by Lisa Nicks, who is still with the company (and a fine dancer---a master of the solo dance), but for whatever reason Kate took on the role, Kate brought a vulnerability that I hadn't seen before. When Kate made her first movement, it was so tender and full of memory and loss, well, a my eyes teared up. Then she gets up and dances with the other women (who, if I read the dance correctly, are younger versions of the character), you see that not everything that immobile woman is remembering is sad or wistful. There is joy and excitement, as well as loss and pain.
I never saw the full lenght Brief Histories when it was created. I was living in Chicago at the time, but saw an excerpt of it when I brought the company up to Chicago to perform. It is the KDH company at it's most introspective. I should note that this company is more known for it's humor and athleticism, but being something of a contemplative myself, I especially respond to their quieter pieces. Brief Histories has a haunting quality, as if our pasts are always there directing our futures, like a ghost who keeps rearranging the funiture, blocking certain paths. Again, it's not all wistful---there are moments of happiness and excitement, not to mention anger and frustration---but the images that stay with me are the wistful moments. (This may say more about me than the actual dance. Maybe I say too much!)
The other two pieces in the evening---The Loop, another revived piece, and Green Piece, the only new piece of the evening---are a bit more abstract dance, although there's clearly something of a narrative behind them (Kathy is a storyteller as much as a dancer). The Loop explores the repetive or cyclical nature of our lives, Green Piece seems to have a number of themes running through it---from "living green" to being new, or not quite ripe---and there are more than a few apples abused throughout. (I predict apple sauce in someone's future.) I heard in the audience that someone "didn't like the apples," but I found them cleverly used in some places. I suppose it depends upon what "apple" means for you, which is, after all, a symbol full of cultural information---from the Eden debacle to keeping the doctor away. There are times I'm not always certain what's going on in an dance, I just like the movement. The apples were a prop that, for me, were simply something the dancers were using. Any associations I had in passing were simply layers along the way. It's otherwise a lovely piece.
I don't have any more time this morning. I'll have to leave my KDH report at that. If you are in Austin---or within a 3 hour drive!---make the effort to see the last two performances tonight and Saturday. I admit, I love this company and the women behind it, but I'll also defend that bias by saying: If they made crap work, I wouldn't be writing this now, on too little sleep after too much driving.
Okay, that's all for today. Next blot spot (so to speak): Durham, NC, and the American Dance Festival!
The Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company (these days more often seen advertised as the more abbreviated [initialized?] KDH Dance Company). I used to take a modern class with Kathy and yoga with associate Kate Warren. Of all the things I miss about Austin, these two women are pretty darn near the center of them.
So I'm flying out of Houston to the American Dance Festival tomorrow morning. I'd sort of assumed I'd just have to miss this KDH concert. So much not getting done here. Then I was looking at the program. They revived two of my favorite pieces: Brief Histories in Three Acts and Framed. I knew it would hurt---and I'll be up late tonight packing the final things I need for my trip---but I became determined to make this performance.
It was well worth the trip. Both of these pieces were tweaked. The company has changed a lot since they were first performed and Kathy naturally enough recasts the piece according to personalities and strengths of the current company. The feelings generated with the pieces remain intact, however. The longing and nostalgia in Framed is made more tender by Kate's taking over the central role of the piece, a woman sitting immobile, staring off into space. The role was originated by Lisa Nicks, who is still with the company (and a fine dancer---a master of the solo dance), but for whatever reason Kate took on the role, Kate brought a vulnerability that I hadn't seen before. When Kate made her first movement, it was so tender and full of memory and loss, well, a my eyes teared up. Then she gets up and dances with the other women (who, if I read the dance correctly, are younger versions of the character), you see that not everything that immobile woman is remembering is sad or wistful. There is joy and excitement, as well as loss and pain.
I never saw the full lenght Brief Histories when it was created. I was living in Chicago at the time, but saw an excerpt of it when I brought the company up to Chicago to perform. It is the KDH company at it's most introspective. I should note that this company is more known for it's humor and athleticism, but being something of a contemplative myself, I especially respond to their quieter pieces. Brief Histories has a haunting quality, as if our pasts are always there directing our futures, like a ghost who keeps rearranging the funiture, blocking certain paths. Again, it's not all wistful---there are moments of happiness and excitement, not to mention anger and frustration---but the images that stay with me are the wistful moments. (This may say more about me than the actual dance. Maybe I say too much!)
The other two pieces in the evening---The Loop, another revived piece, and Green Piece, the only new piece of the evening---are a bit more abstract dance, although there's clearly something of a narrative behind them (Kathy is a storyteller as much as a dancer). The Loop explores the repetive or cyclical nature of our lives, Green Piece seems to have a number of themes running through it---from "living green" to being new, or not quite ripe---and there are more than a few apples abused throughout. (I predict apple sauce in someone's future.) I heard in the audience that someone "didn't like the apples," but I found them cleverly used in some places. I suppose it depends upon what "apple" means for you, which is, after all, a symbol full of cultural information---from the Eden debacle to keeping the doctor away. There are times I'm not always certain what's going on in an dance, I just like the movement. The apples were a prop that, for me, were simply something the dancers were using. Any associations I had in passing were simply layers along the way. It's otherwise a lovely piece.
I don't have any more time this morning. I'll have to leave my KDH report at that. If you are in Austin---or within a 3 hour drive!---make the effort to see the last two performances tonight and Saturday. I admit, I love this company and the women behind it, but I'll also defend that bias by saying: If they made crap work, I wouldn't be writing this now, on too little sleep after too much driving.
Okay, that's all for today. Next blot spot (so to speak): Durham, NC, and the American Dance Festival!
Labels: dance, Kate Warren, Kathy Dunn Hamrick, Lisa Nicks
posted by Neil Ellis Orts at 6:31 AM
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