PREVIEW: GroundWorks Does Our TownGrover’s Corners With Emotion
To a couple of English majors like us, a play is basically a text, words on a page. So, when a choreographer tells us that he’s going to make something based on Our Town, it takes us a minute to get past the apparent contradiction of a play without words. But that’s what choreographers do; create a final product that’s (mostly) without words. And who’s to say that Thornton Wilder’s depiction of daily life in a small town — and young love, marriage, and death – won’t be well served by Artistic Director David Shimotakahara’s latest piece for GroundWorks Dance Theater, The Return.
What little we’ve seen of The Return is not a story ballet. Rather, we were reminded of Unpublished Dialogues, the GroundWorks dance about Virginia Woolf that choreographer Lynne Taylor-Corbett created on the company in 2008, an impressionistic treatment of character and emotion without a detailed, sequential narrative.
Also new for the upcoming concert at Breen Center for the Performing Arts, GroundWorks has commissioned a premiere from New York based David Parker and The Bang Group, who local dance audiences will remember from Annie Redux, Parker’s take on the Irving Berlin musical, Annie Get Your Gun.
We’d characterize Parker and TBG as musical comedy buffs who just happen to come at things from a transgressive, postmodern angle. So, in their new dance for GroundWorks they have a mix of styles, ballet lines, Charleston steps, sight gags, and hoofer rhythms. (See video of Parker and TBG at http://www.thebanggroup.com/videos.php.) Also on the program, Boom Boom (2009), Shimotakahara’s extremely physical takes on some compelling blues standards.
Be prepared for some personnel changes at GroundWorks. Dancer Todd VanSlambrouck has been ill, forcing Mark Otloski out of retirement. GroundWorks has also brought in Matt Pardo, who is new to the company. It is always interesting to see how new people fit in – we have often been pleasantly surprised with how well and how quickly new picks integrate themselves.
They perform at 8PM Fri 2/4 and Sat 2/5 at Breen Center for the Performing Arts at 2008 W. 30th St on the campus of St. Ignatius in Ohio City. $22 general admission and $15 for students and seniors. Phone 216-961-2560 or go to http://www.Ignatius.edu/breencenter
From Cool Cleveland contributors Elsa Johnson and Victor Lucas. Elsa and Vic are both longtime Clevelanders. Elsa is a landscape designer. She studied ballet as an avocation for 2 decades. Vic has been a dancer and dance teacher for most of his working life, performing in a number of dance companies in NYC and Cleveland. They write about dance as a way to learn more and keep in touch with the dance community. E-mail them at vicnelsaATearthlink.net.