REVIEW & PREVIEW: Dance (Greene+Medcalf), Dance (Rioult) & more Dance
GREEN+MEDCALF MOVEMENT PROJECT
Greene + Medcalf Movement Project is the area’s newest contemporary dance company. It kicked off its formation with a benefit, A SPRING FLING THING: an evening of live music and dance.
The event introduced Terence Greene and Michael Medcalf [pictured; photo by Dale Dong], the company’s choreographers and dancers. The award-winning duo are Cleveland natives who met and worked together at the Cleveland School for the Arts. Each went their separate ways, learning their craft and dancing with some of the country’s leading companies. They have decided to reunite and use this area as their home base. Greene was recently appointed as resident choreographer for Verb Ballets. Medcalf, the former leader of Cleveland Contemporary Dance Theatre, is pursuing an advanced degree but will be returning to the area for rehearsals and performances.
The evening consisted of SATCHIDANADA, a balletic/gymnastic piece danced by Medcalf with slow controlled movements, displaying high levels of balance and grace. REFLECTIONS OF, an homage to teachers, was choreographed by Greene. It found the duo intertwining and playing off each other, playing off their physical size differences with magnetic control. Greene used a repeated movement to feed and draw symbolic knowledge out of Medcalf. The final dance, FULL CIRCLE, was a collaborative piece in which the duo improvised movement based on the singing of Reggie Kelly and the music of Hubb’s Grove. Kelly, the musical sounds of Robert “Hubb” Hubbard Jr., Tony Watson Jr., Walter Barnes Jr., Stephen Fowler, guitarist Robert Sharpe, and the dynamic singing and scatting of Chimera Wilson were program performers.
The evening was filled with joyousness. The large, mainly African American audience fully participated through call-and-response interactions between the audience and the performers and interjected appropriate standing ovations.
Capsule judgment: A SPRING FLING THING was a great kickoff to the GREENE+MEDCALF MOVEMENT PROJECT, which promises to be an exciting addition to the Cleveland dance scene.
The company can next be seen as part of The Cleveland Public Theatre DanceWorks ’11 from Thu 5/26 – Sun 5/29. For tickets go to http://CPTonline.org.
RIOULT
The creative RIOULT Company, which was brought to the area in a co-sponsorship between DANCECleveland and Playhouse Square, recently performed at the Ohio Theatre. Anyone who missed the program missed an awesome evening of dance.
Choreographer Pascal Rioult challenges his dancers to high levels of creativity. The program opened with VIEW OF THE FLEETING WORLD, based on Bach’s The Arts of Fugue. The nine-part piece was accented by Monet type illusions and mood altering lighting.
WIEN, danced to the music of Maurice Ravel’s LaValse, is a visual message created by swirling bodies which transcends from beautiful waltz to chaotic violence and humiliation, complete with despair and fatalism. It is a visual image of bizarre dance movements which symbolized triumphant evil. The overall effect was riveting!
Ravel’s BOLERO, an exercise in building a crescendo by repeating musical sounds and movements over and over, created an increasing emotional pitch. The music is a four-phrase theme which mesmerizes. By repeating and altering, the choreographer created visual images, building anticipation and then breaking the pattern… with jarring results!
UPCOMING DANCE PRESENTATIONS
Sun 5/1: DARE2CARE (Unite Against Bullying) @ Cuyahoga County Courthouse – 1 Lakeside Avenue. An Evening of Performance Art. For information and tickets: http://www.Cleveland.hrc.org.
Thu 5/5 – Sun 6/5: DANCEWORKS ’11. New dances by local artists. The series features Verb Ballets, Inlet Dance Theatre, Antaeus Dance and a group led by Mikaela Clark and Mackenzie Clevenger. For information go to http://CPTonline.org.
Fri 5/13 – Sun 5/15: EIFMAN BALLET OF ST. PETERSBURG features the original choreography of Boris Eifman, who has revolutionized dance with his story ballets. @ State Theatre. Tickets: http://PlayhouseSquare.org or 216-241-6000.
Sat 6/11 at 8PM: PARSONS DANCE with vocalists of the East Village Opera Company @ Ohio Theatre. Presented by Dance Cleveland and Opera Cleveland. Tickets: 216-241-6000 or http://PlayhouseSquare.org.
From Cool Cleveland contributor Roy Berko. Berko’s blog, which contains theatre and dance reviews from 2001 through 2011, as well as his consulting and publications information, can be found at http://RoyBerko.info. His reviews can also be found on NeOHIOpal and CoolCleveland.com.
Roy Berko, who is a life-long Clevelander, is a Renaissance man. Believing the line in Robert Frost’s poem “Road Not Taken,” each time he comes to a fork in the road, he has taken the path less traveled. He holds degrees, thought the doctorate from Kent State, University of Michigan and The Pennsylvania State University. His present roles, besides husband and grandfather, are professor, crisis counselor, author and entertainment reviewer… Read Roy Berko’s complete bio here
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