4th Latin Choreographers Fest
August 8, 2011
baker's dozen hot summer dances at cool Baruch
A showcase always offers the promise of discovery. The Latin Choreographers Festival features artists new to me. I can now boast about those I saw in the dances from the Americas at Baruch PAC August 6 afternoon.
The Festival is the brainchild of dancer and choreographer Ursula Verduzco and co-presented in the IATI (International Theater Arts Institute) Performing Arts Marathon week.
It began with Ellena Takos dancing Ellenore Scott’s Woke Up In Beijing, an aubade. Her mix of mime and movement emerged as a recurrent style in the program.
An excerpted El Espacio de lo Intimo by Miguel Angel Palmeros is memorable for its sophisticated timing and concept. Maribel Michael’s stretched movement contrasts projected black and white images of immutable furniture (not credited in the program). Sad music by Andrea Bauer accompanies. This dance has staying power.
So does Donna Salgado's appealing abstract Diversions for five to music by Souad Massi. Women in pointe shoes and miniskirts begin with twirling Spanish hands. Cool and assured, they rise and move in engaging radial patterns that evoke rueda. Salgado contributes the essential nod to Latin dance culture.
The Festival has evolved with a more cohesive aesthetic over the 1st. Benjamin Briones returned with a new and improved work. (He's also Festival technical director). Lights On is his duet for Frederick Davis and Verduzco, both with striking presence in bright red costumes. Their chemistry and theatricality engages as they argue in fun. Here, normal lovers lashings rise to art.
It’s not just the pine bench prop. Some Day by Eloy Barragan is as romantic as Martha Graham’s Appalachian Spring and recalls that dance about young love. Jennifer Pray, dancing with Steven Gray, wins us over. Flying with effortlessness and musicality to Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major, she offers new appreciation of the music. Even as she teeters walking on his back— we are there.
Julieta Valero's Cancionero offers feel-good release to iconic music by Chopin and Jacques Brel. Completing the program's thirteen are Verduzco's Nothing to Hide, Tony Powell and the Brazilian group Piel Morena with Belo Corpo (Beautiful Body), and several that pull at our heartstrings with varying success: David Fernandez’s La Danza del Fernando, a duet called No Regrets by Marcos Vedoveto, Antonia Urzua's Maria, and Triangulo by Alejandro Chavez, a love triangle with a brawny underworld quality.
Aszure Barton, billed as the non-Latin guest choreographer, left us satisfied with three sections of her Blue Soup on the excellent Steps Repertory Ensemble. She emphasizes their relationships and the space around each dancer. They synch with the music in unpredictable, expansive ways. A solo surprises in a slow section of music; a woman shadows him in a sudden vision and then she’s gone. Blue Soup is dessert.
Verduzco introduced some standouts once again.