Posts Tagged ‘Jean Isaacs’
Shoestring Live Arts Fest Delivers World-Class Dance
The Live Arts Fest put on by Jean Isaacs San Diego Dance Theater is truly a shoestring event—on Saturday, Isaacs was working as a stagehand, handling props. So it’s all the more remarkable that the ten-day festival offered a rich palette of work by international artists, including Christine Dakin, longtime principal with the Martha Graham Dance Company, doing Graham’s legendary solo, “Cante Jondo.”
Read MoreOf Talented 10, Choreographer Chelsea Zeffiro Wins Top Prize
Judges and two audiences awarded prizes in three categories. Unlike previous years, there were no hip hop armies charging forward. Instead, dances blasted the senses with dramatic ensembles, angry fists, and quirky theater. And love.
Read MoreRite of Winter: Jean Isaacs’ “Janus II”
Who’s going to die? In Jean Isaacs’ propulsive, stomping, ominous “Rite of Spring,” one dancer after another appears isolated from the rest … and will he/she be chosen to be sacrificed? Erica Ruse does a tortured, limb-flinging solo, while the others stand and watch. And these folks, denizens of a wonderfully creepy leather bar, doesn’t look friendly.
Read MoreRare Night with Dance Legend Robert Cohan Tops LIVE ARTS FEST 2015, and it’s Not Over
“I listened to Vivaldi’s music for six months, and I couldn’t imagine a piece,” said Cohan,” but finally at sunset I knew I could choreograph it. The mother stands at the cross weeping…it took me months and I worked with Kate. It’s formed mathematically, and we have to make it meaningful. Dance is an extreme form of movement language.”
Read MoreThe Creative Process of ‘Dances of Love Laughter & Loss’
“I wanted to get rid of the old pillow cases in my closet,” she said, “and the new dances are about the people who slept on them. They are autobiographical stories and mixed up by passing of time. I asked Meagan Marshall to write narratives based on those memories. They’re embellished and names are changed. So who knows what really happened?”
Read MoreA Dance Cornucopia – Stages Overflow with Tasty Offerings
Feathery light Ana da Costa was most pleasing as the ordinary peasant girl Giselle who dies of a broken heart when she discovers that her lover is engaged to another woman. Tall and gallant, Trystan Merrick gave Ms. da Costa superb support as Albrecht, and he inserted theatrical details to expand his character from a two-timing cad to a remorseful young man consumed with guilt
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