Christopher K. Morgan Makes Strong Malashock Dance Debut

The program offered a first look at dances made for Malashock Dance by its new artistic director, Christopher K. Morgan. Good news: Morgan’s work has the kind of complex engagement with ideas we’ve enjoyed from John Malashock for 35+ years. There’s also an appealing playfulness, as well as a democratic approach to composition that may be a mixed blessing.

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Strong Malashock Show Features Possible Successor

To a Michael Wall score that mixes crowd noises, breaking glass, and what sounds unnervingly like gunshots, five dancers advance warily, arms raised as if to ward off an attack. … The society Griffin creates onstage feels dangerous … and like an apt reflection of the present moment, in which the show took place outdoors on a chilly evening since we’re not yet done with COVID; and with a flag directly behind center-stage flying at half-staff in honor of the country’s latest mass shootings.

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Dance Bonanza from Litvak, Malashock

We’re vaccinated. We’re masked. And we’re returning to theaters to see dance! Last week, I got to shows by two companies, Litvak Dance and Malashock Dance. Both featured work by multiple choreographers, making it a dance bonanza.

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Malashock, Griffin Choreograph Hope

Two “tribes”—one dressed in brown, the other in green—exchange wary glances. Using wooden cubes, they stake out their territory and line up, facing off.  Yet, a moment later, a man ventures out from the four-person greens, a woman from the browns. To music with a waltz tempo, they explore lyrical partnering.

How do we respond to someone we perceive as “other?” With curiosity or fear?

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Chicago’s Kontras Quartet and Malashock Dance: A Smashing Pas de Deux

Chicago’s outstanding Kontras Quartet has returned to San Diego in “High Strung” at the Lyceum Theatre, a stimulating collaboration between Art of Élan and Malashock Dance. In April, 2018, Art of Élan brought noted jazz virtuoso Branford Marsalis and the Kontras Quartet for an exciting concert at the Music Box in Little Italy, so I…

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