Final Week of Classes

This is the final week of Antaeus Dance classes. We had anticipated teaching through next week, but preparations for our upcoming performance require us to keep the last week to ourselves.

It has been a great pleasure to both teach and take classes with the company and the community this summer. I have met some lovely movers from Cleveland and beyond, and hope that we can continue to see one another throughout the year.

If you want to be on our mailing list for class information, company announcements, and other goings on, please contact me: joan@antaeusdance.com.

Please see the post below for reflections on our performance in Lincoln Park next weekend!

Photo of Shadowing the Ground by John Seyfried

Antaeus Dance & MorrisonDance Perform in Lincoln Park

Join Tremont's resident dance companies for a night of original dance in Tremont's Lincoln Park August 7th and 8th at 8:30pm (raindate August 9th at 7:30pm)

This free event will feature one of my favorite dances, Hidden Dialogue. This piece is very athletic and incorporates my interest in working from individual gestures and movement idiosyncrasies. It often feels like a puzzle. This is partly because I cannot imagine how I ever made it in the first place...even though, yes, I do know how it was done...it's just that in the looking back I frequently don't know if I could do it again if I had to. And as I perform it, remembering who originated each movement and knowing how it ultimately fits into the piece as a whole, I actually feel the movement pieces falling into place as I do them. It is a very satisfying dance from this performer's perspective; and I certainly hope that is the case for the audience. This dance is also a barometer for me...it was a turning point for me creatively and helps me gauge where I've been/where I'm going. It is also a good test of my general fitness.

Drift In, Drop Out is a similar experience for me. It is a more elegant piece than Hidden Dialogue, though it still gets my heart rate up. One of the dancers has told me, repeatedly, how much she likes the piece. That means more to me than she could possibly know. The dancers are the litmus test for the work. Does it engage them? Does it push them in some way? Does it bring up questions and engage us all in dialogue? These are important questions for any dancework, regardless of its demeanor.

Finally, we will be performing FFA: Fairy Flight Academy by founding member Holly Labbe Cole. This is complete whimsy along the lines of: If at first you don't succeed, try try again. Four fairies who have yet to earn their wings have been at it for so long that they have grown to enormous proportions (i.e., human-sized). They have one more chance to make it...come and see what happens!

Please do visit MorrisonDance for more information about their work. Sarah will reprise work she premiered at Ingenuity Festival, as well as some MD favorites!

This concert begins our 2009-2010 season and I am glad for the chance to have a little fun with things before digging into some new, heady work. We close on Saturday, Sunday if it rains, and then Shanna, Sherri, and I head to PA Sunday night for the annual Allegheny Summer Dance Intensive. This is a two-week program that I have been directing since 1999. It is something I look forward to every year and will be reporting on our activities there.

I hope to see you at the concert!
Joan

FFA: Fairy Flight Academy photo by Brian Meggitt