D.C. DanceWatcher, Lisa Traiger

What's Wrong With Modern Dance?

Rumblings and discomfiting whispers about the denseness and arcane programming choices of modern dance concerts have been percolating for a while. Recent real-life whispers I’ve overheard verify what I’ve long understood: modern and contemporary concert dance are not populist forms and, face it, they never will be. Like contemporary classical music or abstract painting, they’re for a rarefied few who appreciate design, music, movement, conjoined together into a collaborative whole. But without the cheesecake, soft-cell sex and glitter of “Dancing With the Stars” or even the “everything is beautiful at the ballet” glamour and glory of “Swan Lake,” modern and contemporary dance will never make it big.

Choices, Choices

Choices, choices for those itching to fill their dance cards this weekend. Tonight I’m at the Kay Theatre of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at U of Md. for Sophilene Cheam Shapiro’s “Pamina Devi: A Cambodian Magic Flute.” Word of mouth from colleagues from around the country is this is a stunning and beautiful work, culturally rich and artistically resonant. I caught it on video and was duly impressed. I previewed it last week in Weekend.

Maryland Arts Funding Under Fire from Governor

If you live in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, you very likely have frequented a dance studio or performance space in Maryland. From Black Rock in Gaithersburg to the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, from the Music Center at Strathmore to the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in Takoma Park, from American Dance Institute in Rockville to Joy of Motion in Bethesda, dance is alive and thriving in Maryland. That's why the following message from the Montgomery County (Maryland) Arts & Humanities Council is so worrisome. Please take the few minutes necessary to make your voice heard via a letter, a sample of which is below. -- L.T.

Dear Colleague:

On Monday, Governor O'Malley announced that a Special Session of the General Assembly will be held to pass legislation to close the projected $1.7 billion deficit in the State's operating budget. The Special Session will begin on October 29. The Governor has proposed a package of revenue enhancements and budget reductions that will close the deficit. 

A group of trustees from Maryland Citizens for the Arts (MCA) and other members of the arts community met with senior officials of the O'Malley Administration last week to discuss State Arts Council funding.  During our discussions, it became evident that without a revenue based solution to the deficit, significant budget reductions will need to be made across state government and the Arts Council budget will not be spared. The amount of the reduction to the Arts Council could be $2 million or more which would have a large impact on grants to organizations. (FYI-Now the Governor has proposed in his doomsday plan a total defunding of the Maryland State Arts Council. )

Skimming the Surface

Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Company
October 12, 2007
Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center
Washington, DC

By Lisa Traiger

Copyright © 2007 by Lisa Traiger

Washington, D.C.’s Dana Tai Soon Burgess has built quite a career delving into his Asian-American heritage. A fourth-generation Korean-American on his mother’s side, Santa Fe native Burgess, currently a professor at George Washington University, endeavors to reflect on this aesthetic with the predominantly Asian company he founded in 1992. In the slippery discourse that he mines between East and West, his dances navigate an aesthetic that seems out of time and out of place in relation to what populates the contemporary dance world. That doesn’t seem a problem though; DTSB&Co.’s growing prominence includes State Department-sponsored tours and visits to the Far East, South America and, most recently, the Middle East (Egypt, Israel and the West Bank). Among his notable works over the years, the reconstructions of Michio Ito’s distinctive solos from the 1930s stand out, along with his larger scale pieces, among them 2003’s “Tracings,” a heartfelt investigation into his grandparents' immigrant history.

Photo: "Tracings," courtesy Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Company