D.C. DanceWatcher, Lisa Traiger

D.C. Dance Artists (and others) in National Spotlight

A few metropolitan D.C.-based or -affiliated artists -- and others -- have received national recognition:

Chitra Kalyandurg, a dancer since 1994 with Anuradha Nehru's Bethesda-based Kuchipudi Kalinidi, received an honoraria award from the Princess Grace Foundation. Along with national recognition -- particularly rare in a culturally specific form like Kuchipudi, a classical Indian style -- the award is signnificant because it furthers a developing dancer's training while helping to pay some artistic fees expended by the dance company. Guru Anuradna's company has been presenting works in the D.C. area since 1992.

Choreographer and solo artist Nejla Yatkin spent significant time developing her choreography and solo career in the D.C. area. Yatkin, formerly an associate professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, and frequent performer in and around the District, received a special project award from the Princess Grace Foundation to support her ongoing work, the Berlin Wall Project, which arrives in D.C. in October.

Finally, I can't avoid mentioning that two "Dancing With the Stars" contestants for season 9 have D.C. connections. As a child and teenager, singer Mya was a long-time member of Silver Spring's youth tap company Tappers With Attitude, so I'm putting my money on her. Mya (Mya Harrison) grew up in Laurel and Silver Spring. I recall seeing her as a skinny-legged girl breaking it down at TWA performances at Dance Place.

The second DWTS cast member with a D.C. connection is none other than former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, about whom I can only scratch my head and say, "huh?" He was indicted in 2005 for violating election laws in Texas, was embroiled in the Abramoff Indian-casino lobbying scandal, and resigned from the House in 2006. Reportedly in training in Sugarland, Texas, for the new season, I wonder if DeLay is the Jerry Springer of season 9. He certainly made a mess of his political career.

 

Trey McIntyre's 'Face of America' Commission

Wolf Trap, the nation's only national park for the performing arts, is in its sixth year of a mult-year, multi-disciplinary project that brings together artists and the national parks. The brainchild of Wolf Trap president Terre Jones, earlier iterations of this project have introduced audiences to parks as diverse as the Grand Canyon (where Bandaloop hung from the rafters in the Filene Center) to the underwater beauty off the U.S. Virgin Islands with a water ballet filmed in HD by Blue Land Media and Donald Byrd's searing evocation of the sugar cane plantations, to the lush, lava-enriched mountains of Hawaii 's Big Island with a breath catching elemental celebration of the earth by Halau O Kekuhi to the daredevil Wright brothers of Kitty Hawk and Elizabeth Streb's equally daring humans who try for flight, and the Kentucky caves and black hills of Mammoth Cave National Park where Doug Varone captured in spare eloquence the hardscrabble lives of miners and farmers who built this nation. This year Boise-based choreographer Trey McIntyre has been commissioned to create a work inspired by and filmed in Montana's expansive Glacier National Park. The piece, "The Sun Road," features video shot in the park this past June and dancing by six of McIntyre's company members, including former Washington Ballet dancer Jason Hartley, now a member of McIntyre's Group. I spoke to Trey earlier this month for a piece that appears in today's Weekend section of The Washington Post.

"When choreographer Trey McIntyre visited Glacier National Park in Montana last summer, he was overwhelmed by the sprawling mountain terrain, dense forest, alpine tundra and 130 lakes. All told, the park covers more than 1,500 square miles, abutting Canada, the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and the southernmost portion of the Canadian Rockies.

'I got this feeling of vertigo, of being overpowered in this vast expanse,' McIntyre says of his initial visit to scout locations for a dance video commissioned by Wolf Trap."

The Dance Team To Beat

I spent some time with Tom Cascella, a theater professor who teaches costume and lighting design, at Towson University. Tom, a non-dancer, runs the school's highly popular and award-winning dance team. My story on Tom and the artistic approach he takes to an activity that is usually considered a sport and housed in the athletic department, appears in this month's Dance Teacher magazine here.

    “Choreographic collaboration is one reason the Towson team succeeds, Cascella says. While most collegiate teams hire a choreographer to teach routines over a week or weekend, Cascella and his team members take a month or more to complete a piece. 'We all choreograph,' he says. 'For competition routines, I always have a story for the routine. There’s always a through-line.' Towson’s prize-winning piece Abandon All Hope, for example, was about the battle between good and evil. 'It’s not necessary for the audience or the judges to understand the story, but it’s important for us to know the story we’re telling.' They continue to refine dances, throwing out or adding details during six to 18 hours of weekly rehearsals. 'Sometimes after we perform it and don’t like it,' Cascella says, 'we’ll go back to the drawing board.'"