D.C. DanceWatcher, Lisa Traiger

Re-Posts from 'Dance Studio Life'

Until this fall I contributed articles to Dance Studio Life, a magazine serving the needs of dance studio owners and teachers.

Here is an aggregate of my 2009 stories:

• "No Studio, No Problem: Teaching Dance in Community, Recreation and Daycare Centers," from August '09
  

• "Non-Profits Filling a Need: Tax-Exempt Status Offers Opportunities to Students, Benefits to Communities," from July '09

• "Knock On Wood's Way With Rhythm Tap," from May '09

• "Stepping Stone to College: Traditional African-based Dance Sends Powerful Message to Teens," from March '09

Dance Is the Answer

At the start of Dance/MetroDC's third annual regional celebration of all things dance, a brief preview of some events appears in today's Weekend section of The Washington Post.

"Washington and its suburbs are ready to rock -- and tango, plie, shuffle, lunge, jump and skip.

It's all part of Dance Is the Answer, the region's contribution to National Dance Week. Over the next 10 days, nearly 80 companies, studios and individuals across the area will offer dance-related activities, such as free hip-hop classes, choreographer meet-and-greets, lectures, workshops and performances in genres spanning the globe and the centuries.

'This year we're showing our local community as an international world of dance,' says Peter DiMuro, director of Dance/MetroDC, the festival's sponsor. 'We're really trying to give an international flavor using all locally based artists: You'll see Indian dance next to hip-hop next to aerial dance next to fusion next to modern. It feels like a trip around the world.'"

Stomp the Stage

Step Afrika! is one of the few locally based dance companies that always makes me feel happy and invigorated.

"Part body percussion and part poetry slam, step dancing has been popular for decades on the African American fraternity and sorority circuit. Today stepping has marched off the college yard and into middle schools, high schools, churches, and community centers. Think Spike Lee's School Daze or Sylvain White's Stomp the Yard, two Hollywood takes on college kids who break it down, dance it out, rhyme, and play the dozens to win credibility (and, because it's a movie, get the girl).

Step Afrika!, the 15-year-old troupe that led stepping from the campus to the concert hall, was founded by a young college grad who had hardly seen a dance concert."

I spent a few days with the company this past summer for an article in the February 2009 issue of Dance Magazine. What? You don't subscribe? Well, then sign up here.

Washingtonians to Watch

Washingtonian magazine invited me to contribute to its October Fall arts preview by recommending six dance artists I plan to keep an eye on this season. I selected powerhouse Jason Ignacio of CityDance Ensemble; step-dance maven Brian Williams, founder of Step Afrika!; gorgeously fluent dance-theater choreographer Irina Tsikurishvili of Synetic Theater; quietly composed dancemaker and company founder Dana Tai Soon Burgess; dramatic danseur Jonathan Jordan of The Washington Ballet; and speed demon Sylvia Soumah, Washington's own dancing African diva and founder of the mostly female Coyaba Dance Theater.

You can find these short profiles, plus other terrific recommendations for D.C. area musical and theater artists at the top of their game, here. You'll need to do some scrolling. 

Dance, Dance, Dance, Go Forth and See Something

Well, I’m just coming down from The Kirov Ballet’s gorgeous and ethereal opening performance of “The Bayadere,” last week at the Kennedy Center, particularly the Act III “Kingdom of the Shades” scene. While ballet companies of a certain stripe often perform this scene replicating Petipa’s succinct but meaningful choreography, no company dances it like the Kirov. The corps de ballet, 32 lithe beauties, literally inhabits the steps, those rotating arabesques, as accurately appointed as a Swiss watch, the deeply spiritual sense of time standing still as the increasing line of women unfolds, and unfolds, and unfolds, almost like a mandala come to life. I’ve seen American companies, most recently American Ballet Theatre, perform “Shades” and the difference is palpable. While there is nothing wrong with the ABT corp’s performance, there’s something nearly unattainable in the Kirov’s. The dancers, gossamer netting and poufs of white tulle, notwithstanding, it's their exquisitely ingrained sense that ballet is not democratic, but hierarchic that takes one's breath away. It’s in the way they present a pointed foot, the way they step into their arabesque, the manner in which they hold their heads, exactly so. The Kirov’s dancers exhibit that desire to reach the highest realm of the spirit; it's that sense that marks these dancers as superlative. No company dances “Shades” like the Kirov.

Photo © Natasha Razina and the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet

Enough about the Kirov, a busy dance week begins in Washington tonight

November's End

Before I take a health-imposed hiatus, I’ll be seeing the University of Maryland Dance Ensemble in Helen Tamiris’s “How Long Brethren” Saturday. I spoke with Dianne McIntyre, who rebuilt the piece back in 1991 from a collection of ephemera –- photos, programs, reviews and notes –- at the Federal Theatre Project archives and from the memories of some key Tamiris dancers. My story about Tamiris, “Brethren” and its Jewish connections appears this week in the Washington Jewish Week. There’s a pre-show panel tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. featuring Sali Ann Kriegsman, Mim Rosen and others involved in this latest reconstruction.