(photo by Lauren Duque)

I was out of town and unable to attend the recent Dance Times Square showcase, Ballroom Unleashed (my first time having to miss it since I stopped dancing there), but writer D.J. McDonald was kind enough to cover it for me. Because it’s easier (too many problems pasting from Word to Wordpress), I am just going to link to his own blog, where he covered it as well. It’s here.

Next Monday evening, May 11th.

See my earlier post for more info.

Ridiculously, I won’t be able to make it; I’m going out of town and won’t be back yet. But I met a very nice guy, DJ McDonald, in the Facebook Dance Bloggers group and he’s going to cover it for me!

I’m really interested to hear — of course what Pasha and Anya do, and Travis, and Twitch, and Sabra, and Eugene and Maria — but also how audiences like David Parsons’s Caught. I’m sure they’ll go absolutely wild over it. This may be a way to bring modern dance and ballet to a wider audience, integrating it with forms of dance that are more popular and accessible right now, like ballroom! So I’m really glad Tony and Melanie are exposing fans of ballroom and SYTYCD to something like this. Big huge kudos to them! And with Sabra now a part of Cedar Lake, who knows what future collaborations could happen…

Anyway, if anyone else is able to go (Shim?! — or any other fans of ballroom, SYTYCD, or Parsons — or modern dance — expose yourself to ballroom!, and it’s on a Monday night, so is not going to interfere with most other dance performances in the city), please please let me know what you think and I will post your thoughts!

Go here for tickets.

…For their May 11th “ballroom” showcase at the Danny Kaye Playhouse. I put ballroom in parenthesis because, though the studio specializes in Latin / Ballroom instruction (and is the studio where I took lessons with Pasha), it seems that they are really expanding, at least for their biannual showcases, which used to be student-oriented and are increasingly centering on pro performances — and pros of all kinds, not just ballroom.

The May 11th show will feature, in addition to Pasha and Anya (!); David Parsons Dance Company performing Caught (regular readers of this blog know how I feel about that dance ); Sabra Johnson, Travis Wall and Twitch from So You Think You Can Dance; the Mark Stuart Eckstein Dance Company (which I don’t know of); choreographer Tricia Brouke’s OtherShore; opera star Aprile Millo; and for ballroom, the EXCELLENT Eugene Katsevman and Maria Manusova, top American Smooth contenders J.T. Thomas and Tomas Mielnicki, and (the very good, very sexy) former Latin junior champs Manuel Favilla and Karolina Paliwoda.

Expected guest attendees include Baryshnikov (!), Desmond Richardson (!), Edie Falco, Susan Sarandon, Cynthia Nixon, Mickey Rourke, Barbara Walters, Antonio Banderas, Harvey Keitel, John Turturro, and more — including judges and choreographers from SYTYCD (which DTS studio owners Tony Meredith and Melanie LaPatin choreograph for as well).

I’m happily stunned that my ballroom studio has become kind of this major outlet for popular concert dance in the city!

There’s also an after-party at the studio, as well as a pre-show reception at the Danny Kaye Playhouse for Angel on a Leash, which the program is benefitting. Angel on a Leash sponsors rehabilitative dogs (for people with seeing, hearing disabilities, etc.)  Go here for more info.

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Parsons: An Evening of Classics, Some of Which I Love, Some of Which I Still Have Issues With

January 8, 2009

Tuesday evening I went to the opening night of Parsons Dance at the Joyce Chelsea. The season opened with Program B, all classics by founder David Parsons; later in the week the company will premiere Program A, a new rock opera.

I like this modern / contemporary company and always find them to be a lot of fun. They’re smallish but have a diverse repertoire (some dances are more lyrical and set to more classical music, others more jazzy and disco-y, set to light rock or soul music, some focused more on lighting effects), and a kind of cult following.

Actually, my favorite dance of the night was a short duet called Ebben, which is going to be part of the larger work premiering later in the week. It was just oozing with sexiness and passion, and I can’t wait to see the whole! Abby Silva, probably the most stand-out dancer in the troupe stood on high releve and kind of tip toed around Kevin Ferguson, standing with his back toward the audience, as if she was just kind of discovering him, then searching, maybe trying to understand him, to breathe in his essence.

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