CELEBRATING ST. LOUIS’ VIBRANT DANCE COMMUNITY
St. Louis Dance HQ’s Blog is a compilation of writings and performance reviews from a variety of St. Louis based dance writers. If you’re interested in sharing your writing on our blog, please email stlouisdancehq@gmail.com.
HQ Review: Afriky Lolo presents its 20th Anniversary Concert
Before Disney’s “The Lion King,” the epic story of prince and founder of the Mali Empire Sundiata Keita was carried throughout West African oral history. Preserved by Griots, West Africa’s historians, the epic has endured for over 700 years, telling a story of perseverance as Sundiata fought for his prophesied seat on the throne.
HQ Review: Space Station’s Winter Weekend with Chew + Spit
Dyke Devotions, the second iteration of Chew & Spit, took the stage at Hope United Church of Christ on January 17th. The performance featured fourteen dancers, including Marlee Doniff, the project’s architect, who appeared briefly in a cameo at the top of the piece.
HQ Review: “Music in Motion” presented by Saint Louis Dance Theatre with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra
The Inspiration for the Saint Louis Symphony’s (SLSO) program titled “Music in Motion” was a quote by the late choreographer, George Balanchine, “Dancing is music made visible.” Conductor of SLSO, Stéphane Denève, wanted his audience to not only hear the wonderful ballet scores of the night but to experience them visually as well. The result: a collaboration with the Saint Louis Dance Theatre (STLDT) to perform one of the four pieces conducted during the program, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite.
HQ Review: Karlovsky and Company Dance presents “PLAYFUL PAIRINGS”
Fresh movement, sounds, foods and drinks were the buzzwords for “Playful Pairings,” a truly collaborative site-specific concert by Karlovsky & Company Dance at .Zack. First occurring in 2017, the event features light fare and strong drinks — with mocktail options — crafted to pair with each work’s movement qualities, live music and environment.
HQ Review: Space Station Dance Residency 2024
“I’ve heard of its beauty, and in some ways… it’s bizarreness too. Um and I felt it… And I felt it.” These words, spoken by Marlee Donniff in their solo work “I Drove Through West Virginia in the Dead of Night,” capture perfectly the essence of the performance series at which they were uttered. Space Station Dance Residency, co-directed by Jacob Henss and Robbie Van Nest, truly is no stranger to the bizarre and the beautiful. Now in its 5th year, Space Station serves as an incubator for St Louis artists to probe at their most experimental ideas, a gamble that has routinely laid host to some of the most unexpected and thought-provoking works of dance theatre in the St. Louis area.
HQ Review: “Alone Time” by Laura Roth
The soundscape of rain tumbles down from the vaulted ceiling above. Laura Roth sits alone on a chair facing the audience, clothed in dark sweat pants and a gray hoodie. Though the audience has just arrived to this place, Roth’s physical temperament feels as though she has been in this chair all day. The creative stimulus for this solo work, Alone Time, was originally born out of Roth’s experience of the pandemic. Though as time passed, it has broadened to capture how spending time alone has shaped her. With that in mind, this scene feels easily digestible as to what is causing Roth unease. As she sits, she begins to readjust herself, shuffling between different positions, emanating a mood of boredom and frustration. The outside world rumbles on while she is forced to confront this reality.
HQ REVIEW: “Styx and Stones” by Elinor Harrison in collaboration with Jorrell Lawyer-Jefferson
Styx and Stones, choreographed by Elinor Harrison in collaboration with Jorrell Lawyer-Jefferson, seeks to re-examine the concept of myth and look at it through a new lens. Why, if at all, do we choose to look back and revisit past stories? And not just these stories, but how they embed themselves in our lives and the ways we communicate our present existence. In this work, the myth of Eurydice and Orpheus is picked apart, unraveled, and examined through the framework of Harrison’s creative process. A variety of performance modes are employed and juxtaposed against each other. From physical theatre, to dramatic dialogue, to contemporary dance and the multitude of connotations that carries. These various mediums are constructively utilized to allow for a wide landscape of meanings to unearth themselves.
HQ REVIEW: Leverage Dance Theater presents “Of Matter, Mind + Spirit” at Holy Cross Lutheran Church
The third installment to a series of concerts for sacred space, Leverage Dance Theater’s Of Matter, Mind & Spirit takes audiences on a rabbithole-esque voyage down, out, in, around, up, and through seemingly every inch of the Holy Cross Lutheran Church. Consisting of six unique works by six different choreographers, the dancers of Leverage Dance Theater guide and coax their audience through a journey that both celebrates and questions ideas of spirituality and its place, both physically and ideologically, in our humanity.
HQ REVIEW: The Big Muddy Dance Company’s final concert of its 23/24 Season unveils its new “IDENTITY” as Saint Louis Dance Theatre
Identity, an evening-length show by The Big Muddy Dance Company, was performed at the Catherine B. Berges Theatre. Program C consisted of three pieces, Come...The Sun Doesn’t Wait by Omar Román de Jesús, Notes on a Farewell by Tommie-Waheed Evans, and PlayFolk by Bradley Shelver. At the top of the show Executive Director Erin Prange took the stage to share some of the plans for the company in their next season as well as to introduce one major change. In the season ahead The Big Muddy Dance Company will transition to a new name: Saint Louis Dance Theatre. Described in their already updated website as a “repertory dance company that showcases high caliber artistic experiences” which aims to be “an instrument of optimism through inclusivity, collaboration, and artistic excellence,” we look to see the continued unfolding of Artistic Director Kirven Douthit-Boyd’s vision for the company in the season ahead.