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: “IN TWO” by Brendan Fernandes at The Pulitzer Arts Foundation
The Pulitzer Arts Foundation is a building that seems to emphasize its empty spaces; holding the weight of its own openness with thick concrete and large stretches of glass. It is an austere, contemplative space, with natural light fracturing and reflecting from a pool in the center of the building, sending wavy lines onto the gray ceilings, walls, and floors. The building was constructed in 2001 by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, known for his minimalist approach. I describe the space at some length here because it served as an important element and the context for In Two, a dance performance choreographed by Brendan Fernandes. In it, four dancers (Sergio Camacho, Xenia Mansour, Christopher Salango, and Carly Vanderheyden) responded to the most recent exhibit in a series of interweaving duets. But the dancers’ relationship to the building was just as remarkable as, and amplified by, their connection to the art and other bodies within the walls.
HQ Review: “Preparing to Orbit” by Big Plate Dance
Last Sunday afternoon I, along with a couple of dozen other audience members, found ourselves under the dim blue lights of the The .ZACK Theater walking together in a wide circle. Chairs were staggered in disjointed rows around us as we encircled the room, and above us a stage, empty and dark, loomed. Music coming from beyond the circle of chairs as walkers ebbed and flowed; electronic and atmospheric. We picked our way around the room, avoiding several large pillars that intersected the carpeted space, led in this peculiar game of orbit by five dancers in white jumpsuits who looked around at us with reassuring smiles. Eventually, chairs around the circle began to fill, a shift likely set off by one of the dancers, and the game became more akin to musical chairs. A slight tinge of anxiety was introduced: “Who would be the last one walking?” This group activity served as the opening of Preparing to Orbit, a dance performance presented by Big Plate Dance as part of the STL Fringe Festival on August 18th.
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.