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| Reviews |
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July 25, 2006
Los Angeles Times
DANCE REVIEW Sure-footed in exploring ideas A
pair of sharp quartets and two showpiece solos enliven the LaDanserie
program. For nine years, a resident company
called La Danserie has offered local audiences creative contemporary
ballet programming influenced by European trends. The slate proved
typically diverse and stimulating at the Unknown Theater in Hollywood on
Saturday. Tatiana A'Virmond's artful new
quartet, "Alma Brasileira," began with a dreamy, lyric solo for
Amanda Lynch but grew forceful and rhythmic with the arrival of Heather
Lipson. Unison dancing could have been sharper, but the choreography
always used its arrangement of music by Villa-Lobos with great surety. Dancer Yoko Ambe dominated company
artistic director Patrick R. Frantz's expert quartet "Di-Fusion,"
which layered surprising modernistic gestures onto classical steps in the
same way that the accompaniment added jazz accents to music by Bach. Ambe also soloed strongly in Judy
Pisarro-Grant's new trio, "No Way / Any Way," which often used
the dancers to soften and undercut two assaultive violin sonatas by George
Antheil. Ten dangling vertical rods defined the dance space — and
suddenly went askew when the music surged into overdrive. French guest artist Alexandre de la
Caffinière contributed two unforgettably twitchy showpiece solos. His
comic "ballet-tics" used the music and some of the steps from
the last-act male and female variations in the ballet "Don
Quixote," mixed with all manner of incredibly fast sight gags drawn
from Charlie Chaplin and other sources. "Ibou" was even better:
a display of benchmark millennial virtuosity in which every limb, muscle
or sinew could be isolated, twisted in on itself or used to propel the
whole body into bold movement experiments. Lipson's pop suite "Even the
Stars Have Gone to Bed" used recordings by Anita Ellis, a vintage
song stylist best remembered nowadays for supplying Rita Hayworth's
singing voice in the "Put the Blame on Mame" number from the
1946 noir classic "Gilda." Unfortunately, Lipson managed neither
to evoke nor parody Ellis' world with any distinction, though Ellen Rosa
and, especially, Nicole Mathis looked comfortable in choreography that
often seemed perversely disjointed. Dancer injury caused reductions and rearrangements in Lipson's piece, plus the cancellation of Frantz's new "Appassionato." Both should be fully restored by next weekend.
October 29, 2001 Los Angeles Times DANCE REVIEW LA DANSERIE DISPLAYS CREATIVE POWER By VICTORIA LOOSELEAF, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES Choreographer Patrick Frantz has some big ideas. Fortunately, he's got the talent to back them up. It was the stage of the Madrid Theatre, where the locally based collective La Danserie performed Saturday, that was, at times, too small for his vision. Frantz and five other choreographers premiered nine works, giving further proof that La Danserie is a major creative force. Frantz's two large works, "Time to the End," boldly set to an excerpt of Poulenc's opera of martyrdom, "Dialogues of the Carmelites," and "Destiny," tackling no less than the "Molto Vivace" of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, both painted emotion-filled tableaux. The former, featuring 12 dancers portraying doom and time's inevitable march, had leaping women crumbling in the face of merciless men. The latter saw eight dancers exalting in hope, where outspread arms and powerful leaps resembled glorious birds taking flight. On a lighter note, a whimsical, tutu-clad Lisa K. Lock performed Frantz's "The Infinite Fifth," a spoof on barre work. From Lock as choreographer came "500 Watts," stunningly danced by Moonea Choi, Ellen Rosa and Johnny Tu, an athletic look at power plays set to the dissonance of Penderecki, and "Night Prayers," a rich duet, punctuated by elegant lifts, between her and Jennifer McDonald Wilson. McDonald Wilson's own solo, "Bound," had her resolutely grappling with a rope to Barber's "Adagio," while Judy Pisarro-Grant's "Mosaic" saw her, McDonald Wilson and Lock in lovely unisons set to Baroque music. L.A. Times ...on Sunday, Highways
Performance Space welcomed the exhilarating collective La Danserie. Choreographer-dancer Lisa K. Lock dominated the
Highways evening in stamina, versatility and technique. From "Voiceless," a
love-hate contact improvisation between her and Juan Francisco Robles, to "Perpetual
Identities," in which Phillip Chang, Vanessa Jue, Tony Licon, Jennifer McDonald
Wilson, Grant Wilson and Jennifer Usyak shed light effectively on issues of trust, fear
and isolation, the work soared. Lock shone, too, in McDonald Wilson's take on
"Waiting for Godot," her loose-limbed playfulness a perfect foil for Jue's
equally enchanting high jinks. Demonstrating his ballet
background, Frantz made "Verdi Sola," on Bernadette Glenn, who embodied Romance
on pointe. Another solo, "Still Thoughting? (Morphing the Fluff)," by Jue,
flaunted McDonald Wilson's contortionist skills. |