Movin' Easy Dancewear

@Ballet Austin brings Truth and Beauty to a grand scale.  So much to experience in one evening.

Allison Orr’s Forklift strikes again.  Like Zorro she leaves the mark of contemporary dance on Austin.

http://www.forkliftdanceworks.org/calendar.html

@BalletAustin  Don’t miss the Bach Project by Stephen Mills, see video blog at http://www.balletaustin.org/atb/BachProject2010.php

Andrea Ariel Dance Theater is the perfect example of dance as an exploration of all things human.

See Andrea Ariel interview at the Austin Chronicle http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A823506

Find show information at www.arieldance.com

AC: What do you want to get out of Gyre this time, thematically and artistically? And how does that vary from what you wanted to do in the earlier versions?

AA: The most wonderful, magical discovery is that, after all these years, the work has pointed us back to ourselves. It’s about us. It’s not about the plastic or trash. It’s an invitation. An adventure. An opportunity for something great to happen. We are not in the gyre, rather it is outside of where we are. It is part of our world. But it is part of a bigger body, or force, that has a voice in the work. We have set out to create work about transformation. To seek audacious joy and laughter and balance. Find the perfect person to start the healing. It really is an invitation, a mystery, and a treasure hunt. Instead of diving into the darkness, we are fashioning darkness into something new.

Sharon Marroquin is collaboraing wtih Toni Bravo on “A Glimpse of Heaven with Eyes Closed”Sharon tells the difference in this production from “Is There a Heaven” at the Umlauf gardens.  “The upcoming production is actually quite different from that one. Some of the cast members are the same, but the emphasis this time is on forming connections in the most unlike of places–that, and also the different kinds of heavens we make for ourselves–both on this earth, and after we are gone.

Join us at the Rollins Studio Theatre at the Long Center for the Performing Arts on July 24 and 25 at 8 p.m. and July 26 at 2 p.m. for our production of “A Glimpse of Heaven-With Eyes Closed”, about finding Heaven in Human Connectedness at home, in dreams and in the streets . Choreography is by Toni Bravo in collaboration with Sharon
Marroquin.

Tickets are $15 for students and seniors; $20 general admission; $30
VIP at http://thelongcenter.com/</ a> or by calling 512.474.LONG (5664);
part of the proceeds will benefit LifeWorks which transitions youth and families from crisis to safety and success.

Arthur Duncan, world renowned tap dancer says, “This student show was the best I have seen.  There are some real thinkers there.”  Duncan was in Austin for the annual Soul to Sole Tap Festival hosted by Tapestry Dance Company and Acia Grey.

“GOOD SHOW” to all the dancers of Dance to Glory performing their first recital tonight!!

One six year old boy came in to Movin Easy for new tap shoes to fit the occasion.  He was so excited about his first performance and his new tap shoes.  He joins his older sister in his love of dance.  Little brother will be inheriting his old shoes making it a family affair.

Congtarulations Brittany and all the dancers of DANCE TO GLORY!!!

Da Capo al Coda, Gina Patterson Choreography January 9, 2009 at Atma Center Studio
By Tim Hurst
Ann Arnould and Eric Midgley
Deep inside the cave, woman stands holding firm earth in the palms of her feet.  Strength spreads through her shoulders, back poised to spring shared with her peers spider, mantis, cheetah, wolf.  All this power guards the inhale and exhale of vulnerable breath, every attention prepared for nesting condor or heron flight.

Man is given as her aide to venture, capture, skin, and sire.  In anguish he is crackling like the crinkling fire in the quiet of their cave.  Spare prey and pickings call him from their still vastness, wrestling and prowess more pressing.  He takes steps away that threaten to crack and crevas their cave bringing ready waters between them.

Woman, entrusted with nest and hearth, boldly stills man’s spear and shield.  Her hands command love emerge from his bones.  He knows and yields to spin her legs from the earth while her spread fingers lift their union into the yarn of true stories only begun.

 Michele Thompson
Deep inside Brazil a woman comes of age. Pads of feet call passion from the earth,
soles and spine send raw rivers into every succulent cell, streaming body brings burning human eyes to break through forest of sweat bound hair.

Flying spirals capture laughter from the sky. Splashing sorrow from earth’s waters, bare humanness rubs against the Amazons still heat, opening the heart of darkness from which all life resides.

Gina Patterson and Eric Midgley
Yearning together in the tip of transformation.
Digging in the tender sand of lost child, lost river, lost horizon.

Yearning together in the tip of transformation
Finding the air to eat, slicing the songs to breathe, gathering it all

Yearning together in the tip of transformation.

 Zoran Markovic and Masa Kolar
A dance of play is such a memory, window on window, human sight inviting bright warm light, moment on moment of infinite choices, like a day, like a life flowing, being in an audience, running away, meeting in the trees, lips invite, incite light flying layers upon layers into unknown space.  Known yes known, intimate, quite clearly teasing the laughter from the buoyant air between two lovingly intimates.

And yet again alone as one thoughtful alone one, yet the other one is the one to come stand with, invite again to begin…until tictoc of a jogging clock spins a wild world and until again true life begins in soft violin meadows head to lap, cuddled in grass, head to navel, forehead to back, spoon and snuggle and lips…bring alone again.

Together alone time comes with another opening time, opening and opening, window on window, opening together and alone.  Moments may pass, energy of intimacy may fly.  The invitation returns head and chin and cheek sliding the body’s length smitten two with each other into wobbles of delight even to the wiggles of toes.  Circling away is only the path to a surprise yelp where their circles meet.

Then a search comes alone and together, a search circling like kittens then cats finding the warmest spot to curl and settle.  Once found all is open, palms joined growing as two trees become one root, inhale the same breeze, flutter light between each other’s leaves.

Until an alone moment relives itself and opening seems apart.  Again it is the other one who invites boldness beyond grief, invites from the depths, clashing violas becoming human voices bouncing inside cellos bounding across caverns joining bodies again wantonly climbing vertical clouds only pausing for ceilings.

One again attempts to run alone, chased and sprawled until it is this one’s time two hands over one to catch and roll the other one, palm nudging noggin rolling again and again.   Caress blesses caress, ending on ending arriving until it is clear no time will define these ones, these twos.

Until again opening time arrives, one alone yawns to moon, the other one opens neck to sun and inhales to run…when the touch of one runs to surround his chest forever.

George Balanchine’s Episodes by Ballet Austin October 2008

This piece goes far beyond what I have been told to expect from Mr. B, movement stripped to its essential beauty for its own sake.  I was surprised and awed to find what audiences have discovered in his ballets from the beginning of his career.

I am stunned.  I am invited and ushered inside Mr. B’s mind tasting every morsel of a dancer’s explorations.

I am meticulously told where to look, how to follow joints folding, binding, crumpling, twining.  My wired anticipations are shocked with hard female toes aimed at male ears.  My eye is tricked and teased to follow duos only to find unos instead.

Most challenging of all, I am invited to the vulnerability of dancers revealing the human beauty of the stutter, the stumble, the assisted flutter.  And I am challenged to believe that the floating flying bodies defy what should be pounding athleticism and reveal the utter beauty of the human spirit.

 Pilates is the exercise system that explores deep in the muscle tissue and joints.  The result is muscles that work together to be long lean and pain free.  Here is a review of The Pilates Studio in Austin.

Ann Arnoult is a consummate professional who has improved the quality of my life immeasurably. I suffer from scoliosis (curvature of the spine.) Before I began working with Ann, I was in severe pain, subsisting on Advil for relief. The doctor’s recommendation was that I have metal rods implanted in my spine (with the minor caveat that I could become paralyzed from this surgery!) Through Ann’s care and her knowledgeable, targeted instruction in Pilates, I have been able to establish core strength, maintain flexibility and eliminate pain. I cannot thank Ann enough – she has rebuilt my back – and saved my life! Peg Champion