4dancers.org is a great, broad-based dance site that brings together a number of different perspectives on the world of Dance. Johnny Nevin has joined the site as a monthly columnist, writing about Music and Dance. His third article just posted there, about Finding Music, and you can check out these links for his first two articles: Choosing Music For Choreography, and Music and Dance: An Introduction. There are a number of regular features at 4dancers well worth keeping an eye on; one of them is the series "10 Questions With ...", where Editor Catherine L. Tully engages different people from the world of Dance; her interview with Johnny Nevin is at 10 Questions with John Nevin.
Here's a video of Extensions Dance Company performing Lizzie MacKenzie's award-winning work "Time Now", set to an original score of the same by 'ohana Dreamdance. The performance is from the Extensions Showcase, which we was one of the finest shows we got to see last year.
We've done a few stories about this amazing company --- here are a few links to some of them, along with a free download of the piano version of the 'ohana Dreamdance track "Time Now":
Extensions Dance 2010 Showcase
Extensions Dance's Awards at ADA 2010
Choreographer Profile: Lizzie MacKenzie
Podcast: Composing "Some Time" For Lizzie MacKenzie (Part 1)
Podcast: Composing "Some Time" For Lizzie MacKenzie (Part 2)
Podcast: Composing "Some Time" For Lizzie MacKenzie (Part 3)
Time Now (Piano) Free Download (mp3)
Amazon ••••• iTunes Music Store ••••• Napster
More On This Album from IODA Promonet
More about 'ohana Dreamdance from IODA Promonet
Choreography on film and video is not a new idea, but it still seems in many ways to be in its very early stages, not so much as an art form, but as an idea in the Dance community. Here's a video from Amberley Productions, a film and video company in Berlin, that is visionary in its sense of how to visually record choreography.
Comparing the often divergent, often converging worlds of music and dance is irresistible whenever this subject comes up. Way, way back, music was always performed, and never recorded, and it took decades, maybe six of them, before a gradual creative understanding emerged that the record does not have to be the same as the live performance. The record includes the performance, but it will always be more than, and less than, a live performance of the same song. You lose the intensity of immediate personal communication, but you have access to immense areas of more complex, more colorful communication; there are realms of technology-induced imagination that become available to the expression of the creative ideas in the composition.
Dan Agosto and Johnny Nevin worked with an amazing artist named Shayna Swanson, composing an as-yet-unreleased track they call "What Was Beyond". Shayna has a live video of her performance that you really have to see: it's at YouTube.
"Unraveling the Myth" isn't quite like anything else in the 'ohana Dreamdance catalogue, a classical guitar based track with a quietly brilliant vocal by Josie Falbo. For reasons we haven't really figured out yet, the track has recently seen a surge in popularity. Here it is:
'ohana Dreamdance
UNRAVELING THE MYTH
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Unraveling the Myth is available at Amazon, iTunes, or check it out at one of the sites we like, eMusic.
Extensions Dance Company’s 2010 showcase, which took place Saturday at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts, was not only a great concert, it was in many ways a unique experience, the kind of experience that can be difficult to place in a specific category. It was a Dance Concert in the traditional sense, a presentation of dance pieces that each featured excellent performance and inspired design, and that flowed convincingly from one to another. It was also very much a showcase; the program provided an in-depth presentation of the abilities and accomplishments of the Company dancers, both individually and in ensemble works. It was also a celebration of the fifth anniversary of Extensions Dance, a celebration of a remarkably successful season for the Company, and a celebration of the contributions of two Extensions performers, Miranda Borkan and Natalie Pearson, both of whom will attend the prestigious Alvin Ailey / Fordham University partnership program in New York.
‘ohana Dreamdance’s “Time Now Choreography Mixes” release features both of the tracks composed for choreographer Lizzie MacKenzie. The full original score is the Time Now MacKenzie Choreography Mix; it’s an arrangement of the two original tracks “Time Now” and “Some Time” that ‘ohana Dreamdance producers Dan Agosto and Johnny Nevin wrote for the Extensions Dance Company performance. Besides the Choreography mix and the two original tracks, the release includes a four minute Piano-only version, which is now available as a free download from All Over The Place Records distributor IODA (the Independent Online Digital Alliance).
IODA runs a service called Promonet. It provides access to sample tracks from many IODA distributed labels, and makes them available to bloggers and review sites, as well as to IODA distributed labels, like All Over The Place.
The download is coming from IODA Promonet, and the link is pasteable into a lot of different social media locations: by all means copy any of the links (but especially the free download link) as much as you wantl. (In Windows, right-click, on a Mac, Control-click the icon and Copy Link. Here it is:
Time Now (Piano) Free Download (mp3)
Amazon ••••• iTunes Music Store ••••• Napster
More On This Album from IODA Promonet
More about 'ohana Dreamdance from IODA Promonet
Extensions Dance presents its 2010 Showcase this May 29 at 6:30 PM at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts. It marks the completion of an exceptionally successful year for the Company, including most recently an astonishing set of awards at the American Dance Association Chicago Regional.
Choreography is one of those arts that is especially difficult to master, because it requires so many different resources for its development. Dancers, music, costumes, lighting, and some place to stage the performance make a challenging list of components. Yet rarely is it creativity or competence in the development of these components that most challenges new choreographers (well, most choreographers). It’s the mastery of the process.
The title of this article is the second half of the title of one of the best descriptions of choreography I’ve ever read. Roslyn Sulcas wrote a year-end article in the New York Times summarizing the most memorable performances she had seen during the year. The article is called “Leading Bodies, Stirring Imaginations”, and it begins with a superb description of the art of choreography:
"CREATING a dance involves much more than inventing steps for dancers. It needs a judicious eye for visual and spatial effect, a sense of timing and an instinct for building attention, for varying the mood and creating an overall theatrical arc that draws an audience into the world of the dance. Thinking about my favorite dance watching moments of the year, I realized that they all involved a sense of wonder at the skill with which the choreographers had woven these elements into a whole, making every aspect of a dance feel not just necessary, but inevitable."
This is my probably my favorite track from last year. I thought I'd share it and recommend the entire album.
Dance Chicago begins its unique month-long presentation of dance performances, and on Thursday, November 3, the first of the New Moves series will go on at Stage 773. Following up on last month's very successful run of their full length show What Is Home To You, Renegade Dance Architects will present two works: Ginger Jensen's Search Me and Amy Williams' Here They Come. For more info: Stage 773.
As challenging as it is to express an artistic vision, only slightly less difficult is trying to get anybody to pay attention when you do. One of the important artistic aspects of Thodos Dance Chicago's New Dances series is that all of the best critical voices in the city take the time to see the works and write about them. Here's some of the coverage for New Dances 2011 -- enthusiastic, engaging, and like most criticism, multifaceted:
Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times
Sid Smith, Chicago Tribune
Zachary Whittenburg, Time Out Chicago
Laura Molzahn, SeeChicagoDance.com
Hay Perro's Record Release is at Quenchers, Friday March 11. Thunderunderus and I Love Rich! are there too, starting at 9PM. A great chance to check out what The Illinois Entertainer called "the sound Hay Perro has crafted during its five-year existence: intricate heavy-metal — dual-guitar harmonies everywhere — played with madcap punk-rock ferocity." If you want to, you can look up some of our other stories on Hay Perro while you're waiting for the show to start.
South By Southwest runs March 11 through the 20th in Austin, and Black Light Saints will be there to play Cedar Street Courtyard on Tuesday the 15th, after which they head to San Antonio for a show at Limelight on the 16th. Their Impossible Picks album is getting heard alot in alot of places --- I just listened to it again when Britton Wetherald and Dan Agosto stopped by Heart & Soul to do a podcast, which we'll have in a day or so. There's a new release from the band at dopecouture.com called "Research The Obvious" (along with a great write-up) if you can't make Austin or San Antonio.
The new planetclaire.com is live. The relaunch coincides with the release of Claire's latest project, her Hearts and Minds EP. It's a great artist site, mixing the new --- "A Long Goodbye" and "Winds of Change" (written and produced with long-time writing partner Tommy G), and "Wouldn't It" (produced by 'ohana Dreamdance bandmate Johnny Nevin) --- with some classic video from pop legend Tami Show. More from us about Hearts and Minds in a few days, but you can get it now at cdbaby and at iTunes. Even more of Claire's music is at the very cool Planet Claire.
Thodos Dance Chicago's Winter Concert March 4 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, like the performance February 19 at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, was a breakthrough success. Hedy Weiss, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, said of the Winter Concert: "It is a must-see for anyone intrigued by Chicago history, by the power of dance to spin a story, and by the sight of a dance troupe clearly in the throes of a major breakthrough." For a closer look at the choreography of the current Thodos Dance Chicago repertory, you may want to have a look at these:
Ann Reinking, Melissa Thodos and "The White City"
Francisco Avina and Stephanie Martinez-Bennit and "Quieting the Clock"
Melissa Thodos and "Getting There"
Wade Schaaf and "Dancer, Net (Solo 1)"
Ron De Jesús and "Shift"
Pittsburgh Connections is the widely respected annual choreography series presented by Point Park University's Pittsburgh's Playhouse. This year's performance premiere's November 12, and runs through the 21st. You can find more information on the shows, which include new works by Dionna Pridgeon, Kassandra Taylor, Gina Patterson and Justin Myles, at Pittsburgh Playhouse. For the first installment of the podcast with Craig talking about his return to Point Park, check out Craig Kaufman's Return to Point Park University, and for more on "A Path Home", here's the full article: Craig Kaufman's A Path Home Premieres.
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Here's a really short podcast that traces the development of the "Wouldn't It" production. It starts with the intro from the final release, but then shows five different stages of the song's development, playing different progressive versions of how the arrangement and production of the track changed. Each of the versions is from the same section of the song, the second verse and chorus, until the podcast closes with the rest of the song from the final release. If you've got a few minutes, take a little trip through the process of how a singer/songwriter and her producer find the track that they want to make from a beautiful song.
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Here's a first listen to three excerpts from Black Light Saints' new EP Impossible Picks ---- "What Happens Next", "Baby Girl" and "Cattle Skull". The record is already getting talked up a lot, both because everybody who's heard it is so into it, and because of the high profiles of the members --- Ephraim Cuellar, Britton Wetherald, and Alex Brandi, not to mention the production by Dan Agosto. More from us in our story about Black Light Saints and from them on their Facebook.
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