Dance Canvas: Introducing the Next Generation

Dance Canvas’ “Introducing the Next Generation” is an annual dance concert put together to showcase the works of new and developing choreographers. I’ve been twice before (it would have been three but for the snow last year) and have generally found it enjoyable. Since it features a number of different choreographers and dancers, it can be a mixed bag, but I’ve always found at least one or two pieces in the bunch that I really enjoyed and even the worst of it generally isn’t that bad. This evenings’ collection of works did have some that I didn’t particularly enjoy, but there were some that I really liked.
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Atlanta Ballet: Gennadi’s Choice

Gennadi’s first choice for the evening was Marius Petipa’s “Paquita” with some tweaks for this particular staging. The costuming and stage design were both traditional, with tutus, tight pants, and a backdrop of a staircase in a grand ballroom. This is a piece that really lays bare the capabilities of a company: the legs and feet of the dancers are very exposed and there is a lot of coordinated ensemble work that makes any missteps pretty visible to the audience even if they aren’t familiar with the piece. There was some muddiness from the corps, with a dancer here and there being slightly off and one particular dancer seeming to be permanently a fraction of a beat behind the rest. The principles and demi-soloists, however, were all excellent, making the overall performance beautiful and enjoyable. Rachel Van Buskirk, in particular, handled the technical demands of the titular role most impressively. Unfortunately, the tech crew began fading the lights and lowering the curtain just before the final pose, so we only had a brief glimpse of the ending image.
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Full Radius Dance: Silver

Full Radius’ concert program at 7 Stages was titled Silver in honor of the company’s 25th anniversary. This prompted me to look up the traditional gift materials for each anniversary and I found that the tradition for the third anniversary is leather. Unfortunately, Artistic Director Douglas Scott didn’t include anything on the program from their third anniversary show, which must have been pretty wild.
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Core Dance: Life Interrupted: When fear and hysteria diminish humanity

The first time that I saw anything by Core or Sue Schroeder was a restaging of her “Corazón Abriendo” in late 2010. I picked up my ticket the day of the show after having my original plans for the evening fall through. This was before the trauma that lead to me going to nearly every show of anything that could be even remotely good that I could manage and I was just starting to check out what the Atlanta dance scene had to offer. I wasn’t expecting much; it was about Mayan culture in Chiapas and I suspected that it would probably be a romantic exoticization. Instead it was actually an well produced and thoughtful expression of a rather well-informed, first-hand impression of the region. I’ve seen quite a lot of Core’s work since then but it had remained my favorite of Schroeder’s work by far until this evening.
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The Alvin Ailey American Dance Company

When I saw that the Alvin Ailey American Dance Company was going to be performing new works by Mauro Bigonzetti and Kyle Abraham this year, my reaction was something along the lines of, “Yes, please!” And it happened that the only performance of these pieces was on Saturday, which meant I could actually go and not worry about being wiped out from work or wiped out at work the next day. The Bigonzetti wasn’t all that I hoped that it would be, but the Abraham more than made up for it and this evening’s show ended with a particularly strong performance of Ailey’s “Revelations,” so I’m more than happy with the show.
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Malpaso Dance Company

I last saw Malpaso at the Ferst Center in 2015 and enjoyed it quite a bit. That time around, I particularly enjoyed company member’s Osnel Delgado Wambrug’s piece in the program. There were also works by Ronald K. Brown, which I also really liked, and one by Trey McIntyre, which I could have lived without. I was disappointed that there was more McIntyre this time around there was more but, fortunately, there was also some more Delgado Wambrug to make up for it, along with a piece by Azure Barton.
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Atlanta Ballet: Carmina Burana

I remember seeing Atlanta Ballet’s production of David Bintley’s “Carmina Burana” when they staged it in 2013 and absolutely loving it. The choreographed movement isn’t super complex or exciting, but it is incredibly impressive that Bintley managed to pull three coherent stories out of the the collection of fairly random, raunchy poems in medieval vulgar Latin that Orff put to dramatic music. And the work is often hilarious and is entirely entertaining.
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