A broad dance program with all the right moves.
There are, I believe, two main reasons why people go to the theater: to be entertained or to be moved. For me, being emotionally moved is an experience I'd go to many lengths to have and dance is a medium that provides such stretch. Dance is an art form that contains the possibility for articulating and bringing out emotions, both in the artist and in the viewer. Julie Brette Adams, who has been dancing in Santa Fe for 15 years, and Kate Eberle, who returned to the stage in 2004 after nine years, are two dancers who embrace such performative experience.
Two Women Dancing
is a contemporary program that extends the audience through a variety of sensations through several pieces. "Yatra," a premiere, has music composed by local musician
John Kennedy (Santa Fe New Music).
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The dance is a true collaboration, choreographed by both dancers and exquisitely performed to a cello solo. The next piece, danced and choreographed by Eberle to Radiohead, exudes the dancer's need for movement and the art's evident reciprocity. The passion evoked in "Grounded" moves and swings and swoops. It is a joy to watch.
"Avian Two," originally conceived as a trio, has been reworked as a duet. Set to music composed by Kevin Volans and performed by the Kronos Quartet, this piece is both like and unlike the dancers' other pieces. It too is evocative and provocative and moving, but it doesn't feel repetitive; the dancers themselves achieve a metamorphosis from the previous pieces.
And for a totally different experience, Adams' "Shake-n-Bake," the oldest dance in the program (2000), is a spoof on, in the choreographer's words, "baking and, well, shaking." Anyone fortunate
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enough to have seen Adams'
Cinderella
spoof in 2004 knows she has an uncanny way with tongue-in-cheek humor, and unlike so many artists, she is able to translate it to the stage.
Another duet in the program, "Dance 5," begins in silence randomly broken with five gong tones. As the movements grow and quicken, the slices of silence are replaced with the sounds that movement makes: a body score. The final piece, "Redemption Suite" (with music by Mary Gauthier), is the most political. The dance is made up of three sections and follows the paths of two women seeking forgiveness, one being Karla Faye Tucker, who was put to death in Texas during George W Bush's governorship.
Collaborating is not an easy feat. But for Adams and Eberle, the work is a clear pleasure. The two women could not look less alike: Adams is petite and dark, Eberle is tall and blond. But that their artistic, physical and aesthetic tendencies complement and inspire each other is present in every move they make.
