Love and Intimacy in a Cold, Cold World: Open Dance Project’s Panopticon: Someone’s Always Watching

“The President has invited you here today to learn first hand about the future your Savage leaders denied you back in 2026 and to offer you the opportunity to rectify that decision by joining us now as happy citizens of the most forward-thinking governing corporation in the modern world.” Welcome to Panoption: Someone’s Always Watching. […]

The Mysterious Consideration of Transitory Sound and Movement Collective

The artists of Transitory Sound and Movement Collective refer to themselves as a “living sculpture” rather than a dance company or a sound ensemble. Their work is an ongoing conversation between sound, led by Founding Artistic Director Lynn Lane, and movement, shaped by Founding Member Jennifer Mabus.  Witnessing audiences are welcomed into their upcoming creation, […]

Shadow Dappled Relationships. Core Dance presents As the Shadows Grow Longer

It wasn’t choreographer D. Patton White’s idea to make this dance. He was just central to the idea. Jeffrey Clark, Patton’s college friend, first had the idea and took it to Core Dance’s Co-Founder and Artistic Director Sue Schroeder. Clark had been watching Patton grieve the sudden death of his younger brother, Claiborne, and it […]

The Dance Gallery Festival/Texas Experience: Offering a Taste of the Trajectory of Contemporary Choreography in New York and Texas

For two nights at the Gaertner Performing Arts Center Dance Theater at Sam Houston State University (SHSU), audiences partook of ten pieces by ten different artists chosen from over 300 submissions, reflecting a tightly woven network between Huntsville, Texas, and New York City. The duet-heavy show offered a progressive dance dinner to the nearly-full house, […]

Constructing Life Among Art: Karen Stokes Dance Premieres Multi-layered Work at MATCH

Imagine a world so largely consumed by art that people move among masterpieces as mere ants in nature. There is an intimate connection between creative forms of expression, as well as art and our everyday existence that choreographer Karen Stokes explores in her latest work, “Gallery Construction.” By turning stationary creations into an intriguing and […]

Never Again

Never Again Reminding us of history so that we need not repeat it The work of choreographer Toni Leago Valle has often dealt with political subjects, particularly issues faced by women. Motherhood in I am Goddess and female body image in Cracked, for example. So when I say with Never Again Valle may have produced […]

The Sky Was Wild With Sunshine

In the vestibule of Matchbox 2 at Midtown Art & Theater Center Houston (MATCH), Pilot Dance Project dancers Adam Castaneda and Shanon Adame engage in a coy kinetic conversation under a tent of crunchy gold fabric. Over a soundtrack of twinkly tunes, they slink playfully through its backdrop of colorful string arranged in a rainbow […]

Lori Yuill Uses an Urban Garden and Dance to Spark Community

Sweet potatoes, chili peppers, eggplant. Sweat, dirt. Ants, flies, cicadas (or was that the music?). While these words easily drum up the image of a garden, they are less expected when describing a setting for a dance piece. Pilot Dance Project recently produced a work called Green Zebras choreographed by Lori Yuill. Yuill’s work, inspired […]

Ascend Dance Collective – Ascension

A few weeks ago I wrote about the work of Elisa De La Rosa, and considered her Tortillas y Lagrimas in the context of a few questions that I’ve been asking myself recently, particularly, what is the focus of a life in dance? I would also extend this conversation to, what makes a successful dance […]

METdance – Deep In The Heart

METdance has attracted a string of high-profile choreographers over the past decade, in large part to the diligent efforts of Artistic Director Marlana Doyle to broaden the scope of the company, but on April 13 and 14, she unveiled a program dedicated to dance rooted in Texas. METdance was joined by Bruce Wood Dance of […]