I first met Ashley DeHoyos, Assistant Curator for DiverseWorks, Jefferson Pinder, the director of Fire and Movement, and Joseph Lefthand, who led drill instruction for the performers, on a balmy summer day in midtown Houston at a coffee house that was once a gas station. It seemed the perfect location to discuss with the Fire […]
The notion of men dancing is often met with mixed reactions, not equally positive and negative. In too many cases, a presumption of homosexuality is made—and indeed, there is a history of prominent gay male dancers. Many male dancers report the awkwardness of often being the only male in a dance class, or at least […]
Delving Into History In Order To Move Forward: the unnamed three’s Hatch, and Brother(hood) Dance’s HAWA (The Ride), in collaboration with the Pilot Dance Project I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance.—Bell Hooks If I didn’t define myself for myself, […]
I’d watched the construction of Nestor Topchy’s inner Loop art compound, Facebook post by Facebook post, but had not visited until the April 13th performance of Bodies of Light, choreographed by Rebecca French. Few venues would have been as well suited as the Glass Crescent, one of the performance spaces on the property. I sat […]
As a biracial, queer, nonbinary writer and artist, I always ask a person upon first introduction what pronouns they use. Although I’d met dancer/choreographer jhon r. stronks before, we’d never spoken at any length in person. Over email I asked Stronks what pronouns to use in this review (among other questions), but to this question, […]
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, […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Recent Comments