The word is out: renowned American choreographer Trey McIntyre calls Texas his home once again. McIntyre cut his teeth as a dancer and a choreographer at Houston Ballet.
When Vinod Hopson of FotoFest suggested that I check out the work of Tad Beck, I figured dance was involved. And indeed, Beck's work with renowned downtown dancemakers is compelling on several levels, from the detailed process to the end image, which involves re-photography and some actual dancing.
When they were students at Southern Methodist University in the 1990s, Michael Trusnovec and Annmaria Mazzini would hole up in the basement of the library obsessively watching videotapes of the Paul Taylor Dance Company.
Frustrated by the awkward process of giving and receiving critical artistic feedback, dance/theater legend and MacArthur Fellow Liz Lerman developed her own system in the early 1990s, her Critical Response Process — an approach based on the principle that the best possible outcome from a response session is for the maker to want to get back to work.
You may be hard-pressed to explain what ZZ Top, Eva Longoria, Willie Nelson and Walter Cronkite have in common, but for the Texas Cultural Trust, the answer is simple: Texas.
One of the remarkable things about dance is its consistent ability, despite diversities in origin, method, belief, or even time, to demonstrate our human similarities while providing opportunities to celebrate and appreciate cultural differences.
Even if you’re never seen Pilobolus in concert before, you’re probably familiar with the acrobatic dance troupe’s work. After starring in a Ford commercial over a decade ago, in which the dancers’ silhouetted bodies became the car, the commercial opportunities kept coming: a high-flying performance at the 79th annual Academy Awards, appearances on Sesame Street, Oprah, Ellen, The Today Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien and more.
I spend a lot of time outside of Texas, for work, family, but mostly to keep up with my home artform: Dance. Nothing makes me happier than running into Texas dance artists doing work outside of Texas. So when a friend came up to me during my time at Jacob’s Pillow asking me if I knew that a Houston dancer was performing with the renowned choreographer Jonah Bokaer, my response was a proud, “Why, yes I do!”