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Laura Vernaci’s Dance Take:

Owen/Cox Dance Group and newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble combined forces in front of a full house Friday night at the H&R Block City Stage Theater at Union Station. Chromatic Collaboration, the first performance for this partnership, brought together Owen/Cox’s fresh choreography and unique concepts with newEar’s eccentric and colorful instrumental compositions. Two of the six works in the mixed program spotlighted individual musical selections while the other four showcased the groups’ unified presentations.

The collaboration began with Eckhard Kopetzki’s award-winning Canned Heat, danced energetically by Christopher Barksdale, Laura Jones, and Betty Kondo. Each dancer’s execution was distinctive—Barksdale was commanding, Jones was captivating, and Kondo was exacting. The angles and syncopated timing combined with the staccato accents made for extremely interesting choreography. Also exciting was how the movement and music complimented one another, both sharp and resonating.

In HyeKyung Lee’s 2006 composition Shadowing, two instruments and six dancers created layers of sound and movement. Jennifer Tierney and Trystan Loucado accomplished a beautiful moment when she perched on his back as he swayed back and forth, and then gracefully slid down. Lisa Thorn and Laura Jones grounded the piece and brought it full circle as they retrograded their beginning sequence. 

Long Day/Good Night featured the full fusion of live dance and music. Composer Brad Cox started with Chopin’s Prelude Op. 28, no. 7 in A Major and constructed it into a progressive and dreamy eight-minute work for 10 instruments and four dancers. Cox and the dancers exchanged repeated glances and appeared to breathe synchronously as they worked to perform dependently. The selection’s slow cantor added difficulty to the dancers’ movement, which had an underwater quality to it. The quartet danced effortlessly, however, employing every muscle in their bodies as they traveled around the small stage individually and, intermittently, together.

Of the four integrated pieces, the best was saved for last. Workers Union combined both ensembles in a satirical display of politics. The dancers were dressed to the nines in cartoonish creations by Lisa Choules that were black and white with fins, hoods, and antennae. Owen’s interpretation of Louis Andriessen’s 1975 work was entertaining and fitting. The odd, robotic movement was typical of Owen’s choreography as were the dancers’ overly expressive faces and body language, which really told the story. It followed the dancers as they stood out, acted out, fought, commanded, conformed and, in the end, collapsed from exhaustion.

While Owen/Cox and newEar’s collaborative juices mixed well together, the two sole musical compositions were lengthy and less engaging. Prior to the show, Co-Artistic Director Brad Cox and President Ingrid Stölzel joked that the partnership might become a yearly event. Whether or not this happens, it is always exciting and special to see artistic groups working together and supporting one another. 

Lee Hartman’s Music Take:

Saturday night’s collaboration between the Owen/Cox Dance Group and newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble at Union Station’s H&R Block Stage was well attended (though not sold out), despite the busy day for dance in Kansas City as Harriman-Jewell presented the Russian National Ballet the same night. I did overhear some comments in the audience that this performance was chosen over the RNB because of ticket prices.

Percussionist Mark Lowry performed Eckhard Kopetzki’s Canned Heat from memory. It was a fine opener, highly energetic and frenetic. Memorization was required, as there was simply no time in the flurry of sixteenth notes to turn a page. As exacting as Lowry’s rendition was, I don’t feel the dancers were as crisp as they should have been.

Charles Dodge’s Clarinet Elegy in memory of Verna Hervig for bass clarinet and tape was performed by Tom Aber without dancers. I was willing to go with the contemplative nature at first, with the long sustained tones and the high, swirling high eddies of electronics, but that contemplation gave way to meandering and then finally to a wish that the piece would just end already. Aber’s playing was nuanced, but the composition let him down. This spot would have been better served as an unaccompanied dance piece.

Closing the first half was HyeKyung Lee’s Shadowing for alto saxophone and clarinet. The choreography was well suited to the piece, as the dancers would mimic, with slight alterations, the motions of their partner. The musicians were not entirely locked in performance, as I felt they were fighting with tempo and intonation at points.

Welcome relief for the dancer, musicians, and audience came in the form of Brad Cox’s Long Day/Good Night. Taking and stretching Chopin’s Prelude in A Major, Op. 28, No. 7., Cox’s piece was Sigur Rós-ian with aleatoric fragments joining together over a subtly shifting background. If you’ve heard the meme of Justin Beiber’s Smile slowed down 800 times you’ll understand the soundworld of the piece. The dancing and costuming were suitably shaded and lovely. In my opinion, this was the most successful piece of the night.

Complementing Aber’s solo, Jan Faidley bopped along with Jacob Ter Veldhuis’ (JacobTV) Garden of Love for soprano sax and boom box. The diametric opposite of the Elegy, Garden of Love was highly coordinated and rhythmic. Faidley performed commendably, especially with her extremely musical altissimo interjections. However, she and the tape were not aligned on some of the more inexactly notated vocal utterances.  Having heard Garden of Love, I realize it makes sense programming-wise when set against the Elegy’s selection, but I still feel a solo dance would have been more enjoyable.

Closing the concert was Louis Andriessen’s monolithic Workers Union. The choreography and costuming was suitably cheeky, aggressive, fun, and dark. The space did not do the musicians any favors, though, as their unceasing, aggressive rhythms were blunted by the dead room. I appreciated that Rob Pherigo busted out the Rhodes keyboard to provide a twang, but I wish Lyra Pherigo had swapped out her flute, which was too often lost in the soundmass, for an occasional piccolo outburst. Though the artists gelled from the beginning of the work, it was the last half of the fifteen-minute piece that was truly magnificent for both dancers and musicians; the collaboration lost its novelty and instead became a unified whole.

Our Mutual Thoughts: 

The collaboration was a fruitful endeavor and hopes are high that it will continue in upcoming seasons. It has the potential of becoming a calendar-clearing, Kansas City event, one the city would, and should, be proud to host. This spirit of togetherness adds to the enjoyment of both groups. Programming suggestion for their next venture: Randall Woolf’s My Insect Bride.

REVIEW:
Owen/Cox Dance Group and newEar Contemporary Chamber Ensemble
Chromatic Collaboration
Friday, April 29, and Saturday, April 30, 2011 (both nights reviewed)
H&R Block City Stage Theater at Union Station
For more information visit www.unionstation.org or the ensembles' pages at www.owencoxdance.org and www.newear.org

Top Photo: Workers Union: Trystan Loucado (foreground) Christopher Barksdale, Lisa Thorn, Laura Jones, Jennifer Owen, Christopher Pennix & Jennifer Tierney (background) (Photo by Charles Stonewall)

By KCM Staff