Dance Salad

On Wednesday, June 25, LIFErs watched a video of Dance Salad 2013 with dancers from the Polish National Ballet (which hasn't visited the country since 1980), Italy's Spellbound Contemporary Ballet, and Barcelona's La Veronal. Every Easter weekend, Artistic Director Nancy Henderek and the Houston International Dance Coalition bring to Houston a rich mix of styles and imagination from all over the world. 

The video included choreographers Krzysztof Pastor, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Mats Ek, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Mauro Astolfi, Marcos Marou, Fernando Magadan and Uri Sands.

Jackie Alfred, publicist for Dance Salad, gave running commentary on the eclectic and avant garde pieces.  

Dance Salad 2011

Greetings LIFEers! Today's class got off to a rough start as the LIFE classroom has all new technological thing-a-ma-jiggys that took four librarians to get working. But late starts are nothing new to theater audiences. We were just trying to make you feel like you were actually there....

Houston's Dance Salad brings dancers together from all over the world to perform unique pieces never seen before. As always, Dance Salad reminds audiences that dance is not just about ballet, ladies in tutus and men in tights, but about storytelling through movement, light, sound and costume. This year we saw a piece called "Fawnee" about how knowledge passes from one generation to the next. An older dancer taught the younger dancer how to live and how to be, while the younger imitated and played throughout the scene. Another story called "Return of Ulysses" told the emotional story of Penelope, Ulysses' forgotten wife who is trying to hold her kingdom together until her husband returns from war, but is threatened by the numerous suitors trying to force her to marry. The piece at some places almost seemed violent and upsetting, but we must remember the dance is representing Penelope's feelings and inner struggle, and at times she feels attacked. The last piece was called "Orchestra of Wolves" and was set to Beethoven's famous 5th symphony. A conductor tried to lead an orchestra of wolves to play, but wolves being wolves weren't interested in playing, and after much fighting between the two sides, the wolves attacked and comically ended the conductor and the dance.

We always appreciate getting to see highlights of the dances from Dance Salad. Alas, we cannot show you any of the dances here, but for season highlights or for information on next year's dances, please check the links below.

See you next week!

2011 Dance Salad review - http://www.dancesalad.org/previous_concert.html
2012 Dance Salad times/dates - http://www.dancesalad.org/index.html

Touring Taste of Dance Salad Festival

The artists Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas disagreed about style. Degas believed a good painting needed a pretty subject. Cassatt believed that composition was most important and to prove her point, she composed a painting of a servant girl at her toilette, titled Girl Arranging Her Hair. The model is not a classical beauty by any means, but the painting is fascinating none the less. The beauty of the picture comes from the rigor of the composition, the angles of the girls arms and braid to the furniture behind her, and the gentle contrast of colors. Degas conceded the point.


So what does this have to do with dance, you ask? Everything! For those not well-studied in dance, the general thought is that dance is all about (traditional ideas of) beauty; the movement, the music, the costumes, even the dancers themselves, etc... Not so! Just as Cassatt proved in painting, what makes dance really fascinating is how the dance uses the space; the contrasting angles formed by the dancers; and how lighting, costumes, music and even props can help tell the story. In this week's LIFE class we watched a movie of some of the dances performed at Houston's Taste of Dance Salad Festival.


Unfortunately we cannot show the movie we watched in class this week on the blog, so you will need to take my word for how interesting and enjoyable it was. The class favorites seemed to be a dance by Mats Ek and his wife (both in their 60s, proving that dance is for all ages, not just skinny 20 somethings) and the dance of a woman going about her day, with a male dancer enacting all the objects she comes in contact with. Watching him become clothing, jewelry, food, a phone, and (class favorite) high heels through dance was amazing. See the links below for the 2011 Dance Salad Festival, and check out dance events here at Cy-Fair too.



Houston's Dance Salad web page: http://www.dancesalad.org/community.shtml


Mary Cassatt's Girl Arranging Her Hair: http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg83/gg83-46572.html

O'Maoileidigh Irish Dancers

O'Maoileidigh (pronounced O-Ma-Lady) Irish Dancers helped celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with joyful Irish dancing and historical facts about Ireland, along with some Irish fare!