I was hoping that by waiting until I’d seen his work (the world premiere was Thursday night at the Harris Theater), I’d be better equipped to explain it.  That didn’t happen.  Victor Quijada’s work defies description.  In fact, he has a hard time describing it himself.  “I think what I’m trying to go towards,” says Quijada, “is a post-hip hop-contemporary-ballet-breakdance-actor.”  That’s a lot of hyphens.

The man who earned the nickname “Rubberband” for his elastic-like way of moving has internalized that name and applied it to his choreography, as well as his Montreal-based company RUBBERBANDance Group.  He stretches, twists, pulls, releases and flips the steps, creating a new way of performing them.  A whole new genre.  He admits his vision is not simple.  “The biggest challenge is trying to create something that’s not existing…but following a vision, spawning something new,” he says.  “I’m talking about this idea that is a raw version of a contemporary, post-hip hop, influenced by contemporary, ballet, dance, theater with…an unapologetic, but not false attitude and creating something that’s real.  Hopefully.”  Like I said, it’s not simple, but I’m pretty sure it’s  unlike anything Chicago audiences have ever seen.

HSDC dancers Penny Saunders and Jason Hortin in Quijada's PHYSIKAL LINGUISTIKS.

Quijada’s eclectic dance background strongly influences his work.  After graduating from the L.A. County High School for the Arts, he expanded his talents in hip hop by working with Rudy Perez, Twyla Tharp and dancing for the Eliot Feld Ballet and Les Grands Ballets Canandiens de Montreal.  Blending this unique physical vocabulary with honesty, humor and a couple of cool gimics, Quijada has created a fun, stylistic masterpiece that challenges not only the audience, but the world-class dancers at HSDC.  Artistic Director Glenn Edgerton brought Quijada in (after dancer Jason Hortin showed him You Tube clips of his work) for a one-week workshop at the end of last season to prep the dancers in his style and make sure they could perform it safely.  The acrobatic style took some time to get used to.  He explains, “It is taking the body from that Alexander plum line-vertical into the inversion towards the horizontal and through that inversion creating, at least in my vision, creating a body that has no front or no up, no down.”  After winning the prestigious Princess Grace Award in August, Quijada was able to enlist friend/collaborator Jasper Gahunia (aka DJ Lil Jazz), who composed the music for PHYSIKAL LINGUISTIKS in real time creating what Quijada calls “an audio parallel” to the dance.  It’s that creative process that fuels the work which explores not just the physical side of the dancers, but the human side.  With his new piece, Quijada looks into the relationship between life and the theater.  “Life and theater and how they come together or repel each other and how we build, usually, a fourth wall for theatrical events.  I’m seeing if I can poke holes into that.”  PHYSIKAL LINGUISTIKS breaks that fourth wall – and perhaps even a fifth.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago still has two performances this weekend at the Harris Theater.  Ticket information:  hubbardstreetdance.com, Harris Theater Box Office: 312.334.7777

Duato is heading to Russia.

His words.

Continuing his illustrious international career as a dancer, choreographer and artistic director, Nacho Duato is taking his talents to Russia.  He was recently named the Artistic Director of St. Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky Theater, a post he assumes on January 1, 2011.  After 20 years in Spain directing Compañía Nacional de Danza, this will be quite a change.  “I’m going to go with just a suitcase and a head full of ideas,” Duato, 53, says while in town setting his piece Arcangelo on the Hubbard Street dancers.  “I want to start a new life in St. Petersburg.  A new Nacho.”

Duato’s work should be familiar to local audiences, with Arcangelo (choreographed in 2000) being his sixth piece in the HSDC rep.  RB was lucky enough to sit in on rehearsal and talk with him about his choreography and his new Russian gig.

RB:  Are you excited about your new job?  You’re the talk of the dance world right now.

ND:  I am very excited.  Absolutely.  I’m sad…not to leave Spain, but I care about my company.  I think change is good when you add something, but when you rest or you kill something, I think it’s bad.  In another way, I am happy that after 20 years…we ended up dancing at the Bolshoi, the State Theater, Kennedy Center, London…everywhere.  I’m happy now that I left it at that level.  Now I can go on with a larger company.  I’m not only going to have to direct a company, but also the theater and the ballet.  I have an orchestra and a choir, there is a big festival, I have to do galas, I have 130 dancers, 120 performances only in the theater and then we do tours.

RB:  Are they strictly a classical ballet company?

ND:  Yes, but I will change it into a company that does classical and modern work, like most of the operas.  Like ABT or Paris Opera, Munich Opera, Berlin…

RB:  Are they up for it?

ND:  That’s what I said to the director.  He said we want you here.  I know this is crazy.  You are the only foreigner after Petipa that accepted this position.  We are very grateful for you.  We are very honored that you come and you decided to work together with us to change the dance in Russia.  They are such good dancers.  If I’m there every day with them and working hard, correcting, making new ballets for them using their technique, I think slowly we will — I think in six or seven years — we will be a good company.

RB:  Is there a contract or is it open?

ND:  I have a 5-year contract, but if I stay two years, they want to give me an non-definite, an open contract.  If I decide to move or I miss my last company, they’ll bury me next to Petipa (laughing).

RB:  Do you speak Russian?

ND:  No.  I have my dictionary here (in his bag).

RB:  Will there be a translator, or how will that work?

ND:  I’ve made three ballets over there; you always work with a translator — a dancer that is a translator, as well.  I said to my dancers, I’m going to try to learn Russian, but you have to learn English.  Because these days, if you want to be part of the dance world and you want to be in the modern community, you have to speak English.  Russia is opening little by little, but I feel like they’re behind the rest of Europe.  In the mind they have to open themselves, they have to change.  I think that’s why they called me.  Audiences are fed up with Giselle, they love it and they do it very well in my company, but they’ve seen it so much.  They need something else.  They are ready.  We keep on doing the classics, but do it in a different way.  They need to modernize the way they do classics.

RB:  So would you do Giselle for one show, then a mixed rep of new works?

ND:  What we’ve planned with the General Director (Vladmir Kekhman), we will do three months of classics and the rest contemporary.  He really wants to have a stamp of the first contemporary mixed company in Russia.  Because we’re in the same city as Kirov and it is classic.  We could never compete with the Kirov, so we want to bring something very different and unique there.  Also, you have to see how the audience responds.  Ballet is something very serious in Russia.  You can’t just bring in anybody.  You cannot change a step in Giselle, people are going to boo.  You have to be very careful.  I believe very much to direct a company, and a theatre even more, is to have a dialogue with the audience.  At the end, you work for them.  They pay to go and see and support you, so you can’t just do whatever you want.  It must be a give and take and together – the audience and the dancers and me – must shape this company.  I’m very clear about that.

RB:  Has there been any backlash?

ND:  No.  The feeling I had in Spain all of these years…although I had a very good public and respect for many people, at the same time I felt a lot of jealousy and I felt an enormous lack of knowledge of what I was doing, who I was and what the company represented.  In a way I felt a bit not loved, not wanted and I think an artist, especially an international ballet, needs support from the government.  I don’t want to be in a place where you don’t want me.  The last two years I felt very bad.  I got all that love back from the Russians right now.  They respect so much my work.  They give me free artistic hands and they trust me.  For me, this is great.  I may be a dreamer, but I think it’s going to work with this mixture of different souls and different traditions.  I think it’s going to be good.

Duato watching HSDC dancers rehearse Arcangelo.

RB:  Tell me about Arcangelo.

ND:  I use some of the Concerti Grossi from Corelli.  I took all the adagios and andantes…and then at the end, I used an aria from Scarlotti from the opera The First Homicide about Cain and Abel, the first human being that was killed.  There is something for us at the opera…very naïve, that we go to a city in the clouds with the angels and heaven and underneath with the fire and devils.  I just tried to contemplate that idea, where they had so clear — if you are good, you go to heaven; if you are bad, you go to hell.  Everything is about the two extremes:  heaven and hell.  Heaven is up and hell is down (laughing).  The last pas de deux at the end, they are wrapped around a black cloth and lifted up to heaven.  It’s a very simple idea, but why I wanted to do this ballet is because I loved the music.

RB:  This is your sixth piece in HSDC’s rep.  Will you continue to work with them?

ND:  I hope so.  I like it very much.  I like the company.  I think they do very well, the work.

RB:  Do you think it is easy for them because they’ve worked with you so much before that they’re used to your vocabulary?

ND:  But this is very different work from before.  I think Glenn was good bringing something totally different from Rassamblement or Gnawa.  Those other works are much more earthy, sort of folkloric.  This is more lyrical.

RB:  A lot of your work, you have very delicate, almost vulnerable arm and hand gestures, but an underlying strength especially with the women.  How do you find that balance as a choreographer?

ND:  It’s because of the type of dancers I choose to work with me.  I like people that have very strong, simple, classical technique, but at the same time they have the courageousness of woman or also of man.  I think classical technique is the only one that gives this elegance.  I love all these folkloric and ethnic music, so I need people close to the floor, that are able to stomp on the floor and to feel the stomach.  That combination is beautiful, because you can play with those extremes.

RB:  There is so much NDT influence and European choreographic influence here that it really makes the dancers more exposed — and the audience.  Who are some of your influences?

ND:  Well, Jirí (Kylián), he’s the key.  I worked nine years with him, and I started dancing with him and choreographing with him, and everything with him.  It’s been 21 years away from NDT, but it’s normal that they say I come from Kylián, so my work is Kylianesque.  I don’t find it so much.  I think we are both very musical and elegant in a sort of way.  We like simple costumes and simple décor and the choice of music is always important to us, but if you look carefully (or not so carefully) at the work, I think it’s very different. Gnawa…he would have never done Gnawa.  Maybe one ballet looks a bit more like Kylián, but the whole layout of my work, I think, is quite different.  It has a different weight.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s Fall Series:  September 30 – October 3 at the Harris Theater in Millennium Park

For ticket info:  hubbardstreetdance.com, 312.850.9744

Cerrudo in Jiri Kylian's 27'52"

“He’s like a silky paintbrush that has been dipped in black ink and then swept, free-form, across a white page.” – Hedy Weiss, Dance Magazine, October 2007

Since moving to Chicago in 2005, Alejandro Cerrudo has amassed quite a fan base.  After three years dancing with Nederlands Dans Theater II (NDT II), he did not make it into the main company and decided to move overseas to join Hubbard Street Dance Company (HSDC).  NDT’s loss was our gain.  “I think Hubbard Street is, if not the most important dance company in the United States, then it’s up there,” Cerrudo says on a quick break before rehearsal.  “It really called to me…the chance to take part in expanding it even further as a dancer.  I wanted to be part of that growth.  I’m very happy I came.”  Now, not only a dancer you can’t take your eyes off of, Cerrudo has emerged as quite a brilliant choreographer.  As HSDC’s resident choreographer he creates original works each season for the main company and HSDC II.  This summer he also set pieces on a company in Ausburg, Germany and at NDT II.  Whether standing out in HSDC rep pieces like Bardo, 27′, 52″ and Untouched, creating audience favorites like Lickety Split and Extremely Close or flashing his shy, but disarming smile, Cerrudo definitely has Chicago’s attention.

Thursday ( September 30th) will be the long-awaited theatrical premiere of Deep Down Dos, a new work by Cerrudo.  Originally slated to premiere last June as part of HSDC’s Spring Series, Dos was replaced at the last minute due to a music rights issue.  Now, some four months later, we get a chance to see his latest offering — a work for nine dancers set to the Mason Bates (CSO’s Mead Composer) score Music from Underground Spaces, plus a new companion piece for four women entitled Blanco.

RB sat down with the oh-so-charming Spaniard back in May to talk about the upcoming premiere, his process and what he does for fun.

RB:  Can you tell me a little bit about your choreographic process?  Do you approach each piece differently?

AC:  I like to always start from a different perspective.  I tend to start with the music.  The music – it triggers the inspiration.  But, that doesn’t mean the process is the same in each work.  I haven’t found a formula yet.  I don’t know if anyone has a formula, but I don’t have one and I don’t want to have one.  I think that keeps your work always open to something new.  I think if you use always the same formula, you’ll repeat yourself or say the same thing with other words, but the end product will be always the same.   I try to take a lot from the dancers.  I try, it’s not always as I expect.  Also, something that interests me very much is creating in the studio.  I think that influences what comes out very, very much. Because if the dancer feels comfortable and engaged, the dancer is going to give more and it’s going to go faster too. And the dancers, particularly here at Hubbard Street, we have such great, talented dancers, that in so many cases, what I imagine in my head they can surpass that and make it so much better.

RB:  And they know you, so they know how you move and they can anticipate what you’re thinking.

AC:  More and more.  That’s a great thing about being the resident choreographer.  I get to know them and they get to know me, so we don’t start from zero.

RB:  You still have a strong relationship with NDT.  Jim Vincent and Glenn Edgerton have flip-flopped with HSDC and NDT and you’re leaving soon to set a piece on NDT II.  Does that relationship influence your work?

AC:  I don’t think that really influences my choreography, but it’s just funny.  It feels great that such a company like NDT, that I have someone there that has supported me so much.  I think there are so many talented choreographers out there, but it’s so hard to get the first chance.  And even harder to get the second one, because when you’re starting as a choreographer, you’re judged by what people see – you’re first work.  One cannot always create great work, so if your first work happens to be one the audience doesn’t like or the director doesn’t like, you might be done.  Jim gave me the first opportunity to choreograph and he gave me a second chance, then a third.  It’s great.  And to feel like Glenn coming from NDT, he also supports me.  NDT has such a high standard, as well as Hubbard Street, both directors…having them support me that feels good.

RB:  The collaboration with Mason (Bates), how did that come about?

AC:  I don’t think, and probably Mason would agree, it wasn’t really a collaboration.  It was a collaboration with the CSO, but not with Mason.  I was proposed to work with Mason Bates’ music and they showed me a few compositions of his and I picked one, so the music was already done. But I did talk to him a lot about his ideas and his inspiration for the piece.  I even talked to him a little bit about the way I worked.  We spoke a lot, but what he was trying to say with the music…I wasn’t trying to tell the same story with the dance.  Of course, if I have the composer here, I want to hear all he has to say about his work.  I think it came out very well and even though the music tried to say one thing and I was trying to say another thing, both things, the music and the dance said one story together. *Cerrudo-Bates interview here!

RB:  Why did you pick that particular piece of music (Music from Underground Spaces)?

AC:  It’s hard to tell…this happens to me all the time with art.  Why do I like one piece of art or another?  It’s not always clear.  It’s just you like it or you love it.

RB:  Did you immediately imagine movement?

AC:  No.  No.  I was particularly touched and I really liked the last section of the piece.  That’s probably one thing I was really driven to, but it was a little scary because it’s not necessarily music that I would pick naturally, but it was a great thing that happened because it pushed me to a new challenge.  I think it has made me grow as a choreographer a lot.  To face something that is not whatever you want.  I’m very happy.  I was a little scared at the beginning, but it came out very well.

RB:  Can you describe your style?  What’s the Cerrudo style?

AC:  I don’t want to limit myself to say “this is my style”.  I don’t have a formula.  I want to be a choreographer that will always be surprising you.  So if you can define me too well – you know what you’re going to see. The only thing that I want you to know that you’re going to see is the unexpected.

RB:  If you could only do one, would you want to dance or choreograph?

AC:  There’s a time for everything and I’m in transition.  I’m sure eventually I’ll stop dancing.  I like both; they’re very different.  They demand very, very different things and the pressure is very, very different.

Cerrudo watching rehearsal from the audience.

RB:  What inspires you?  Where do you find inspiration?

AC:  I think inspiration comes from everywhere and from nowhere.  It depends on how lucky you are.  I can find inspiration in this conversation that we’re having right now.

RB:  Probably not.

AC:  But that’ it.  You can find inspiration in things that are really not that important and things that are really important…it’s not about that.  It’s just something that clicks and inspires you.  Of course, the dancers are something in front of you and they are people that have so much to say with their movement.  Sometimes it just doesn’t come and I don’t know what to do.  But I believe very much that creativity creates creativity.  So many times when I’m blocked, I ask the dancers to just move – do something, and that inspires me to do something else.  Maybe stillness is something that doesn’t inspire me. I think stillness can be danced – it is dance, I think it’s beautiful, but I need to see something moving.

RB: How do you decide on a title?

AC:  It can very important or not, you never know.  It’s like giving a name to your son or daughter.  You might like the way it sounds, or want to give acknowledgment to your grandmother or grandfather…it ranges.  It’s irrelevant that the audience knows what it means or why I named it that.  It’s important to me because it’s my work.

RB:  I’ve read that you don’t count.  Does a rehearsal director or someone count it out for the dancers?  Or do they adopt your non-counting style?

AC:  I don’t count.  If you want to, go ahead.  Having counts sometimes makes the process easier for whoever will rehearse the piece.

RB:  How much input do you have with the lighting and costume design?

AC:  I have a lot of input.  I can say what I don’t want.  Everything I have in my imagination, I tell Nick (Phillips, lighting designer).  Then he adds his ideas.  We learn from each other.  We try to be honest with each other.  You can’t be afraid of giving your opinion.

RB:  Do you still get nervous?

AC:  Yes.  It depends on what I’m doing.  If I’ve done the piece a lot, I might not get nervous, but I do still get nervous.

RB:  What do you like to do on a day off?

AC:  As little as possible.  I like fishing.

RB:  Do you fish in Lake Michigan?

AC:  Yes, but I don’t have a lot of luck.  More than fishing, I like nature.

Hi there!

My alter ego (who has a day job) has been pretty busy this fall, so sorry for the lack of posts. Good news: the fall dancing season is kicking off with Hubbard St, Joffrey, Luna Negra, Lar Lubovitch, The Other Dance Fest and The Dance Center’s 10 year anniversary celebration all in the next few weeks!
Look for some great interviews to come soon with Nacho Duato, Victor Quijada, Alejandro Cerrudo, Gustavo Sansano and members of the Joffrey Ballet.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud2t2k7dZqU]

A new Nutcracker movie in 3D – starring the wonderful Elle Fanning!  Dakota’s little sis has some real acting chops (just watched her in Pheobe in Wonderland).  I didn’t see any tutus, but it looks entertaining.  Then again, RB likes anything Nutcracker-y.

What do you think?

Hat tip:  The Ballet Bag

Children’s auditions for Joffrey’s Nutcracker are this Sunday at Joffrey Tower!

Here are the details:

Age:  between 9 & 14 (by Sept 19th – this Sunday)

Height:  4′ – 5′ tall

Must be available for rehearsals in October, November & December — and available for performances between December 10 & 26th.  If you are selected, you will receive a rehearsal and performance schedule after the audition.

Times:

10:00 – 12:00 – for dancers ages 9 – 1, 4′ – 4’5″ tall

12:30 – 2:30 – for dancers ages 10 – 14,  4’5″ – 5′ tall

3:00 – 5:00 – for dancers ages 9 – 10, 4’5″ – 5′ tall

Registration for each audition begins one hour prior to start time.

All dancers should be prepared to stay until 5 pm.

Joffrey Tower, 10 East Randolph, Chicago

“Some people tap their feet, some people snap their fingers, and some people sway back and forth. I just sorta do ’em all together, I guess.”

E. Presley – 1956
(from Elvis’ Facebook page today.  Wow! That guy really gets around.)

The DanceCOLEctive on the stairs under Michigan Ave.

Today at noon, The DanceCOLEctive performed on the riverwalk in front of the McCormick Bridgehouse under the Michigan Avenue bridge at Wacker Drive.  What a beautiful day for some outdoor dancing!

Aptly titled In Your Space, the ten dancers led by Artistic Director Margi Cole put the arts on display during downtown lunchtime.  Starting on the riverwalk behind the Wrigley building, the dancers in shifts ran up the cement staircase and walked across the bridge among workers and tourists, then improvised down the stairs to the space in front of the Bridgehouse.  A small crowd gathered to watch, but not everyone took an interest.  A few joggers passed by, swerving around the group — one even threw in his own little tour en l’air as he went by!  Some tourists looked confused, others on the boats passing by turned their attention from the guide and one guy just kept eating his lunch.  “You never know what people are going to do,” says Cole.  “That’s what makes it fun.”

Also in the crowd were Performance Workshop students from Columbia College.  The class, which Cole teaches, was the first of the semester.  They got to enjoy the show and then head over the Millenium Park to do their own site-specific work.

Dancing at the McCormick Bridgehouse

Check out the write up in today’s Trib and if you’re looking for something dancy to do on Saturday, head downtown tomorrow to see this innovative troupe of dancers do their thing.  Shows at 12:15 and 12:45.

More press for the first dance event at the White House here!

Dance is the soul of this country.  This is so American, it’s ridiculous!” ~Judith Jameson

Just finished watching the live-streaming video of the White House Dance Series: Tribute to Judith Jameson. The Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater had a front row seat for the festivities hosted by First Lady Michelle Obama.  Damien Woetzel, former principal with the New York City Ballet, Artistic Director of the Vail International Dance Festival and appointed member of the Presidential Committee on the Arts and Humanities, also hosted a children’s dance workshop with some of the artists from the show before announcing the First Lady.  Woetzel said that the event was a “validation of the arts”.

Mrs. Obama (who looked fabulous, as usual) sat across the aisle from Jameson in the front row and was joined by daughters Malia and Sasha and her mother after saying a few words about dance and Jameson’s contribution to the art.  For the first event in the new dance series, the WH brought a variety of artists.  Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performed the solo Cry (made famous by Jameson),  and excerpts from the quintessential Ailey piece Revelations.  They were joined by artists from Broadway’s Billy Elliot (Electricity), NYCB (Balanchine’s Tarantella), Paul Taylor Dance Company (Cloven Kingdom), MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew winners Super CR3W, and Washington Ballet (excerpts from Twyla Tharp’s Nine Sinatra Songs).

Revelations, which never fails to entertain, was almost too much (fans, umbrellas, et al.) for the tiny stage in the East Room, but ended the show with a passionate reverance to Jameson.  RB was happy they included Sinner Man, the high-energy snippet for three men with awesome athletics and extensions (fave!).  Also of mention, NYCB’s Ashley Bouder’s fast footwork and triple pirouettes in Tarantella.

Seeing dance honored by this administration is wonderful.  RB will tune in next time to — as the First Lady so aptly put — “witness the glory of movement”.