On Sunday, March 7, at 5 p.m.,Wheeling Orchesis will team with the Arlington Dance Ensemble for the 16th annual Dance for Life's Next Generation. This year's benefit, held in Wheeling High School's Sang Theater, will be emceed by Scott Corchin (WHS Orchesis alumni and on air personality at Kiss 103.5) and Lizzie MacKenzie (River North Dance Chicago).  All proceeds will be donated to the Dance for Life Fund and The Children's Place Association, organizations dedicated to the support of those living with HIV/AIDS. 

Diane Rawlinson is the founder and co-artistic director of its Dance For Life’s affiliated youth benefit concert (Dance For Life’s Next Generation) since 1995. This year’s benefit features alot of friends of All Over The Place Records -- aotpr artist D. Jeremy is an alumnus of Wheeling Orchesis, of which Diane is the director. Lizzie MacKenzie is co-hosting the event with Scott Corchin, who is featured in the D. Jeremy video for “Loser”, and plays on D. Jeremy’s track “Feel The Love”. Finally, the event features a performance by Extensions Dance Company, performing Lizzie MacKenzie’s new work “Time Now”, to an original ‘ohana Dreamdance score written by Dan Agosto and Johnny Nevin.

Producing Music can happen in many different ways, because music can be so many different things. If a band has a song that they’ve played live a hundred times, producing a record of that song is mostly a question of getting a good recording of a good performance by the band. Mixing and mastering are still important challenges, and the band may find new arrangement choices in the studio -- additional solos, background vocals, more complex instrumentation -- but the basic idea is to record the song that they already play.

Producing original music has evolved to include a lot of different approaches though, and much of what is recorded today is composed part by part in music production software, often with no reference to a live performance. Later, the artist may find ways to recreate the production in live shows, like when an act writes beats for a track and then has a drummer play them live later, but all of the decisions about what to leave in and what to leave out are made according to what makes the song -- and the production -- work the best.

Only recently has this approach really become practical with respect to classical instrumentation, and a lot of that is thanks to a truly amazing group of people in Vienna Austria called the Vienna Symphonic Library (www.vsl.co.at).

“Time Now” is ‘Ohana’s original score for Lizzie MacKenzie’s newest choreographic work “Time Now”, which she is currently rehearsing with Extensions Dance Company in Chicago. The eight minute score is actually a collage of two new ‘ohana tracks. The first and third sections of the work are from the track “Time Now”, and the middle section is a collaboration between ‘ohana producers Dan Agosto and Johnny Nevin called “Some Time”. This is Section I, a two-minute-thirty-second arrangement in 3/4 time for two grand pianos and string orchestra.

Composing original music for dance is always an exciting challenge; it requires a complex collaboration between two different artistic visions -- that of the choreographer and that of the composer --- and those visions are not always easy to communicate. The choreographer may have an idea of general direction and mood, or she may have a more specific sense of a work she can visualize. But to communicate that to someone who is not a dancer is a start-and-stop process requiring as much courage as patience. The composer may have an idea of tempo, arrangement, and mood, or he may already have the beginning of a musical idea. But to communicate that to someone who is not a musician is a stop-and-start process requiring as much open-mindedness as optimism. (more)

The most revealing line in Chicago choreographer Lizzie MacKenzie’s biography as Artistic Director of Extensions Dance Company may be this one: “Lizzie spends most of her free time teaching and choreographing." The realization that this is what Lizzie MacKenzie would describe as “free time” does a lot to explain her astonishingly broad range of accomplishments.

Many successful choreographers have had accomplished careers as dancers, and many company artistic directors are also accomplished choreographers. Lizzie MacKenzie, however, is at least unusual, and may be unique, in that she continues to be a successful and highly-respected dancer with one of Chicago’s leading companies (River North Chicago Dance Company), while also working as a leading choreographer. In 2008, she won the prestigious Choreographer of the Year award from Dance Chicago, presented by the Cliff Dwellers Foundation, to follow up on her 2006 New Voice Outstanding Choreographer award.

Her choreography is always graceful and fluid, and one of its most compelling attributes is a remarkable sense of dynamic architecture. In fact, whenever possible, it’s good to see her works at least once from a balcony, because there is a moving structure to what she does that becomes really apparent when seen with a full view of the stage.

Interestingly, this ability to master overall structure may be more the result of a focus on detail than on preconceived design; her designs actually seem to result from the careful composition of individual movements. Watching her in rehearsal with Extensions Dance Company, I heard her make an observation that does a lot to explain the coherence, but also the fullness, of her choreography. “Everything has a reason.” And when you add all of those reasons together, the result is inspired choreography.

Lizzie MacKenzie’s newest piece, “Time Now” is an eight-minute piece set to an original composition by Chicago group ‘ohana. It’s currently in rehearsal with her own Extensions Dance Company, and will premiere this fall.

I spent a really enjoyable -- and enlightening -- Sunday afternoon at Extensions Dance Company, getting to know the company who will be performing Lizzie MacKenzie’s new work TIME NOW, set to the original ‘ohana score that she and Dan Agosto and I have been working on for the past few months. (http://extensionsdance.com/index.html)

Extensions is a remarkable company; I walked in about fifteen minutes early, and that gave me the chance to watch Lizzie working with the dancers on the first section of “Time Now”. It was an impressive display of focus and commitment; Lizzie MacKenzie’s choreography is passionate in its detail, and these are fast-paced, dynamic details, uncompromising in their demand for technique and co-operation. So it wasn’t surprising to see a company that Lizzie founded displaying the same intense focus that she herself is known for. It also wasn’t surprising because I’ve seen Extensions perform several times, and their performances always have a graceful fire that I find unique.