Just got confirmation from Rajah about the show with Stanley Clarke’s new group SMV at The Country Club Hills Theater: It’s Saturday, June 20. The Country Club Hills Theater is a 5000 seat outdoor theater that has become a major venue for some of the best national R&B and Jazz tours. This summer’s schedule includes shows by Babyface, After 7, War and Lalah Hathaway, to name a few. I thought this would be the ideal time (and person) to launch a new series called “3Q” that will serve as a little introduction to some really good people to know about.
"Sleeping Palms" will premier on May 1st in the MAD BAD (Moving Arts Dance, Bay Area Dance) festival in celebration of Bay Area dance week.
Choreographer and Dancer Jennifer Meek has begun working with the students of Moving Arts Dance Studio in Concord, CA on her work in progress titled "Sleeping Palms". The extraordinary students who are trained extensively in modern, improvisation, and contemporary partnering will be assisting her in creating images of a community or crowd of people.
Always a good day when you hear some great news from an old friend. I heard from Reggie Rajah Helm, who fronts a driving, jazz influenced / R&B group as RAJAH, about a really high-profile show they've just been booked for in late June, which he won't let me release details of until the promoter has announced it. That should be soon --- stay tuned. The group is Rajah on Sax, Phil Seed on Guitar, John Owens on Bass, Derek Henderson on Drums, and Brandon McCune joining them on Piano.
One of my favorite parts of the many worlds of Dance and Choreography is the work done in schools and studios, and the process of artist development that happens in those programs. Naturally, it's great to see something like the "Give and Take" premiere by Giordano Jazz Dance at the Harris where a respected company and a great choreographer are at a major venue in front of three thousand people.
'ohana producer and composer Johnny Nevin is writing an original score for an as-yet untitled work by choreographer Mollie Mock. The work will be premiered at the July 2009 New Dances performances of Thodos Dance Chicago at the Ruth Page Theater in Chicago (and more on that as it gets closer). The Thodos Dance Chicago New Dances series has been one of the most creatively diverse projects I've ever had the chance to be in on, and it has been the introduction for an astonishing variety of really gifted work.
Hedy Weiss, the Dance Critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote such a thorough review of Brock Clawson's new work "Give and Take" that I thought I should include all of her description of Brock's work here. You can see the rest of the review of the Giordano show at http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/stage/1478291,CST-FTR-Dance16web.a.... Here's the part about Give and Take:
A really breathtaking Giordano show at the Harris last night, with a great company at their very best. Brock Clawson's new work Give and Take opened the second act, and seeing the company work seamlessly through Brock's perfect balance of modern and jazz styles was pretty amazing. Coming from such a different world (music and record producing) it's been a long process for me to get a sense of the difference between these two styles, but I can't think of a better way to see the different expressions that those two words "jazz" and "modern" imply than to see Give and Take.
Before I got involved with 'ohana, whenever anybody asked me if I was a musician I would tell them "yeah, but I'm way too good of a producer to ever hire me as a musician", and I still think of myself as a producer more than as an artist. "Producing" can mean all different kinds of things, and it should mean all different kinds of things, depending on the artist and the project you're producing. But it always has to mean at least two things: first, that you're trying to see clearly what this artist is trying to do right now (even while they're still discovering it themselves), and second, that you're responsible for getting it done ---- for making sure that they can finish it the way they hoped to when they started it.
You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialise correctly.
In the contemporary dance work ANASA, ThodosDanceChicago celebrates the richness of Greek heritage, inspired by the women of the ancient world. Composed for the final section of that work, "Breathe Again" is at first slow and mysterious, then driving and powerful, like a soundtrack for when determination leaves defeat in the past.
