Dance Alabama!
Spring '07
Concert

Amanda Peterson

Andrea Passwater

Becky Diehl

Amanda Peterson

That was my problem with several Dance Alabama! pieces. For example, Kathryn Whatley and Christie Crawford danced beautifully in “Hide and Seek,” but the music was the exact same as the music for a piece Calvin Parker choreographed for the December Guerrilla Theatre.

I watched Whatley and Crawford spin across the large stage in Morgan Auditorium, but I kept picturing the swirling skirts and fluid motion that filled the smaller Allen Bales stage from the piece I had previously seen.

I had the same problem with two other pieces from Dance Alabama! – “Ruby Blue” choreographed by Jamal Edwards and “Heartburn” by Chelsea Rovinelli. The dancers were wonderful in both pieces, but the choreography seemed weak and uninteresting. There were so many similarities between the slightly bland pieces and others that I had seen at other shows that neither felt very original.

However, “Pins and Needles” choreographed by Parker did not lack originality. I’m not sure I have ever seen a depiction of an insane asylum expressed through dance. The appropriately haunting music only added to the sense of horror and dread.

It’s a little creepy to imagine Parker concocting the idea for an insane asylum scene – complete with choking and suicide pantomimes – but he pulled it off beautifully with his choreography.

My favorite piece, though, was “Riff” by Sarah Barnard. The music was Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused,” which I had never imagined to be a very intense song, yet the intensity and anger in the dancers’ motions and expressions fit perfectly with the song.

Wearing tie-dyed orange or gray shirts and shorts, the three girls and three guys blew me away. They added grace and poise to typical motions, like pushing each other off chairs and running towards each other. The precision of the movements impressed me because it would have been so easy for one dancer to accidentally be a little sloppy and drop a chair or fall, but that never happened.

Andrea Passwater

I think the thing that bothered me most was the monotony of the performances. For example, by the time I got to “Untitled”, I felt like I was seeing the same dance for the third time. Two of the dances, “Untitled” and “Just the Beginning” had almost the exact same repetitive motion as their theme, and by the second time around it was just old. Also, “Riff” and “Heartburn” both used chairs or stools as props. Using chairs in the dance was an awesome idea, and it looked really amazing, but it’s also kind of gimmicky and only works once.

Of course, there were a few stand-out performances. “Reflections,” performed by Sheree Woods and Nikki Thompson, absolutely took my breath away. They were precise without being too sharp, showed extreme muscle control, and could bend their bodies in ways it just hurt me to watch. And I don’t think anyone would argue that “Pins and Needles” even remotely resembled anything else in the show. Dancers came out on stage wearing scrubs, and basically crawled around on the floor acting insane. Maybe it wasn’t everyone in the audience’s style, but it was definitely interesting and different. However, I still feel that some of the more similar dances could have been cut, or at least changed somehow.

Another thing that irked me was the set order. I really feel like the show could have opened and closed with stronger dances. The opener, “Move,” was full of small movements, and small movements do not look good on stage. I wish everything would have been bigger and more exaggerated, including the facial expressions. One of the dancers looked completely bored while she was on stage, and her face looked glued in place. That’s very noticeable to the audience, and I found myself concentrating more on the one dancer’s blank expression than the dance itself. And the closer, “Heartburn,” was similarly lackluster. Some of the dancers were really playing their part; others were following the motions, but just not putting in that bit of extra ‘umph’ (for lack of a better word). The closer for the ARDT performance garnered a standing ovation; “Heartburn” got friendly claps. Personally, I think “Reflections” was the strongest performance of the night and should have been last. I know that it’s usually the norm to close a show with a lot of dancers, and “Reflections” had only two people. But the last dance is the one freshest on the audience’s mind when they leave. Don’t ignore the strongest performances for the sake of protocol.

I think Dance Alabama! would have been much better if only some of the dances were cut out, and the set order rearranged some. The performers themselves did a very good job—at least, most of them did. Some of the dances needed some more fine-tuning, but that nuance would have barely crossed my mind if the show’s bigger problems were fixed. Dance Alabama! gets a C+. Not bad, but not another ARDT, either.

Becky Diehl

“Riff” choreographed by Sarah Barnard was accompanied by “Dazed and Confused” the music of Led Zeppelin. In this piece the dancers both male and female wore tie-dyed costumes in different colors. The dance was fast paced with so much going on that it looked like it was lucky no one got hurt. They used chairs as props, not only using them to climb and flip over but also throwing them through the air and sometimes in the direction of the other dancers in the piece. It was fun, upbeat and energetic; but it was also nail biting to watch. It would have been better if it hadn’t been so dangerous.

“Pins and Needles” choreographed by Calvin Rickey Parker Jr. was also hard to watch, but this time it was on purpose. The piece had four dancers writhing the floor, appearing as if they were loosing their minds, or had already lost them. It was hard to see parts of the performance because the way the seating is in the auditorium it is hard to see the moves done by dancers laying on the stage. This piece produced a feeling of anxiety among the audience that only increased when the dancers leapt of the stage into the auditorium. It produced the desired effect on the audience and was well choreographed.