Dance Elixir/Leyya Tawil presented a new work in progress titled Breakdown to Now. This trio is excerpted from MEDIA, an evening-length work to premiere at Dance Mission Theater in June 2006. Choreographer Leyya Tawil and composer Topher Keyes developed this work in stages; Breakdown to Now is the second section to be presented. It is based on the individual's interaction with mass media.
Tara Brandel, of Mna Rua Dance Productions performed Family Values, a solo dance theater piece exploring one woman's relationship to her father and how he helped shape her lesbian sexuality. This original work looks at the legacy of fear and pain that is often inadvertently passed on from ancestors, and offers hope through the transformative nature of art.
Presented a work in progress, reflecting on the concept of values, the role that a value system plays in an individual's life, and the means by which a person develops or neglects the values she allegedly lives her life by. This solo performance was accompanied by scripture readings by Paul Laurey. This original work, premiering at PS2005, is presently untitled.
Maria Basile of sjDANCEco
Maria Basile presented The Little Nothings, based on Les Petits Riens, Mozart's only ballet score, written in 1778. Four of its 10 sections were performed at this summer's Midsummer Mozart Festival.
Basile picked up the music's light-hearted spirit and peopled it … with mini-portraits and incidents such as a girl dreaming of her wedding and a couple fighting over a bath towel. The framing action – a puppeteer trying to keep his charges under control – is an old ballet tradition. Basile uses it well.
– Rita Felciano,
San Jose Mercury News, October 15, 2005
Lisa Townsend
In she marquis, Lisa Townsend explored an intimate power struggle over sexual dominance. This duet was an excerpt from Virile Streak, an evening of work that premiered at ODC Theater in May 2006. The creation of this piece was made possible in part by CA$H, a grants program of Theater Bay Area in partnership with Dancers' Group.
Loose limbed but never sloppy, Townsend's movement vocabulary depicts the complicated and highly fluid state of the relationships that define the human condition.
