It’s a sunny, cold January afternoon when I pull up outside the stone façade of a grand old building on Gilbert Avenue for an interview with Missy Lay Zimmer and Andrew Hubbard. Spread across the loft-like top floor is Planet Dance, the progressive dance studio founded by the two. It’s also home to the duo’s prolific and highly lauded dance company, Exhale Dance Tribe.
This weekend, 14 Tribe dancers (along with Hubbard, who will solo) will perform at the Aronoff’s Jarson-Kaplan Theater in a mixed bill revisiting a selection of characteristic vignettes from the past 10 years of evening-length productions.
Zimmer and Hubbard met while performing in Cats on Broadway, and their dancers are expert at a trademark style, combining life-affirming theatricality with virtuosic physicality and a potent sensuality.
After climbing several flights of stairs, I sit down to talk in a cozy carpeted alcove anchored by a sofa and roll top desk that serves as their office. For the moment, it’s just Zimmer, since Hubbard has been caught in traffic snarled from an interstate ramp collapse.
“This weekend we’re celebrating our 10 years of being in Cincinnati, carving our niche with the unique voice of Jazz dance and Contemporary dance,” she says. “There’s no through line, we’re just bringing back old talent and old works from the past.”
“The name ‘Tribe’ comes originally from the idea that I wanted everybody to bring their own unique gift to the whole,” Zimmer explains. “I felt from the start that we would produce something beautiful.”
Zimmer and Hubbard have slotted intermittent onstage appearances during the three-act celebration. “We’ll talk about the history of a piece, or the inspiration for a using a particular song,” she says.
“Waiting for Sleep,” a pas de deux (dance duet) by Liz Schmidt, will be performed by New York University dance student Maggie Westerfield and Exhale’s Jacob Thoman, in his final appearance with Exhale before heading off, most likely to Juilliard.
“It’s powerful and emotional,” Zimmer says, “about Schmidt’s grandfather, who had Alzheimer’s.”
“ ‘Fix’ by Erin Downey is a pas de trois that ponders the ramifications of a relationship gone sour,” she continues. “We’re delighted to have Cincinnati Ballet’s James Gilmer guesting in this one. We met him when we choreographed for the ballet’s Kaplan New Works Series.
“Then, Andy and I are bringing back ‘Angelica,’ about life’s fragility, kind of apropos of my father’s recent passing. Also ‘Voodoo,’ celebrating the music of Tori Amos and female empowerment.”
Those who attended the popular Dead Can Dance Halloween installations at The Emery and Memorial Hall will no doubt be happy (or scared) to see the return of sad clowns and an unsettling duet for Siamese twins from “Carnival.”
Another repeat is “Ravaged Bridegroom,” a salute to the fortitude of women in abusive relationships.
“It was a huge favorite with audiences,” Zimmer says. “Also, it’s the piece that has led to our amazing ongoing connection with [New Zealand’s] Okareka Dance Company.”
Co-directors Taane Mete and Taiaroa Royal happened to be in Cincinnati for a Livestrong Foundation fundraiser when they saw “Ravaged Bridegroom.” Impressed and moved, they invited Zimmer and Hubbard to visit New Zealand a year ago, where they taught and set a similar piece for the Auckland-based company.
Fittingly, “Mother and Child” and “SELFISH,” two works choreographed by Mete and Royal in Cincinnati, are slated to close the concert this weekend
There’s more. With the assistance of a native American shaman, Okareka and Exhale planned a collaborative effort centered on the myth of the eagle, Zimmer says.
“In a sense, I feel that Okareka has come into our lives to re-inspire our spirituality, to kind of ground us. In their dances, they treat legends from the Maori culture. They felt a connection with the Tribe from our choreography.”
Meanwhile, Hubbard enters the room, having finally extricated himself from detours.
“Exactly,” he adds. “We want to carve a deeper connection to our work. Instead of choreographing only snippets, we are craving work with more meaning. Doing a retrospective has let us see how we’ve grown.
“We’re ready to take the time to make a brilliant, perfect, shiny piece…” he raises his hands helplessly and smiles broadly, as if in explanation, “… of something.”
Exhale Dance Tribe will perform BEST OF 10: A DECADE OF DANCE Saturday and Sunday at the Aronoff Center. More info: exhaledancetribe.com.
This article appears in Feb 4-10, 2015.
