It was a busy year for dance in Cincinnati.
Last February, Cincinnati Ballet’s imaginative, family-friendly Alice (in Wonderland) boasted the largest paid attendance in the company’s history of subscription-series productions. In March, Adam Hougland’s Mozart’s Requiem, a serious, full-length contemporary ballet, was memorable to me for its passion and virtuosity.
When asked for her personal favorite of the Ballet’s programming in 2015, Artistic Director and CEO Victoria Morgan chose May’s Director’s Choice as artistically and choreographically most satisfying for her. The mixed bill featured the sexy, flirtatious “Chasing Squirrel” by Trey McIntyre; “Classical Symphony” by Yuri Possokhov, mixing thrilling academic dance with modern accents; and a sensitive work by Columbus BalletMet artistic director Edwaard Liang.
Of course, any mention of Cincinnati Ballet would be remiss without acknowledging world-class contributions from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Cincinnati Ballet Music Director Carmon DeLeone.
Exhale Dance Tribe, founded and directed by Missy Lay Zimmer and Andrew Hubbard to merge Broadway Jazz with Contemporary dance styles, celebrated its 10th anniversary with a concert in February at the Aronoff Center. In addition to the Zimmer/Hubbard crowd fave “Imprint” to music by Mumford & Sons, highlights included “Waiting for Sleep,” a pas de deux by Liz Schmidt performed by New York University dance student Maggie Westerfield and Exhale’s Jacob Thoman in his final Exhale appearance before heading off to Juilliard in NYC. There were also two spiritually inflected works by New Zealand’s Okareka Dance Company co-directors Taane Mete and Taiaroa Royal.
Both Zimmer and Hubbard say they especially enjoyed the many alumni dancers who returned as guest artists.
For Pones Inc., which is dedicated to engaging audiences in new ways, 2015 put the company very much in the public eye. I particularly enjoyed the May/June collaboration with Queen City Flash, a local flash-mob-style theater company, in Cincy Fringe’s Shelter. Many performances sold out. In September, POV brought audiences along for an exploration of poverty, homelessness and Over-the-Rhine. Zen and the Art, in October, explored Zen Buddhism and the music of John Cage with concert:nova.
Executive Director Kim Popa’s favorite Pones activity during 2015 has not been a single performance, but the company’s partnership with the Cincinnati Arts Association to create a pilot program called Arts in Healing, designed to help veterans in Cincinnati’s VA Hospital’s Treatment and Recovery Activity Center better cope with life’s challenges.
During 2015, MamLuft&Co. Dance, Cincinnati’s resident modern dance company, moved into its ninth season. Artistic and Executive Director Jeanne Mam-Luft singles out the company’s first-ever mixed repertory concert at the Aronoff in January as a favorite. Four works (The Tragedy of Time, Latitude, Maps and /Shift/), all conceptually conceived, were edited down and reprised. “The response to this MamLuft&Co. Dance in Concert was perhaps the most boisterous of recent years,” Mam-Luft says. “I’m glad, because I think it highlighted strength after strength. We figured out how to capture the audience and keep them with us through four pieces of a very serious nature.”
Contemporary Dance Theater’s Artistic Director Jefferson James was recently joined by Amanda Lopez-Kurtz, who in August took on the role of executive director for this longtime dance presenter. Of the four companies CDT presented in 2015, James cites the “deliciously witty, impeccably trained” dancers of Paul Taylor Dance Company; the live music, song and dialogue of Chicago’s Lucky Plush Productions; the imaginative local dance community in the annual Area Choreographers Festival; and the multi-discipline Everett Dance from Providence, Rhode Island, which in November took on the unwieldy problem of mass incarceration in America. “It’s not a popular or simplistic subject,” James says, “but one I’m particularly proud that CDT sponsored.”
CONTACT KATHY VALIN: letters@citybeat.com
This article appears in Dec 23-29, 2015.
