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TEN'S THE LIMIT
Eight-part dance review gives Boston's dance scene full exposure
By MARLI GUZZETTA
del.ico.us
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This week, CRASHarts extends its invitation into the virtual bedrooms of Boston's dance community. Their annual "Ten's the Limit" program exposes what these artists do in the privacy of their own spaces and this year the program upgrades to the world-renowned ICA. The deal: eight hand-picked area choreographers have 10 minutes or less to open audience members' eyes to the sweaty, sinewy expressions of lust, despair and every human experience in between. "A lot can happen in 10 minutes or less," says the founder and director of CRASHarts, Maure Aronson. "You can live, laugh, love, cry, die."
In its seven years, this popular show has been a spring-loaded step on the success stairway for artists such as Lorraine Chapman, who recently made it to Dance Magazine's "Top 25 to Watch in 2008." To stay fresh, Aronson appoints a new curator each year and for 2008, Richard Colton has become the first curator outside of CRASHarts at the helm. Co-director of the dance program at Concord Academy, Colton is also co-director and choreographer for Spencer/Colton. As a dancer, he's also been a member of Twyla Tharp Dance, American Ballet Theater and the White Oak Dance Project under the direction of Mikhail "White Nights" Baryshnikov.
Mindful of the newness of the ICA stage, Colton selected artists who've mostly worked in studio and loft spaces "but generally haven't had a theater as expansive and beautiful as the ICA," he says. This year's choreographers include: Andary Dance, Caitlin Corbett Dance Company, Crabtree Dance, EgoArt, Inc., Kelli Edwards, Megan Schenk, Nell Breyer and Kelley Donovan & Dancers.
This opportunity is invaluable to choreographers like Donovan. "She's one of the artists who can really use big canvases," says Colton. The size of the venue has also drawn out some of the area's most veteran choreographers, such as Caitlin Corbett.
"After an artist works for 10 or 15 years, they tend to shy away from mixed programs," Colton said. "But Caitlin came around to the idea of giving a new audience a chance to see her work, which has big, generous strokes and rich themes." Using an audio collage of music and found sounds by Ann Steuernagel, Corbett's piece ("Tom's Wealth") is an abstract, non-narrative incorporation of dancers and non-dancers -- one of Corbett's trademarks. Movement art aficionados may also be surprised to see, in Nicole Pierce's EgoArt work, beloved dancer Kate Cross back onstage after an injury. Additionally, Brian Crabtree and Kelli Edwards make something of a big homecoming this week.
"Kelli has a very sensual piece that ends on a surprisingly spare and emotionally distilled note," says Colton. "Brian's piece is beautifully structured; I think of his work as representative of what a lot of Boston choreographers do so well, because it has a quiet, poetic quality." According to the curator, Boston artists excel at "working in small forms," because "they haven't had the financial ability to launch large productions." Colton offers Nathan Andary as an example and his ability "to bring the eye to a very fine point ... almost being able to give the audience a close-up into the work."
So this rebirth has created an interesting parallel of newness between the Boston dance community and any neophyte audience members. "Coming to these shows, younger audiences brought up on the endless capabilities of the digital world generally experience the surprise of being affected by simpler means," Colton says. "In the theater, movement and aliveness, compared to the flat visual image, causes an amazing shift of scale."
Having worked as a research affiliate at the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Nell Breyer is displaying that juxtaposition by incorporating multimedia technology into her dance performance with an "off-the-cuff humor." Even others are keeping their production Spartan. Performing her own work for only the second time, dancer-turned-choreographer Megan Schenk has the only solo and is dancing to a song from Boston's electronic bass group Arms and Sleepers.
Part of that new generation, Schenk describes her untitled piece as "coming from two simple ideas -- space and quality." Appropriate, since the quality of the talent and the space in which that talent is performing are the main assets of this show. " At the end of my solo, there's this moment when I'm trying to open up the theater and to project -- look outward and upward," Schenk says. "It's a simple running-backwards motion, but it's so different from what I'd just been doing. Hopefully it will change everyone's perspective in the space."
"I always want someone from my age group to attend a show for the first time," says 25-year-old Schenk. "It's an intimate experience. You feel someone else's emotions in that exact moment. You can rent a movie some other time."
TEN'S THE LIMIT
BARBARA LEE FAMILY FOUNDATION THEATER
INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
100 NORTHERN AVE.
BOSTON
617.876.4275
FRI. 1.18/7:30PM, SAT. 1.9/8PM
$25
