Free Your Head with AHHA Dance.

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Rokaya Mikhailenko was kind enough to let me sketch a late night  rehearsal of Free Your Head. This is her first effort choreographing as AHHADance. It is a joint effort with the Coby Dance Project with a guest artist from Afro-Latin Project. The rehearsal started at 9:15 at The Center for Contemporary Dance on Aloma. I went to a mindful meditation at 7pm to slow down and clear my head. When I arrived at the dance studio they were just about to get started. 

The show has a play for 60s vibe mixed wit some surreal Alice in Wonderland trippiness. Cool aid will be served along with M&Ms in pill bottles. The choreography is hip and modern with underlying expressive story lines. In one routine, thin dancer walked up to me and politely suggest that I should read more. Now that I don’t have a TV that is a very reasonable goal. I do read myself to sleep some nights. 

Some choreography is playful an joyful. A song about sweet pink elephants had the dancers gesturing toward each other with doll-like mechanical movements. As usually happens with me, I began to follow one dancer’s movements. Though dancers might move in sync, there is often some subtle magic that makes a dancer’s movement purely expressive. There is a mindfulness and purity of intention. That purity manages to shine through even in a rehearsal at the end of a long exhausting day. That is what I like about rehearsals, dancers can fall without ever being concerned about how they will look when they hit the ground. There isn’t the concern of showing off to an audience, there is just the joy of moving in the moment. 

AHHA Dance presents their first full evening of
modern dance, with a playful nod to 60’s counterculture. Aliens, go-go
dancers, a rabbit named Lady and more! Expand your mind to free your head.  Pre-show at 8 featuring Fat Martha and the Mamalukes
Ages 18+

Free your Head will be performed September 30, 2016 in the Orange Studio, 1121 N Mills Ave, Orlando, Florida 32803. Tickets are $12.

The Dawn Branch Works “Journey” has been posponed.

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I went to a Dawn Branch Works dance rehearsal for “Journey“. The show is describe as a walk through faith. One section of new choreography was being worked out. Dawn sat leaning against the mirrored wall. Dancers gathered as a group and then one was asked to volunteer to fall backwards. When the dancers stood became their spot in the new gelled scene. Cindy Michelle Heen was the dancer who offered the most support when the dancer fell back. This move was rehearsed many times giving me a chance to capture every dancers gesture while studying the staging as a whole. I’m amazed by the trust and faith the dancers have in each other. It was fascinating to watch as chance encounters fell into place as the final choreography. Dancers and the choreographer added their creative input. Another dance felt like laborers working in the field who dreamed of freedom expressed in dance.

Dawn Branch Works was formed after The Center for Contemporary dance
brought choreographer Dawn Branch together with local professional
dancers for a project for the 2012 Olympics. The experience of dancing
together was so rewarding that the group decided to work together after
the project’s conclusion and form a professional company. “A creative
bond was formed among the artists,” says Branch, “Sometimes things just
fall into place, and this was one of those divine moments.” Inaugural
member Lindsey Salfran agrees: “Collaboration between the dancers of DBW
and Dawn Branch is an exciting experience. We are constantly pushed
beyond our perceived imitations–you dance in ways you never thought you
could dance before, and you feel the difference at every rehearsal.”

I was sad to find out that “Journey” the show has been postponed . The new dates will be in the spring to summer season. Previously purchased tickets to the January show will be honored at the upcoming dates.

Mary Love Projects

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On August 18th, I went to the Center for Contemporary Dance off Aloma Avenue in Winter Park to sketch a Mary Love Dance Projects rehearsal leading up to “The Shift, Unity in Motion”. For that particular show, she is doing some solo works, so there were only one or two dancers at rehearsals. This dance company has six company dancers and two apprentices.

 Mary Love Dance Projects will be doing three dances in The Shift, all are solos and distinctly
different in their tone and emotion. Mary Love choreographed two dances, but at this rehearsal she was learning “Young and Beautiful” choreographed by Jennia Shanley.  Jennia greeted me at the front desk when I arrived at the dance studio.

The two dancers warmed up and stretched for a bit and then Jennia set up her laptop on a chair in the corner of the dance studio. She played a video of the “Young and Beautiful” dance routine which was about  three minutes in length. The goal for this rehearsal was for Mary to learn the entire minute routine. Jennia had improvised sections of the routine so she had to refresh her memory using the video periodically.

The music for this piece was by Lana Del Ray. Mary Love began in the chair admiring herself with a hand mirror and then the dance spiraled outwards like a nautilus shell. Every moment seemed physically demanding yet graceful. When Jennia stopped to go over a new section, Mary had a moment to regroup and catch her breath. I was astonished at how fast Mary retained the physical memory of each and every movement. Lana sang “Will you still love me when I’m not young and beautiful” with her sultry voice as Mary moved her arms in graceful arcs. Though just a rehearsal, moments gave me chills.

By the end of the rehearsal, Mary was spent, lying on her back to catch her breath.  She had learned the entire routine and will continue to rehearse this piece at least once a week if not more until the
show. Mark Your Calendar!  “The Shift, Unity in Motion” will feature six local dance companies on September 13th and 14th in the Goldman Theater in the Lowndes Shakespeare Center (812 E. Rollins Street, Orlando FL) at 8pm. Tickets at the door are $20, and $14 for students and seniors.

Sacred Slave Stories

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“Sacred Slave Stories,” created by Dario J. Moore, tells the stories of actual slaves through original music and the emotional impact of dance. The Center for Contemporary Dance has received a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, which it will use to produce Moore Dance Project’s “Sacred Slave Stories” for Orange County schoolchildren. This is the second year that “Sacred Slave Stories” has received a grant through the program. The contemporary dance program will be presented to 1,000 students from Orange County Title I public schools throughout February in partnership with the Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center in Sanford.

Student presentations of “Sacred Slave Stories” are further supported by funding from United Arts of Central Florida, the Florida Department of State Division of Cultural Affairs, Darden Restaurants, Inc. Foundation and Target Stores.

I went to the Center of Contemporary Dance to sketch a rehearsal of “Sacred Slave Stories.” The personal stories gathered are harsh and real. A woman related how severe a beating she got when she ate some bread she found while she was cleaning a home. The contemporary dance was narrative and powerful. A dancer raised a fist in anger but was held back by his lover. Male dancers moved huge imaginary loads on their backs, pausing under the weight. The dance is meant to convey hope while acknowledging the harsh and brutal realities of slavery.

The Center for Contemporary Dance 
presented its 2012-2013 Season Preview, which took place 
on Sunday, November 18, 2012 at Trinity Preparatory School in Winter
Park.  This season preview introduced  the organization’s Eleventh
Annual Season of Dance, and included sneak-peek performances of upcoming
works in the 2012-2013 event season.