Hubbard Street Dance Chicago Flexes Its Creative Muscles with Inventive Program
Royal Theatre, April 12 + 13, 7:30 pm
Dance Victoria welcomes contemporary dance company Hubbard Street Dance Chicago to the Royal Theatre on April 12 and 13, 2019 for an energetic show of five works by internationally celebrated choreographers.
Now in its 41st season, Hubbard Street continues to be an innovative force, supporting emerging creative talent and continuing its commitment of taking an in-depth look at the work of individual choreographers. The four-show program presents works by world-renowned choreographers Crystal Pite, Alejandro Cerrudo and Robyn Mineko Williams.
A Picture of You Falling by Victoria-born Crystal Pite is a sort of detective story, with a voice-over dropping clues about a previous encounter. Some clues are obscure and describe the dance itself (“This is you reaching back…”); others establish a concrete setting, describing a room with a bed, a window. The work is like a lovers’ duet full of push and pull that asks audiences to see themselves as the dancers. A companion work to A Picture of You Falling is The Other You, both part of Pite’s The You Show. Pite “relies on stories that are familiar and generic in a way. So that people can inhabit the dance,” she explains. “I overtly invite the audience to inhabit the dance – to imagine themselves really represented in the performer. That’s why it’s called The You Show.”
Also on the program are two works by Resident Choreographer Alejandro Cerrudo, whose work, Silent Ghost performed last season at the Royal Theatre by Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, resulted in applause that lasted several minutes mid-program. PACOPEPEPLUTO is rich with humour and charm, performed jauntily by three males in tiny flesh coloured undergarments showing off their physiques to “love and marriage” songs sung by crooner Dean Martin. In sharp contrast is Lickety Split danced to the emotional music of Devendra Banhart, vignettes that examine the interdependence between female and a male dancers, the body of one partner becoming a point of equilibrium and catalyst for the other partner’s motion.
The visually stunning Cloudline by Robyn Mineko Williams uses a full-stage expanse of gray parachute silk to create a billowy cloud, an ocean of waves, ripples, and swells through which the dancers move, swim, disappear and reappear. Songs accompany solos and duets to danced relationships illustrative of various song lyrics….
Full Media Release available here.