{"id":36086,"date":"2017-11-22T17:27:20","date_gmt":"2017-11-22T23:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=36086"},"modified":"2018-09-19T09:02:25","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T15:02:25","slug":"rdts-top-bill-opens-a-personal-modern-dance-time-capsule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/rdts-top-bill-opens-a-personal-modern-dance-time-capsule\/","title":{"rendered":"RDT’s Top Bill Opens a Personal Modern Dance Time Capsule"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ursula Perry (center) and members of Repertory Dance Theatre in Bill Evans\u2019 \u201cSuite Benny.\u201d Photo by Sharon Kain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

With tap shoes, reading glasses, and a relaxed yet specific performance demeanor, William \u201cBill\u201d Evans literally (and figuratively) stepped into the spotlight at the conclusion of his solo, \u201cThree Preludes.\u201d This piece blends the sounds (which were unfortunately muffled on the marley floor) and rhythms of tap dance with the lyricism and emotional ventures of modern dance. \u201cThree Preludes\u201d was choreographed to honor Evans\u2019 late mother, Lila Snape Evans, and was programmed in the middle of Repertory Dance Theatre\u2019s\u00a0Top Bill<\/em>, an evening that included six works, all created by Evans, spanning 1970 to 2015.<\/p>\n

It is fascinating to open the \u201cmodern dance time capsule\u201d; RDT does this regularly, as it brands itself as a living library, a breathing museum, of modern dance. This mission can be challenging for an art form that was born out of rejecting what came before and one that is often neurotically trying to rebirth itself with the new and avant-garde, sometimes at the expense of baffled and unwilling audiences.\u00a0Top Bill\u00a0<\/em>not only opened the history book but narrowed the scope to one artist, so we could see where modern dance was 47 years ago (\u201cFor Betty\u201d), both in terms of trends and for one individual, and in contrast with the trends and interpretations of 2015 (\u201cCrippled Up Blues\u201d). This programing also brought up questions of timelessness: why, despite being impeccably performed, did \u201cFor Betty\u201d show its age at 47 while \u201cTintal,\u201d just two years younger, existed in the elusive wrinkle in time, leaving me captivated enough to forget past, present, and future?<\/p>\n

My opening-night performance companion was my mother, who was born and raised in a three-bedroom home in Cedar City when it truly was a small town. She lived in the three-bedroom home with her parents and nine siblings and, when it was bulldozed to the ground to make way for commercial development, the local paper wrote about how sad it was to see a place that housed memories for so many people disappear. It is now a car wash, wedged between two gas stations. My mother now lives in Orange County, California, where I was raised but, at\u00a0Top Bill<\/em>, she was taken back to her Utah college dance days of piling in Prof. Whetten\u2019s car and making the four-hour drive to Salt Lake City to see Bill Evans dance.<\/p>\n

Although, memories can be faulty\u2026<\/p>\n

Mother: \u201cI think I saw Bill [Evans]\u2019s company come through Costa Mesa recently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cNo, Mom, that was Bill T. Jones.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, some memories do stay; often, the ones we deeply experience in our muscles and bones.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many times have I crossed the floor like that?\u201d my mother whispered to me after seeing a repeated attitude jump in \u201cFor Betty.\u201d<\/p>\n

I myself have never done that jump across the floor. That jump hasn\u2019t dusted off all its ballet influence, with its clear air-borne shape and punctuated musicality. It resides comfortably in a past era of modern dance: an era that precedes the blended counts of release technique or the self-interest and -indulgence of Gaga; an era that continues to resurface in RDT\u2019s programming.<\/p>\n

In fact, this was my third time seeing \u201cFor Betty\u201d resurface, and, similar to its\u00a0previous performance<\/a>, this rendition was full of joy and technical mastery. However, this performance felt especially embodied with a fullness of execution and, at times, a curiosity in approach. The difference was as subtle yet as distinct as perfecting a movement in front of the mirror versus perfecting the same movement with closed eyes. The dancers were not performing what the movement should look like but rather were experiencing each curve, swing, and jump as a dimensional body in space.<\/p>\n

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Dan Higgins and Tyler Orcutt in Evans\u2019 \u201cAlternating Current.\u201d Photo by Sharon Kain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Dan Higgins and Tyler Orcutt performed \u201cAlternating Current\u201d (1982), a duet in which Higgins played the flame, flickering and teaming with kinetic energy, while Orcutt played the moth, flighty and dangerously drawn in. A building motif, Orcutt would run into Higgins\u2019 embrace, unable to resist its pull and then, just as quickly, would sprint offstage, leaving Higgins to writhe in solitude. I appreciated the focus and clarity of the choreography, but also wondered what would happen if the dancers traded in their costumes that were spotted with literal flames and instead dressed as themselves, two men trying to grapple with the electric, even deadly, charge between them. Could this other version have existed in 1982? If not, it could certainly exist now.<\/p>\n

\u201cTintal\u201d was the highlight of the show; Evans drew on his studies of\u00a0Bharatanatyam<\/em>\u00a0and West African dance while choreographing it. Not many pieces cause me to lean forward in my seat in an attempt to capture every texture and layer, or to see the dancers as otherworldly. The set, designed by Kay Burrell after the original by Ivan Weber, cut the space into background and foreground and placed the dancers in a world of prehuman organisms that slumbered and awakened with curved spines and rooted bodies. Efren Corado Garcia and Lacie Scott had an especially captivating duet, their spines undulating as if boneless bodies in unison, summoning the earth and its energy. \u201cTintal\u201d ended in silence, suggesting that its world continued on indefinitely; if it did, I would be there to watch.<\/p>\n

Next up was \u201cSuite Benny,\u201d reimagined in 2017 from a 1987 creation and dedicated to Janet Gray (an iconic Salt Lake City dance teacher), followed by the program closer, \u201cCrippled Up Blues,\u201d a premiere in 2015 for the company\u2019s 50th anniversary.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuite Benny\u201d evoked the era of old Hollywood films, with twirling ballroom dancing and carefully paired couples circling the stage. This nostalgia was initially lost on me, and I settled in to let the movement wash over me. Enter Ursula Perry and Lauren Curley: two magnetic leaders, two chaperones that encouraged rather than monitored, two women who decided that pairing off with a partner would not suffice. Instead, they wove in and out of the onstage couples and performed to the audience, with animation and confidence, that they would pave their own way in their created world.<\/p>\n

\u201cCrippled Up Blues,\u201d took the program full circle, exhibiting ever-changing aesthetics and how an artist evolves over time. The beginning consisted of multi-focused vignettes, emerging as quickly as they dissolved, and a constant yet morphing emotional landscape. The piece eventually settled on what felt like a more familiar trope: dancers clapping and slapping their bodies, marching in\u00a0pli\u00e9<\/em>. This led into the cast posing as the elderly, shaking with hunched shoulders in their chairs, their bones drying out in the desert heat. I preferred the more ambiguous and disjointed beginning world, as I am a product of my own time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lauren Curley (left), Justin Bass, and members of Repertory Dance Theatre in Evans\u2019 \u201cTintal.\u201d Photo by Sharon Kain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

This article is published in collaboration with\u00a0loveDANCEmore.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ursula Perry (center) and members of Repertory Dance Theatre in Bill Evans\u2019 \u201cSuite Benny.\u201d Photo by Sharon Kain. With tap shoes, reading glasses, and a relaxed yet specific performance demeanor, William \u201cBill\u201d Evans literally (and figuratively) stepped into the spotlight at the conclusion of his solo, \u201cThree Preludes.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1522,"featured_media":37772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dance"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/suitebenny.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-17 00:46:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1522"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36086"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37773,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36086\/revisions\/37773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}