Gia Cacalano mostly has been flying under the radar here in Pittsburgh, immersed in edgy multidisciplinary projects with musicians. But those in the know respect this self-propelled dancer who has managed to etch her own artistic path along the way. Cacalano will finally emerge full-blown this weekend during The Pillow Project Second Saturday series on, yes, another multidisciplinary program, but this time with an emphasis on dance.
Born in Norfolk, Virginia, Cacalano became a serious bunhead at age 15, with Kirov training from Romanian instructors at Old Dominion University before she left for New York City and Marymount Manhattan College on both an academic and dance scholarship.
There she discovered the Graham technique, which led to an internship with the company and filled her final two years of college. But Cacalano opted to continually refine her search with forays into Jose Limon, Anna Sokolow and Mary Anthony. Then there was that side trip to La Mama and work with American butoh dancer, Maureen Fleming (some may remember her ultra-slow backbend, which seemed like five minutes or so, at her appearance with Pittsburgh Dance Council in 1992) and butoh artist Poppo Shiraishi and his mostly female troupe, the GoGo Boys.
“I was tired of the traditional way in company work that I had been doing for so long,” she explains over the phone. “I was looking more toward abstractions of all those forms of dance and more improvisational work, like butoh.”
Still forging the numerous chain links of her life, Cacalano took a break from dance to do “other things, still artistic.” Then she got an opportunity to teach at Carnegie Mellon University, developing a course for non-dancers who wanted to move. She eventually moved over to the physiology department at the University of Pittsburgh for a similar course and teaches Pilates and yoga fused with Body-Mind Centering on the side.
Cacalano’s latest link comes from Magpie Music Dance Company, an Amsterdam collective that promotes “the notion that improvisation is not the antithesis of choreography or composition; it is how the choreographies and compositions are made.”
This weekend finds her making the jump to The Pillow Project, where artistic director Pearlann Porter is toying with improvography. Cacalano asserts that her style is probably different, a singular mode that she has designed from her numerous artistic excursions. “The way I work is to see what people bring and how that evolves,” she states. “I always set a concept, a structure and a score. That can change, of course. I use what might be considered a mistake, actually looking closer at what it could turn into and how it could actually be to our benefit. I like to see how the dancers arrive at their own things and then fine-tune it.”
The other dancers will include Dance Alloy’s Michael Walsh, former LABCO member Allie Greene and a Pillow contingent of four dancers (Porter herself will be away). Cacalano herself will contribute a solo and is overseeing the performance, using choreography mainly as a transition between improvisations.
“I really think of this not necessarily as a realized piece, but a study in different compositions connected throughout the evening,” Cacalano explains. “It’s a great opportunity to experiment with committed and enthusiastic dancers in a space that I like very much.”
She relates a story about one of her performances at Lincoln Center, where she couldn’t see the audience. “I don’t think I took a breath throughout the entire time,” she recalls. “I’m more drawn to rough-around-the-edges settings. I think my work is like that.”
The Pillow Project’s Second Saturdays event, called [in the moment] will run from 7 to 11 p.m., with the last hour performed in silence (bring your iPods) at The Space Upstairs in Construction Junction. Suggestion donation: $5. For more information, go to The Pillow Project website.
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