Pearlann Porter is, without a doubt, the busiest choreographer on the holiday scene. (If you missed it, she was part of Dance Alloy’s concert at the New Hazlett Theatre, which appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.)After four months of the outdoors Urban Experiment and a series of five Second Saturdays pushing the dance envelope at The Space Upstairs, she is concluding her 2009 season by looking back at the first five years of her own company, The Pillow Project.
Catching Porter on the fly, as usual, I asked her what was in store for this weekend’s audience. She took a few minutes to explain that this will not be a literal retrospective, in other words, a concert of reconstructed dances. Instead Porter will be drawing upon a “feeling,” using some of the people who “had a heavy influence on the Pillow Project’s style.”
Even the title indicates that — “Sorta Saturday.” DJ Sorta was one of the originals and will instigate an all-vinyl program. Others will include Dionna PridGeon, coming in from Chicago, and Ben Wegman, who currently performs with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in Washington D.C. Of course, long-time staple Beth Ratas will be on board.
Porter says she is coming “full circle. It’s jazz, but not Fosse,” she explains. “It’s more in the vein of [jazz musicians] Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, who had a live and spontaneous acknowledgement of the present. Besides, it’ll be a smart alternative to a heavy-duty holiday season.
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