Dance festivals are a whole different animal. They typically don’t allow the audience to luxuriate in a lengthy work, allow it to wash over them, ruminate on what it all means. The festival formats generally celebrate the dance. To my surprise, though, PearlArts Dance Festival hit a home run for PearlArts Studios.
They were up against some pretty stiff competition: Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburgh Pride, Pittsburgh Pirates (a resounding LOL!). Yet this inaugural event attracted some robust audiences due to savvy planning that amounted to cross training and nurturing the audiences: a performance at Three Rivers, an invitation for Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre to participate, likewise for Slippery Rock University. All of those helped PADF to forge a memorable stamp on June arts in Pittsburgh.
Despite a primary skeletal staff of four (co-executive and artistic director Staycee Pearl, co-executive director and sound designer Herman Pearl, communications and administrative director Kitoko Chargois and company manager and dancer Jessica Marino) and a host of adjuncts, there were classes, a workshop and performances over the five-day period. An admirable feat! Let’s touch on some of the high points…
It all started on opening night at the New Hazlett Theater, which hosted virtually all of the events, and a series of independent artists in 3600 Seconds of Solos (do the math for 12 numbers). It was only fair to acknowledge that Slippery Rock University dance department has been doing 60×60, 60 pieces, each lasting 60 seconds, for some years. But this knock-off, if you will, stood well on its own.
Actually a number of SRU students, alums and staff participated in 3600, showing the strength of the department. Kaylin Horgan, a quintessential symbol of Pittsburgh dance — she seemed to grow up before our very eyes — was the perfect choice to lead things off in Chasing Sunsets. Jesse Factor followed with Marthagany: The Spectre-Acle, a satire on Martha Graham’s iconic Lamentation, performed in a similar purple tube and decidedly spot on. Shana Simmons’ untitled piece, a work-in-progress, revealed a harbored strength and Jil Stifel’s am i a ghost?, toyed with our perceptions in green sneakers. Some let it all out, like Jennifer Marino’s effortless belly dance and Aaron Christopher in his brought it all to a exciting conclusion with a Latino/hip hop mix, El Raton. (However, contact improvisation enthusiasts and beginners went on for another hour or so following the performance, giving way to each other and playing with resistance.)
You could see the heart of festival over the next two days the next two days, one afternoon at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, the next an evening performance at the Hazlett. The three main participating companies, who also taught and interacted with attendees, gave a thoughtful sampling of their styles. Island Moving Company, not Bahamian, but from Newport, Rhode Island, turned out to be a clean combination of ballet and contemporary. Chitra.MOVES, a cheery hip hop trio, proved to be quite popular for their enthusiasm. But it was host company SPdp that had an arresting combination of joy and swag in Circles and the ’70’s retro-chic of sol.FRESH. However, it was intriguing to watch Island Moving Company actually grow from one performance to another, how Island it thought less about technique and more about expression in Mazurkas.
Friday’s performance also had room for a pair of works from the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre. Cooper Verona arrived with a quartet for side by side, where he showed some editing skills as he continues to develop as a choreographer. And the festival landed a star turn from Julia Erickson, recently retired from PBT, but still charismatic in her own noyou with rising PBT star Lucius Kirst.
SPdp used Saturday as a benefit and a launch to advertise its upcoming tour with New York’s Sidra Bell Dance New York, a favorite here over the years. Pearl brought the latest organic iteration of sim, born of her longtime attraction to MacArthur Genius and sci-fi author Octavia Butler. SBDNY followed with an extraordinary prelude to the premiere of PRELUDE IDENTITY [First Look], with a whispering urgency, so exotic, so strange, so tortured in its beauty, so Sidra.
But the festival wasn’t done yet, aiming to wrap things up with independent Pittsburgh artists. Although a storm system prevented the always fascinating Jasmine Hearn from flying in from New York, the last performance featured Marie ReMalia’s brave duet (Ground Hog Day?) for Cennellis Baron and Theodore Alexander, Shedding, and Joy Marie Thompson’s Liberation [in progress], grabbing us like a modern-day Josephine Baker.
It all ended, as it should, with slowdanger, Pittsburgh’s dynamic experimental duo. Usually Anna Thompson and Taylor Knight, they invited others for empathy machine. Roberta Guido. Ru Emmons. And especially Simon Phillips. Played underneath a halo light, there were images of a flying saucer, unison walking and allusions to deep-seated memory, a favorite topic of slowdanger.
And, I have to say, SPdp produced a collective deep-seated memory in its first festival effort. Dance on…
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