Its successful season of adventuresome professional touring artists series nearing its close, Reston Community Center is bringing the contrasting styles of three local professional dance troupes to CenterStage.
"The Washington D.C. metropolitan area has become known as an exciting center for modern dance. Choreographers move here to explore their art form and choreographers stay here to perfect their vision," said Paul Michnewicz, CenterStage arts and events director.
The dance companies include those under the direction of prominent choreographers Daniel Burkholder, Erica Rebollar, and Daniel Phoenix Singh.
"Dance matters because everyone moves. Dance matters because, like all art, it is a place to start conversations," said Burkholder. "Dance matters because it allows the visceralness of the body to be acknowledged, honored and celebrated not for being a thing of beauty, but because what it does is beautiful."
From Burkholder/The Playground, the audience will see "Acts of Home" which ranges "from subtle gestures to large, athletic movement, combined with spoken word and live music. The work moves between various sections that sometimes shift gradually, and at other times are abrupt," explained Burkholder. "It is a reflection on leaving home, finding a new home, and creating a home."
Where and When
"Modern Moves" in partnership with Dance Place, performed at Reston CenterStage, Reston Community Center, 2310 Colts Neck Road, Reston. Performance: Wednesday, May 28 at 8 p.m. Tickets: $15 Reston, $30 non-Reston. Call 703-476-4500 or visit: http://www.restonco…">www.restoncommunity….
"Dance is about the subtleties of life, about finding the gray areas and looking at life from various angles," said Phoenix Singh. "Most importantly dance is about self-reflection and awareness...and dance provides this place where you are able to explore communication without being constrained by words."
The audience will see Anna Sokolow's "September Sonnets." It explores a couple in a relationship. "The dance brings Sokolow's hallmark starkness which allows the dancers and audience members to focus on just the essentials and everything superfluous falls away," noted Phoenix Singh.
"Dance reveals our cultural ideals, fascinations, and shortcomings," said Rebollar, a recent Fairfax Arts Council Strauss fellow. "It tells a deeply visceral story that words alone cannot... Dance is a living, yet temporal art...unlike a static painting, recorded music, or other performance genres of traditional theater and symphony in which text/music is more heard than seen."
Rebollar Dance is premiering a new work based on writer Donna Haraway’s “Cyborg Manifesto.” There will be "five women dancers exploring the body as a machine, using detailed choreographic structures to challenge ideas of identity within one’s public and private personas," explained Rebollar.
"Modern Moves" will set the stage for choreography to express inner emotions in a way to behold.