These Full Circle Souljahs refuse to be “Boxed in”

Kwikstep (left) and Rokafella
of Full Circle Souljahs
(photo: Ian Douglas)

From start to finish--and even throughout its post-show Q&A--Full Circle Souljahs's Boxed In aims to smack down barriers between dance techniques and traditions as well as who can and should perform what. If you think you've got classical ballet over here in this corner and street dance way over there on that far end and maybe a few discrete modern and postmodern things floating between, this hour-long show will simply break up alla that.

Holding court at Danspace Project now through Saturday evening, the troupe is the winning handiwork of two famed Bronx street dance veterans--the married couple of Kwikstep and Rokafella. Diverse in race and ethnicity, Full Circle Souljahs collective is also remarkable for its performers' diverse training background. And that's the point of Boxed In. What all have in common is a passion to do their art, to perform, and most have eagerly soaked up experience from all sectors of their art. Watch stately Shaneekqua Woodham and gymnast-sleek Odylle "Mantis" Beder switch gears from ballet to b-girl moves, you realize that you're looking at the smart, multiple dimensions of today's youth and their can-do spirit.

The show includes sequences that suggest the two choreographers might have Broadway audiences in mind--for example, the cirque nouveau-style Cyr wheel hooping of Gabriel "Emphasis" Alvarez who eventually puts distance between himself and some vaguely menacing characters in commedia dell'arte masks. The piece deals with issues of ambition, the temptation to sell out and the wonder of freeing your creativity to work outside of set rules, categories and expectations.

It’s the sort of show that would be great for youngsters, and there were many in the smallish opening night audience with parents plus a contingent of college students. People I did not see: the typical “downtown” Danspace Project audience. The troupe has two more shows, and—who knows?—that might change. But maybe the message they’re bringing—step out of whatever box confines you—needs to reach more of us.

Performers: Raymond “Spex” Abbiw, Jennifer “Beasty” Acosta, Gabriel “Emphasis” Alvarez, Odylle “Mantis” Beder, Michael Bond (pianist), Gabriel "Kwikstep" Dionisio (aka DJ KS 360), Deana Richline,  Sharmaine Sheppard, Gene Shinozaki(beatbox), Janice Tomlinson, John “Flonetik” Vinuya, Shaneekqua Woodham

Lighting: Carol Mullins

Boxed In continues through Saturday, May 19 with 8pm performances at Danspace Project. For information and tickets, click here.

Danspace Project
131 East 10th Street (at 2nd Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Ana "Rokafella" Garcia: The making of a break dancer

View video interview segments with 

Pioneer Break Dancer

Ana "Rokafella" Garcia

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Makers

Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie takes the subway for "A Single Ride"

The fun, fast-paced A Single Ride (at Dixon Place now through the 29th) didn't give me time to mentally whine that its director-choreographer--the talented hip hop dancer Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie--doesn't perform in it. Or to ponder the fact that a whole swath of it brought to mind The Groove to Nobody's Business, a popular piece by Camille A. Brown that also features a humorous, sometimes contentious ensemble impatiently waiting for and eventually riding the subway. Asherie carries the physical humor of this situation a little further and funnier. Another sold-out crowd was richly entertained last night at Dixon Place.

You've swiped your Metrocard a billion times, but have you ever thought how that brisk, nearly automatic but sometimes thwarted action might look translated by three dancers' bodies (two to play the turnstile)? Asherie has. You've heard that announcement that "a crowded train is no excuse for sexual harrassment," but have you ever wondered what might happen if a cluster of riders decided that, no, actually it's the best excuse going? Asherie has.

Asherie gets a big assist from her creative team, especially Grammy-winning composer Marty Beller and projection designer David Bengali, both of whom are so bold and brilliant here, I would pay to experience their work even in the absence of an accompanying dance. And her dancers--Ljuba Castot, Teena Marie Custer, Valerie "Ms. Vee" Ho, Erin Holmes, Richard Maguire and MiRi "Seoulsonyk" Park--turn out to be capable dancer-actors, appealing and wonderful overall. You'll forget that Asherie isn't among them until she joins them for the final bows.

Shows are at 7:30pm through Saturday, September 29.

Information and tickets

Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey Streets), Manhattan
(directions)

Women on the move at Dixon Place

It was heartening to see Dixon Place filled to the rafters with audience last night. How amazing to watch as DP--home of "go ahead, show us anything, take a chance, even be a little half-assed"--became the site of some very grown-up performance. And how gratifying to see that work coming from the women dance artists of "Women Moving," part of DP's HOT! Festival.

The evening featured short pieces by

Maria Bauman/MBDance (Women I Know)

Ephrat Asherie ("brothers," a work-in-progress)

Jen Abrams (Any Resemblance, an excerpt from a work-in-progress)

as well as a more extended movement/text solo for the renowned LAVA acrobat-aerialist Diana Y Greiner, created with playwright Lauren M Feldman. I regret that this was a one-night only program, but don't fail to keep an eye out for another chance to see these artists and their work.

Bauman, who has danced for choreographers such as Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Nia Love and Bill T. Jones, is an up-and-coming force of her own. In Women I Know, set to gentle, lyrical guitar played live by Ashley Phillips, Bauman dances a portfolio of studies juxtaposed with a montage of photo portraits by BJ Watkins. Each seeks, clearly, to suggest the essence of their many subjects. As a choreographer Bauman expresses this humanistic insight with the blend of strength, suppleness and flow that her training in capoeira has given her.

The slight, sinewy Asherie (aka Bounce) blew the audience away with her handsomely-arranged and expert breaking, club dancing and vogueing. Simply put, it's great to see a woman completely own the floor: not just be capable of these dance styles but actually nail every challenge of timing, accuracy of detail, flow and theatrical presentation that she has set for herself. This solo might be a work-in-progress, but I think the only work left to be done would be for Asherie to add more because we would probably be content to watch her forever.

Abrams's solo, on the other hand, really does look like an excerpt-in-progress. So far, this meditation on our hyper-cyber age has a couple of interesting points--some intermittently strange gestures and facial movements and an ethereal accompaniment, delicious to the ear and produced in a clever way that I will not reveal here. Abrams leaves us, perhaps, with an unsettled feeling of something, or perhaps, someone deteriorating, dissolving into electronic blips falling through space.

Greiner is like a stage magician skilled at misdirection. Or maybe she's more like a spider--forgive me, Julie Taymor--skilled at snaring audiences in a web made of alarming props, gutsy physicality, a gift for gab and a heart-stopping smile. In either case, unless you know her personal story--which, after a lengthy bit of weaving, she gets to when you least expect it--there's no way to be prepared for the journey of Now/Not Now or Just on the Corner of Walk/Don't Walk. Again, on the chance that you will see this piece, I won't reveal more. At times, this solo feels needlessly overextended. However, it is not only crafted and performed with impressive maturity and style but performed with confidence.

Hot! Festival 2011--Dixon Place's 20th Annual NYC Celebration of Queer Culture--continues through August 6 with a mix of "theater, dance, music, burlesques, performance art and homoeroticism for the whole family." Find out more and make ticket reservations here.

Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey Streets), Manhattan
(map and directions)

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